POETICAL LICENSE. 
25 
aginations constantly awake. I have seen dogs perfectly emaciated 
by their excessive head work, 
I know not whether it be necessary for me to undertake the de- 
fense of the hunter against the common accusation of mendacity 
so complacently addressed to him by the profane herd. The 
hunter does not lie, he embroiders — he embroiders with more art 
and delicacy than any one else — that makes him so many enemies. 
Ornament, imagination, and poetry are the dress and the luxury 
of truth. If the hunter adorns the truth, it is from love for it, as 
the lover decorates the woman he adores. 
It is not his fault if he is more a poet, and more initiated than 
the rest of mortals in the secrets of God— if his language is more 
gilded with metaphors than that of common use. The language 
of the setter dog is also full of metaphors ; but who ever was 
tempted to call that an evil, and to impute it as a crime to the set- 
ter that he has too much wit ? It is his business to have wit, this 
hunting animal, we pay him for that. Wit is, after all, what dis- 
tinguishes us from the beasts. The good hunter is rarely modest — 
it is just to confess it — but still less a mere boaster. And why 
should he lie, when the truth is already, by itself, so attractive and 
engaging ? Let the beasts speak their natural language, they will 
always have more spirit and grace than we could give them. And 
besides, how to lie in an entirely practical art, where the demon- 
stration must immediately follow the theorem ? The vulgar do 
not understand that the science of hunting is a science of observa- 
tion, a profound science, and more difficult to acquire, a hundred 
times, than that of comets and eclipses, and that he who possesses 
it, and who has paid for it by rheumatisms, tusk-gashes, and dangers, 
has the right of using a little more assurance in his relations than 
a mere Parisian of Paris. The geometrician also affirms positively, 
and every one takes care not to -accuse the geometrician of exag- 
gerating, for fear that he may ask to give the proof of his propo- 
sition. Then if the hunter is, like the geometrician, sure of what 
he advances, why blame his confidence, instead of admiring his 
courage ? The true hunter, besides, rarely gets proud of his sci- 
ence ; he knows, indeed, that he will always remain below the dog 
in finding out game, and below the rheumatism and the hare m 
8 
