"Fox-hunting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was a new species, sir," said the Doctor indignantly; "and if I do employ the hunters to collect for me, I see no inconsistency in that. But I consider this fly-fishing mania just of a piece with your IDIOTIC, I repeat it, IDIOTIC institution of fox-hunting. Why, if you laid baits poisoned with NUX VOMICA about the haunts of those animals, you would get rid of them ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... by which appellation Sir Harry alluded to Mr. Robert Audley, was standing in the hall, looking at a map of the midland counties, when Alicia came out of the library, with red eyes, after her interview with the fox-hunting baronet. ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... showed to be, not by running away, but by leaping on its back, booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up—it is to be ridden; and the use of man is, that he may improve the health of the crocodile by riding him a fox-hunting before breakfast. And it is pretty certain that any crocodile, who has been regularly hunted through the season, and is master of the weight he carries, will take a six-barred gate now as well as ever he would have done in the ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... Methodist revival. Its action upon the Church broke the lethargy of the clergy; and the "Evangelical" movement, which found representatives like Newton and Cecil within the pale of the Establishment, made the fox-hunting parson and the absentee rector at last impossible. In Walpole's day the English clergy were the idlest and the most lifeless in the world. In our own time no body of religious ministers surpasses them in piety, in philanthropic energy, or in popular ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... I tell?' he exclaimed. 'It was quite a heroic adventure. You must know our fox-hunting here is rather a peculiar institution,—very good in its way, but strictly local. No horse could live among our hills, so we hunt on foot, and as the pace is good, and the work hard, nobody who starts with the hounds is likely to be in at the death, except the huntsmen. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... to read a lecture like the wrath of God. However, on the whole, the couple got along passably well—for Karl never took Louise too seriously! When Frau Louise's efforts to make a lackey of him got on his nerves, Karl called his cronies and away they went fox-hunting. ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... stringent laws were necessary to protect the people against them; profane swearing was nearly universal; the methods of executing capital punishments were revolting; the rudest sports amused the people; the parochial clergy were ignorant and sensual; country squires sought nothing higher than fox-hunting; it took several days for letters to reach the distant counties; the population numbered only four millions; there was nothing grand and imposing in art but the palaces of nobles and the Gothic monuments ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... centre. The ordinarily clean-scrubbed floor was covered with sheet iron. A chairman was appointed; and one gentleman was requested to read the obnoxious article. This over, a well-fed, prosperous-looking, fox-hunting iron merchant from Great Charles Street rose, and in very shaky grammar moved, that The Times had disgraced itself and insulted Birmingham, and that it was the duty of every Birmingham man to stop its circulation in the town. This having been seconded, and duly carried, another rose and proposed ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... that frieze of ghosts passing before his eyes, while the present faded away upon the growing quiet of the London evening and became remote as the distant roar of the traffic, which itself was remote as the sound of the sea in a shell. Fox-hunting squires caracoled by with the air of paladins; and there was never a lady mentioned that did not take the fancy like a ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... she wished to go, but she could not remember the first flush of that desire. It was not the wish to act toward Robert Le Menil as he was acting toward her. Doubtless she thought it excellent to go travelling in Italy while he went fox-hunting. This seemed to her a fair arrangement. Robert, who was always pleased to see her when he came back, would not find her on his return. She thought this would be right. She had not thought of it at first. And since then she had thought little of it, and really ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... anything more of the Le Geyts. They left town for Scotland at the end of the season; and when all the grouse had been duly slaughtered and all the salmon duly hooked, they went on to Leicestershire for the opening of fox-hunting; so it was not till after Christmas that they returned to Campden Hill. Meanwhile, I had spoken to Dr. Sebastian about Miss Wade, and on my recommendation he had found her a vacancy at our hospital. