He must so train his
heart as to feel for the fox a mingled tenderness and cruelty which
is inexplicable to ordinary men and women. His desire to preserve the
brute and then to kill him should be equally intense and passionate.
And he should do it all in accordance with a code of unwritten laws,
which cannot be learnt without profound study. It may not perhaps be
truly asserted that Lord Chiltern answered this description in every
detail; but he combined so many of the qualities required that his
wife showed her discernment when she declared that he seemed to have
been made to be a Master of Hounds.
Early in that November he was riding home with Miss Palliser by his
side, while the huntsmen and whips were trotting on with the hounds
before him. "You call that a good run, don't you?"
"No; I don't."
"What was the matter with it? I declare it seems to me that something
is always wrong. Men like hunting better than anything else, and yet
I never find any man contented."
"In the first place we didn't kill.
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