258 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



CHAPTEK XV 



THE EMPIEE AND THE EEPUBLIC 

 Remembrance wakes with all her busy train 



In the following pages I only propose to make good some 

 bird-of-passage impressions of a few days' hunting in the 

 neighbourhood of Paris. They were most enjoyable days, 

 and I cannot speak too gratefully of the kindness and 

 courtesy shown me everywhere and by everybody. I shall 

 not attempt to establish comparisons between French and 

 English stag-hunting. They are things to be avoided by 

 the writer, as, provided he can describe what he has seen, 

 they may safely be left to the reader. Besides, where out- 

 door amusements and many other things are concerned, 

 people should rest satisfied with contrasts. The comparative 

 method often plays the deuce with one. You can, for 

 instance, get a great deal of fun out of the Calpe hounds 

 at Gibraltar, or, as I am told, out of punt fishing in the 

 Thames. But both must be accepted as things by them- 

 selves. It will not do to be always comparing the Queen 

 of Spain's chair to the Burton Flats, or a baited swim 

 to the Thurso or the Awe. Instinctively, I suppose, a 

 process of comparison is always going on. You cannot 

 at will make your mind as blank and virgin as a sensi- 

 tive plate. What you may have seen and done is always 

 thrusting its more or less apt impertinences into what you 

 may be seeing and doing ; but, like Colonel Thornton of 



