

THE RIDER. 207 



While ambition is still youthful, it had best, perhaps, be 

 satisfied with the result of the conditions framed in these lines, 

 remembering only not to give the reins too literally. 



How often we hear a woman praised for her hands ; how 

 often hear it said that the gentler sex have naturally better 

 hands than we men. Partly, no doubt, this is because they are 

 the * gentler sex,' because they have not the strength to pull and 

 haul a horse about that we, alas ! have. But mainly it comes 

 from this, that they are content to leave their horses alone. 

 Mounted, as they mostly are, and certainly always should be, on 

 thoroughly trained and experienced hunters, they are satisfied 

 to leave everything to the horse ; it is his business to carry 

 them, theirs to be carried. Whether this happy state of confi- 

 dence arises from their superior tact, or from ignorance, matters 

 nothing. The result remains, that a woman, however straight 

 she goes, is much more rarely seen in difficulties than a man. 

 To Diana we shall not presume to offer any advice, the more so 

 because more than one of her own sex has already written on 

 this score ; and when a woman is competent to instruct her 

 own kind, on this or any other subject, she will naturally know 

 much better what to say and how to say it than a man can. 



There remains then, judgment, and of this what can be 

 said ? Whatever else may come by nature this must come by 

 experience. Nor by experience alone. ' Reading,' once wrote 

 a great man to his son, ' and much reading is good ; but the 

 power of diversifying the matter infinitely in your mind, and 

 of applying it to every occasion that arises, is far better.' 

 Following hounds across a country through a lifetime will do 

 you little good if you do not keep your eyes open, do not 

 observe what other men and horses are doing, what the 

 hounds are doing, ay, and what the fox, too, is doing. By 

 what secret does that man, who you can see is not so well 

 mounted as yourself, invariably manage to beat you ? How is 

 it that he never seems to be going half the pace that you are 

 conscious of, that he always seems to have the weakest and 

 smallest place in the fence before him, the soundest ground to 



