FOX-HUNTING. 37 



Altogether, I maintain that, with such exceptions, 

 at small cost of animal suffering, great enjoyment is 

 compassed by all. There are miseries of course even 

 out hunting ; there are rainy days, bad scenting days 

 and inconvenient mounts. The celebrated Jem Mason, 

 a splendid rider and quaint compounder of expressions, 

 used to say that the height of human misery was to be 

 out hunting on a '* ewe-necked horse, galloping over a 

 molehilly field, down hill, with bad shoulders, a snaffle 

 bridle, one foot out of the stirrup, and a fly in your 

 eye." But he dealt in figurative extremes. He replied 

 to some one who asked him as to the nature of a big- 

 looking fence in front : " Certain death on this side, 

 my lord, and eternal misery on the other ! " Such 

 sorrows as these are not much to balance against the 

 weight of happiness in the other scale. So I myself in 

 my old age still preserve the follies of my youth, and 

 counsel others to do the same. " Laugh and be fat.* 

 says some modern advertisement. " Hunt and be 

 happy," say I still. But who shall pierce the veil of 

 the future ? As with the individual, so I think it is 



