io6 RIDING FOR LADIES. 



park and make a show of yourself, until some really kind 

 disinterested friend warns you that things are entirely 

 wrong, and persuades you to go and unlearn all that has 

 already been taught you. 



There are just two ways of doing everything in this 

 world — the right and the wrong, and the latter is always, 

 unfortunately, very much the easier of the two, although 

 so much the more unsatisfying in the end. I am quite 

 willing to acknowledge that some very nice horsewomen 

 have learned all that they know of riding without ever 

 having gone through one-half the labour which I have set 

 forth as necessary ; but those four little words, " all that 

 they know," contain the whole meaning of the matter. I 

 am willing to allow, also, that there are prodigies in the 

 world — at riding as at everything else — who can look nice, 

 and go straight, and seemingly do nothing amiss, and who 

 yet have never been taught to ride at all ; but these are 

 uncommon creatures, quite beyond the study of books on 

 horsemanship, or on anything else. They form, in fact, 

 the exceptions to the rule, that ladies who have learned 

 to ride in the ordinary way and from ordinary teachers, do 

 not ride well, or correctly ; and that even in cases where their 

 appearance on horseback is fairly satisfactory, and their 

 park riding quite as good as many others, the efforts made 

 by them at cross-country riding are miserable, and dangerous 

 to a degree. Balance-riders can alone negotiate a difficult 

 country with safety. Hundreds of ladies get serious falls 

 every season over the difficult doubles of our trying Ward 

 country and the ragged fences of old Kildare, w^hich they 



