I am not going with them. My hunting days are over. Let it suffice
that I have, in the days of my vanity, 'drank delight of battle with
my peers, far on the ringing plains' of many a county, grass and
forest, down and vale. No, my gallant friends. You know that I
could ride, if I chose; and I am vain enough to be glad that you know
it. But useless are your coaxings, solicitations, wavings of honest
right hands. 'Life,' as my friend Tom Brown says, 'is not all beer
and skittles;' it is past two now, and I have four old women to read
to at three, and an old man to bury at four; and I think, on the
whole, that you will respect me the more for going home and doing my
duty. That I should like to see this fox fairly killed, or even
fairly lost, I deny not. That I should like it as much as I can like
any earthly and outward thing, I deny not. But sugar to one's bread
and butter is not good; and if my winter-garden represent the bread
and butter, then will fox-hunting stand to it in the relation of
superfluous and unwholesome sugar: so farewell; and long may your
noble sport prosper--'the image of war with only half its danger,' to
train you and your sons after, into gallant soldiers--full of
'The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill.
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