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... seldom found access, by reason of his being closely besieged by a numerous family of his grandchildren, who, though they perpetually quarrelled among themselves, never failed to join against me, as the common enemy of all. His heir, who was about the age of eighteen, minded nothing but fox-hunting, and never set eyes on me, without uncoupling his beagles, and hunting me into some cottage or other, whither I generally ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... grandfather's, a mile or two away. He used to drive us down, and he would sit out there on the point and fish,—a grand old figure, in his broad hat, with his fishing creel over his shoulder. There were just two sports that my grandfather loved, fishing and fox-hunting; but he was a very busy doctor and couldn't ride often to hounds. But he kept a lot of them. He would have had a great contempt for Toby. His own dogs ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... widowers—ancient of days, fat and Falstaffian. Others were lean and lacrimose, with large families, fortunes impaired and futures mostly behind. Then there were gay fox-hunting holluschickies, without serious intent and minus both future and past worth mentioning, who called and sat on the front porch because they thought their presence would be pleasing and relieve ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... Farmers know well that no fox, nestling close to their houses, ever meddles with their poultry. Reynard rambles a good way from home before he begins to plunder. How admirable is Professor Wilson's description of fox-hunting, quoted here from the "Noctes." Sir Walter Scott, in one of his topographical essays, has given a curious account of the way in which a fox, acquainted with the "ins and outs" of a certain old castle, outwitted a whole pack of dogs, who ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... miles out in Montgomery County; this later became their permanent residence. It had been built in 1762 by the Reverend Alexander Williamson, rector of Rock Creek Church (now St. Paul's), until he resigned in 1776, being a Tory. In history, he is called the "Sporting Parson" because of his love for fox-hunting ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... settled my legal inheritance on my younger brother. I left Osbaldistone Hall on the back of a broken-down hunter, with ten guineas in my purse. I have never crossed the threshold again, and I never will. I know not, and I care not, if my fox-hunting brother is alive, or has broken his neck; but he has children, Frank, and one of them shall be my son if you cross me farther in ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the most striking features in the aspect of this chosen region of fox-hunting, is the quiet easy manner in which the sportsmen take the thing. On they go—now trotting gently over the flints—now softly ambling along the grassy ridge of some stupendous hill—now quietly following each other in long-drawn ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... beautiful, or better than beauty. Solitude itself, the great Silence of the Earth, was as balm to this weary, sick heart of mine; not Dragons of Wantley (so they call Lord Wharncliffe, the wooden Tory man), not babbling itinerant Barrister people, fox-hunting Aristocracy, nor Yeomanry Captains cultivating milk-white mustachios, nor the perpetual racket, and "dinner at eight o'clock," could altogether countervail the fact that green Earth was around one and unadulterated sky overhead, and the voice of waters and birds,—not the foolish speech of ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Is paraffin good for baldness? or eucalyptus for influenza? How many elements are there? Should cousins marry? or the House be adjourned on Derby Day? Do water-colours fade? Will the ether theory live? or Stanley's reputation? Is Free Trade fair? Is a Free Press? Is fox-hunting cruel? or pigeon-shooting? How about the Queen's staghounds? Should not each railway station bear its name in big letters? and have better refreshments? Should we permit sky-signs? Limits of advertisement. Preservation of historic ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... is to be the hero of the hour, and that he is to be treated to his face, and spoken of behind his back, with love, admiration, and respect. But now this Master was told his presence would be allowed! And then this fox-hunting meeting was summoned for half-past twelve on a hunting-day;—when, as all the world knew, the hounds were to meet at eleven, twelve miles off! Was ever anything so base? said the Major to himself. But he resolved that he would be equal to the occasion. He immediately issued cards ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... said Drina; but her pretty mother caught her by the shoulders, striving to speak lightly; "Where in the world is Bridget, child? Where is Katie? And what is all this I hear from Dawson? It can't be possible that you have been fox-hunting all over the house again! Your nurses know perfectly well that you are not to hunt anywhere ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... this fight. The case was the same with old gray-heads and with boys of ten. They lost themselves in frenzies of delight. The 'cocking-main' is an inhuman sort of entertainment, there is no question about that; still, it seems a much more respectable and far less cruel sport than fox-hunting—for the cocks like it; they experience, as well as confer enjoyment; which is not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the enormity of the offence, but doubtless Dr. Russell and your husband can, as they live in a fox-hunting country. It seems that a rabbit would have been bad enough, something however, to be condoned,—but not a cat! Instantly Amos fixed upon Larry as the responsible cause of the calamity,—Larry, who is so soaked in a species ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... men! Campbell and Cameron, Fox-hunting gentlemen, Follow the Jacobite back to his den! Run with the runaway rogue to his runway, Stole-away! Stole-away! Gallop to Galway, Back to Broadalbin and double to Perth; Ride! for the rebel is ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... they flew again. Der alte Herr is very much thought of in these parts; he was the only one who dared oppose the House of Peers in Berlin in the question of war with Austria in 1866, and made such an astounding speech that he was obliged to retire from politics and take to fox-hunting. He gave the speech to me to read, and—I—well!