The Horse and His Rider

by Sir Francis Bond Head

3. Those which will not only carry him through any run, however severe it may be, but end a happy day by bringing him gloriously to his long home.

If this classification of the pleasures of this world be correct, there can exist no doubt that it is the interest of every young person to select from them those which, in intensity, increase instead of diminish the longer they are enjoyed, and which in duration are eternal, instead of being shorter than life.

Yet, supposing this wise selection to be made, it does not follow, because one set of pleasures rank infinitely higher than others, that the former should be exclusively pursued, and the latter wholly abandoned.

On the contrary, as rest restores the strength of the body after hard labour, so do pleasures of a lower order, if judiciously administered, recruit the exhaustion caused by mental exertion.

Now, of all sensual pleasures, those of eating and drinking produce, as we either use or abuse them, the most opposite results.

When a young man commences his career, the engine which is to propel him throughout his life, is, his stomach.

If he preserves it, it will in return render him good service. If he inconsiderately wears it out, whatever abilities he may possess become to him of no avail. Indeed the Spanish proverb truly says that in man's progress in the army, navy, law, church, or state, in short in every profession, "it is the belly that lifts the feet."

But the same remark is applicable, not only to every profession, but to all our amusements and recreations. A young horseman, therefore, who wishes to enjoy the greatest possible amount of hunting, should ensure it by taking the greatest possible care, not of his neck—not even of his life, for, as has been shown, the less he interferes with his horse in jumping, the safer he will go—but of his stomach, or in other words, of his health. To attain this object he has no penance whatever to perform, for, as he is undergoing strong exercise, his system requires, is entitled to, and ought to be allowed ample support, say a capital breakfast; a crust of sweet bread in the middle of the day; and after hunting is over, a glass of pure cold water to bring him home to a good, wholesome dinner, with three or four glasses of super-excellent wine. Now if a young rider were to resolve to rough it on, or as many of his companions would call it, to "stint himself" to, the diet above described, he would sit down to every meal with an appetite that nothing but healthy hunger can create; and thus, even from the sensual gratification of eating and drinking, he would derive the maximum of enjoyment, which would not only on the following day exhilarate his spirits, and strengthen his body, but which, by invigorating his nerves as well as his stomach, would maintain for him, to old age, the best possible recreation to his intellectual occupations, the manly exercise of hunting.