338 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



Elector of Brandenburg in the next generation. The 

 kings of the House of Savoy have shown that the love 

 of hardy field sports in no way interferes with the exer- 

 cise of the highest kind of governmental ability. 



Wellington was fond of fox-hunting, but he did very 

 little of it during the period of the Peninsular War. 

 Grant cared much for fine horses, but he devoted his at- 

 tention to other matters when facing Lee before Rich- 

 mond. Perhaps as good an illustration as could be wished 

 of the effects of the opposite course is furnished by poor 

 Louis XVI. He took his sport more seriously than he 

 did his position as ruler of his people. On the day when 

 the revolutionary mob came to Versailles, he merely re- 

 corded in his diary that he had " gone out shooting, and 

 had killed eighty-one head when he was interrupted by 

 events." The particular event to which this " interrup- 

 tion " led up was the guillotine. Not many sportsmen 

 have to face such a possibility; but they do run the risk 

 of becoming a curse to themselves and to everyone else, 

 if they once get into the frame of mind which can look 

 on the business of life as merely an interruption to sport 