—I didn't ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... accountant, with a vulpine patronymic, complains of the unkind treatment he recently received in Cologne at the hands of the German police. He should be consoled by the thought, that his persecution marked in those latitudes the introduction of Fox-hunting. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... imitated England in regard to sport so closely and successfully as Germany. Up to a comparatively few years ago the Germans had neither inclination nor means for it, and though always enthusiastic hunters, hunting—not the English fox-hunting, but hunting the boar and the bear, the wolf and the deer—was almost the sole form of manly sport practised. Turnen, the most popular sort of German indoor gymnastics, only began in 1861, a couple of years after ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... he retorted. "He was clean bowled over. In that Irish fox-hunting song all the gallery will be shouting 'Tally-ho!' Where did you ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... pointed way that served to convince better than eloquence. These are the characteristics that make for success in practise before our Courts of Appeal; and Jefferson's success shows that they serve better than bluster, even with a backwoods bench composed of fox-hunting farmers. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... insipid imitation of the Palladian style, towards a restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness of determination which was regarded with not a little contempt by his fox-hunting neighbours, who wondered greatly that a man with some of the best blood in England in his veins, should be mean enough to economize in his cellar, and reduce his stud to two old coach-horses and a hack, for the sake of riding a hobby, and playing the architect. Their wives did ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... forefathers, and amidst the toil of the dark counting-house, wish that such times could come for them. They never will come again; railroads have been invented, men's minds have been diverted into other channels; and fox-hunting, with its concomitant evils and its attendant pleasures, is gradually disappearing from fox-hunting England. Some, on whom the spirit of Nimrod has descended with such force, as to render them impatient ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... after the affairs of their estates, settling the disputes of their tenants, and attending with their fellow-landed neighbors the sessions of the General Assembly, and of the courts. Their pleasures were much the same as those of their kinsmen across the sea in merry England—fox-hunting, feasting and dancing; though to these amusements of the old country were added the more exciting deer chase, and the far more dangerous pastime of a bear hunt, when bruin's presence near the homestead became too evident for comfort. Often the wild screams ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... from being a really delightful winter resort, where one may escape the rigors of murky November to March in London, is becoming afflicted with a bad case of "sport fever." There are all kinds of sports, some of them reputable enough in their place, but the comic-opera fox-hunting which takes place at Pau and Biarritz is ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... moment is in the saddle, and will ride as straight as any man in the field to-day. Her husband, Count Morella, better known as the famous Carlist general Cabrera, whose strange and terrible history many years ago fascinated the gentle English heiress, now satisfies his war-like spirit by fox-hunting on the best horses that money can buy, and has settled down into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... England with church and castle, manor-house and tower, wealth, beauty, learning, refinement. The man who wrote "Alton Locke," the story of the starved tailor-poet, was the man who nearly wept when he heard a fox bark, and reflected that the days of fox-hunting were numbered. He had a poet's politics, Colonel Newcome's politics. He was for England, for the poor, for the rich, for the storied houses of the chivalrous past, for the cottage, for the hall; and was dead against ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... Undern cared as little for the graciousness of life as he did for its pitiful rhapsodies, its purple-mantled tragedies. He had no time for such trivialities. Fox-hunting, horse-breeding, and kennel lore were his vocation. He rode straight, lived hard, exercised such creative faculties as he had on his work, and found it very good. Three times a year he stated in the Undern pew at Wolfbatch that he ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... frontage