HUNTING THE FOX 217 



the race when the fox has not been hunted — with less 

 paraphernalia than now, it is true, but with far more 

 bloodthirsty intent. Our pleasure is not in the 

 suffering but in the pursuit : in the musical cry of 

 the hounds, in the spring of the good horse, in the 

 sense of difficulty and danger faced and overcome, 

 in the skill, courage and resource which are tried 

 and tested. We do not, as in bear-baiting or similar 

 pastimes, make the suffering an end. No one ever 

 went out hunting for the sake of seeing the fox killed. 

 If a fox is killed and there is no run we regard it as 

 a misfortune. Yet I will not deny that the pursuit of 

 the fox has something to do with the pleasure, for few 

 people care for drag-hunting or a paper-chase as they 

 do for foxhunting. No one ever made these the 

 recreations of a lifetime as men of note in all profes- 

 sions have done with foxhunting. Lord Althorp, 

 the late Lord Granville, the great Duke of Wellington, 

 and a whole host of lesser notabilities have found in 

 foxhunting exactly what they needed. It heightens 

 the joys of youth, lightens the cares of manhood 

 and postpones the shadow of age. Everything has its 

 darker side, but there is nothing against nature in a 

 foxhunt — the fox, the hounds, the men, all fulfilling a 

 law of their being. The fox is not always the hunted ; 

 he has his turn of being the hunter, which in this 