line from Winburg, via Senekal, almost to the borders of Basutoland. His whole front, extending nearly a hundred miles, is constantly threatened by an active, dashing, determined enemy, an enemy who knows the country far better than an English fox-hunting squire knows the ground he hunts over season after season. To hold this vast line intact General Rundle has to march from point to point as his scouts warn him of the movements of the tireless foe. He has stationed portions of his forces at given ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... had only the American Government cruisers to fear, we enjoyed the excitement in the same way as a man enjoys fox-hunting (only, by the way, we were the fox instead of the huntsmen), but when dire disease, in the worst form that Yellow Jack could take, stalked in amongst us, and reduced our numbers almost hourly, things became too serious ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... the west of Ireland, whose love of the ridiculous quite equalled his taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont, upon festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his friends by DRAWING OUT one of his servants, exceedingly fond of what he termed, his "thravels," and in whom a good deal of whim, some ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... An unprejudiced man, I take it, is a man whose sentiments are the same as mine, and I happen to disagree with Mr. WILLOUGHBY as profoundly as possible on several of the themes he has chosen. On fox-hunting, for instance, which he considers a more decadent sport than bull-fighting; and on Ulster, which he attacks bitterly by comparison with the rest of Ireland, for cherishing antiquated political animosities and talking about the Battle of the Boyne. But will Mr. WILLOUGHBY not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... away with and put down the cowardly, dastardly, and ungenteel sports of bull-baiting, badger-baiting, fox-hunting, pigeon-shooting, and other wicked and cruel amusements, we, John Mumbles and Co., King of Chivalry, Grand Master of this Tournament, invite all persons, gentlemen born, to engage in, and others to witness, trials of skill, might, prowess, and magnanimity by means ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... of Ajax.'" Educated at Tudhoe Catholic School, Waterton became a sound Latin scholar. He proceeded to the Jesuit College at Stonyhurst, where his tutors as far as possible encouraged his love for natural history, at the same time stimulating his taste for literature. Fox-hunting was his delight and he became a famous rider. His parents wished him to see the world, and his travels began with a tour in Spain, visiting London on the way back to Yorkshire and there making the acquaintance of Sir Joseph Banks, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... antiquary clearly saw that the existence of badgers and foxes in England implied the former presence of a belt of land joining the British Islands to the Continent of Europe; for, as he acutely observed, nobody (before fox-hunting, at least) would ever have taken the trouble to bring them over. Still more does the presence in our islands of the red deer, and formerly of the wild white cattle, the wolf, the bear, and the wild boar, to say ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... sleep. As I passed by the open door I heard a small excited voice expounding to a lymphatic dolly the whole mystery of fox-hunting:— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... not less spirited and much more able in thinking than his Examiner. The finical man of taste does indeed show himself to be sometimes weary of discussing constitutional questions; but he aims many enlivening thrusts at weak points of social life and manners; and the character of the Fox-hunting Squire, who is introduced as the representative of the Jacobites, is drawn with so much humour and force that we regret not being allowed to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Clearstarch, the Kilburn laundress, in getting in and taking out her washing, for a few weeks, chance at last landed him at Mr. Benjamin Buckram's, from whence he is now about to be removed to become our hero Mr. Sponge's Sancho Panza, in his fox-hunting, fortune-hunting career, and disseminate in remote parts his doctrines of the real honour and dignity of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... theatre, and early to bed, after giving directions to be called at half-past five A.M., fox-hunting being an early business here; in fact, the moment the sun is fairly out, the moisture vanishes from the ground, and afterwards it becomes hard to find. Slept like a dormouse; dreamed of dogs, dykes, and red-foxes, until I was awakened by my horse ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... England of Southey and Burke, The fox-hunting squires, the England of Church and of State, The England half mule and half ox, writes you down, O Voltaire: The quack grass of popery flourished in France, you essayed To plow up the tangle, and harrow the roots from the soil. It took a good ploughman to plow it, a ploughman of laughter, ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... many and many a time Lady Fanny raced about on hunting days, watching the redcoats with childish eagerness—intensely interested in the joyousness and beauty of the sight, but in her heart always secretly thankful if the fox escaped. Fox-hunting on Minto Crags must indeed have been a picturesque sight, and there was a special rock overhanging a precipice upon which she loved to sit and watch the wild chase, men and horses appearing and disappearing ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... "sharp going while it lasts, and a little knack wanted to stick them scientifically. Some say it's more exciting than fox-hunting, but that's childish; I never heard a man assert it whose liver was not on the wane. It's more dangerous, certainly. A header into the Smite or the Whissendine is nothing to a fall backward into a nullah, with a beaten horse on the top ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... humanises both her shrewdness and her selfishness. It is for his sake that she separates her niece from the fine young soldier she is in love with and that she almost succeeds in providing the King's Proctor with the materials for an intervention that would secure to him the estates and title of his fox-hunting uncle. There is always a plain tale to put her down and always the friend of proved discretion is left with the impression that the tale is the invention of malice; at least we suppose she must be, for Lady Ann ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... who, on this same day, had received a message from Mr. Lucre, found that gentleman in remarkably good spirits. He had just received a present of a fine haunch of venison from a fox-hunting nobleman in the neighborhood, and was gloating over it, ere its descent into the larder, with the ruddy fire of epicurism blazing in his eyes. "Clement," said he, with a grave, subdued grunt of enjoyment, "come this way—turn up the venison, Francis—eh, what say you now, Clement? Look ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Hints on Training for the Turf, the Chase, and the Road; with Observations on Racing and Hunting, Wasting, Race-Riding, and Handicapping: Addressed to all who are concerned in Racing, Steeple-Chasing, and Fox-Hunting. Fcp. 8vo. ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... smouldering fires of genius and ambition glowed out almost fiercely at times, through the dark dream of her eyes, startling the dullest apprehension, as she moved amid a narrow circle of country gentry, the fox-hunting guests of her uncle, the prim gossips of her aunt, the gay lovers and companions of her cousin, an unrecognized heroine, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Christmas dinners, farm colonies—until today the bare list of the various kinds of enterprises it carries on fills three printed pages. It is all done with the money of the rich, and is tainted by subservience to authority, but no one can deny that it is better than "Gibson's Preservative", and the fox-hunting parsons filling themselves ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... besieged by a numerous family of his female grandchildren, who, though they perpetually quarrelled among themselves, never failed to join against me, as the common enemy of all. His heir, who was about the age of eighteen, minded nothing but fox-hunting, and indeed was qualified for nothing else, notwithstanding his grandfather's indulgence in entertaining a tutor for him at home; who at the same time performed the office of parish clerk. This young Actaeon, who inherited his grandfather's antipathy to everything ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... model of perfection, because he is a stout dashing fellow who plays at cricket and goes out fox-hunting; and, generally, who flies in the face ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... Susan about something, and then we got to talking—the bunch of us. John Henry asked me to exercise his horse for him when he doesn't go. I rather hope I'll get a chance to go fox-hunting in the autumn. Abby ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... a field near the track with two huntsmen at their heels. They were not chasing, but running leisurely, and with their flower-like, loose spread over the green, and the pink-coated hunters on their brown mounts, they afforded a picture as vivid and of as perfect semblance to all my visions of fox-hunting as I could have asked. I had been hoping that I might see something of the famous sport, almost as English as the Church or the Turf, and there, suddenly and all unexpectedly, the sight fully and satisfyingly was. Now, indeed, I felt that my impression of English society ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... Lomax's cavalry was at Millboro, west of Staunton, where supplies were obtainable. It was my aim to get well on the road before Early could collect these scattered forces, and as many of the officers had been in the habit of amusing themselves fox-hunting during the latter part of the winter, I decided to use the hunt as an expedient for stealing a march on the enemy, and had it given out officially that a grand fox-chase would take place on the 29th of February. Knowing that Lomas, and Renfrew ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... falling into a feverish slumber on the first night after his accident, was to the effect that fox-hunting was splendid sport—magnificent sport,—but that it appeared to him there was no occasion whatever for a fox. And ever after that he was wont to boast that his first and last day of fox-hunting, which was an unusually exciting one, had been got though charmingly ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... a great deal of this is play, and willingly allow for that. You don't know what to do with yourselves for a sensation: fox-hunting and cricketing will not carry you through the whole of this unendurably long mortal life: you liked pop-guns when you were schoolboys, and rifles and Armstrongs are only the same things better made: ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... of the case to a man who lived on the mountains. "Even though our child should die for it," they said, "we will not ourselves deprive other creatures of their lives; but you, who live among the hills, are sure to hear when your neighbours go out fox-hunting. We don't care what price we might have to pay for a fox's liver; pray, buy one for us at any expense." So they pressed him to exert himself on their behalf; and he, having promised faithfully to execute the commission, went ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... neglected to learn as they should the business of their profession. A soldier needs to know how to shoot and take cover and shift for himself—not to box or to play football. There is, of course, always the risk of thus mistaking means for ends. Fox-hunting is a first-class sport; but one of the most absurd things in real life is to note the bated breath which certain excellent fox-hunters, otherwise quite healthy minds, speak of this admirable, but not over-important pastime. They ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the age in which he lived. Never, since the Reformation, was the state of religion so cold in England. The Established Church had triumphed over all her enemies. Puritanism had ceased to become offensive, and had even become respectable. The age of fox-hunting parsons had commenced, and the clergy were the dependants of great families, easy in their manners, and fond of the pleasures of the table. They were not expected to be very great scholars, or very grave companions. If ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... mansion in the Queen Anne style, which has long been in the possession of the Warde family—they are very particular about the e. In later times it was the abode of a memorable character in his way—old John Warde, the "Father of Fox-hunting." There it was that the greatest of all fox-hunters, Asheton Smithe, when on a visit to John Warde, rode Warde's horse Blue Ruin over a frozen country through a fast run of twenty-five minutes and killed his fox. On the terrace stands a monument. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the death of several foxes; for Sir Roger has told me that in the course of his amours[102] he patched the western door of his stable. Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as his passion for the widow abated and old age came on, he left off fox-hunting; but a hare is not yet safe that sits within ten ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... spent some time in the West Indies. He introduced into fiction the now familiar figure of the British tar, in the persons of Tom Bowling and Commodore Trunnion, as Fielding had introduced, in Squire Western, the equally national type of the hard-swearing, deep-drinking, fox-hunting Tory squire. Both Fielding and Smollett were of the {209} hearty British "beef-and-beer" school; their novels are downright, energetic, coarse, and high-blooded; low life, physical life, runs riot through ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Fox-hunting. Badger-drawing. Duck hunting with dogs and sometimes duck and owl diving. Cock-fighting. Cock-throwing at Eastertide. Bull baiting and sometimes ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... of Beaufort's hounds, took him as his private guest. Arrested for a time at Malta by an attack of fever, he joined our army before hostilities began, rode with Lord Raglan's staff at the Alma fight, likening the novel sensation to the excitement of fox-hunting; and accompanied the chief in his visit of tenderness to the wounded when the fight was over. Throughout the campaign the two were much together, as we shall notice more fully later on. There are often slight but unmistakable ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... write all that trash about a dog-cart," interrupted Freddy crossly; "that's worse than the fox-hunting; stick to ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... antiquarianism. The great discovery had not then been made, we must remember, that excellence in field-sports deserved to be placed on a level with the Christian virtues. The fine gentlemen of the Chesterfield era speak of fox-hunting pretty much as we speak of prize-fighting and bull-baiting. When all manly exercises had an inseparable taint of coarseness, delicate people naturally mistook effeminacy for refinement. When you can only join in male society on pain of drinking yourself under the table, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... horses of Yorkshire and the rotten grass in the Bicester; I had struggled over the large fences and small enclosures of the Grafton and been a heroine in the select fields and large becks with the Burton; and the Beaufort had seen the dawn of my fox-hunting; but Melton was a name which brought the Hon. Crasher before me and opened a vista on my future of all that was fast, furious ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... let her run! Let her run! Give her a fair start, and do you give chase! It will be the rarest sport! Fox-hunting is a good thing, but girl-chasing must be the very h—l of sport, when I tell you—mind, I tell you, men—she shall be the exclusive prize of him who catches ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... George? I want to know all about it, and I am so ignorant. Nobody else will tell me." Then Lord George gave his lesson, and explained the theory and system of fox-hunting. "We're to wait here, then, till the fox runs away? But it's ever so large, and if he runs away, and nobody sees him? I hope he will, because it will be nice to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... regards his Puritanism, might be considered a type of the Lancashire squire of the day. A precisian in religious notions, and constant in attendance at church and lecture, he put no sort of restraint upon himself, but mixed up fox-hunting, otter-hunting, shooting at the mark, and perhaps shooting with the long-bow, foot-racing, horse-racing, and, in fact, every other kind of country diversion, not forgetting tippling, cards, and dicing, with daily devotion, discourses, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... dresses for this occasion, silver rolls or gold linings for their hats, or new deerskin pantaloons and embroidered jackets with silver buttons. The accidents that happen are innumerable, but nothing damps their ardour. It beats fox-hunting. The most striking part of the scene is the extraordinary facility which these men show in throwing the laso. The bulls being all driven into an enclosure—one after another, and sometimes two or three at a time, were chosen from amongst them, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... son-in-law who looked in on things once a month, signed his voucher and went away fox-hunting. He thought he was helping run the mill. This man grew jealous of the young manager and suggested that Drinkwater increase the boy's pay and buy off the percentage clause in the contract, so as to keep the youngster ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... pigeon-shooting to Hurlingham. THERE'S a humane and manly way of spending a Saturday afternoon! Lord Worthington, that comes to see you when he likes, though he's too much of a man or too little of a shot to kill pigeons, thinks nothing of fox-hunting. Do you think foxes like to be hunted, or that the people that hunt them have such fine feelings that they can afford to call prize-fighters names? Look at the men that get killed or lamed every year at steeple-chasing, fox-hunting, cricket, and foot-ball! ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Galileeism? Show me the effects—are you better, wiser, kinder by your precepts? I will bring you ten Mussulmans shall shame you in all goodwill towards men, prayer to God, and duty to their neighbours. And is there a Talapoin, [4] or a Bonze, who is not superior to a fox-hunting curate? But I will say no more on this endless theme; let me live, well if possible, and die without pain. The rest is with God, who assuredly, had He come or sent, would have made Himself manifest to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... in simpler times, and are closely related still. An ancestry of wild riders naturally enough bequeaths also those other tendencies which we see in the Tartars, the Cossacks, and our own Indian Centaurs, and as well, perhaps, in the old-fashioned fox-hunting squire as in any of these. Sharp alternations of violent action and self-indulgent repose; a hard run, and a long revel after it; this is what over-much horse tends to animalize a man into. Such antecedents may have helped to make little Dick Venner a ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the "Caballeros de Plaza," as they were called, gentlemen by birth animated by the love of glory, very different from the hired Picadors. This custom of the Spanish gentlemen, which many of our fox-hunting and pheasant-shooting squires will condemn for its cruelty, was very common during the reigns of Philip III. and IV., but gradually declined, and was at last only prevalent at the Fiestas Reales. The last example was known in 1789, to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Lord Callonby consigned me to the guidance of his son, and we sallied forth to deal destruction amongst the pheasants, with which the preserves were stocked; and here I may observe, 'en passant', that with the single exception of fox-hunting, which was ever a passion with me, I never could understand that inveterate pursuit of game to which some men devote themselves—thus, grouse-shooting, and its attendant pleasures, of stumping over a boggy mountain from day-light till dark, never had much attraction for me; and, as to the delights ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... creeped and crawled among the holes, and sneaked into the sly-grog tents round about, in search of the swarming unlicensed game. In a word, it was a regular hunt. Any one who in Old England went fox-hunting, can understand pretty well, the detestable sport we had then on the goldfields of Victoria. Did any trooper succeed in catching any of the 'vagabonds' in the bush, he would by the threat of his sword, confine him round a big gum-tree; ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... been a great many refusals, and after all it was not a very big affair—not as big as Margaret's would be. She noted the dishes and the strips of red carpet, that outwardly she might give Henry what was proper. But inwardly she hoped for something better than this blend of Sunday church and fox-hunting. If only someone had been upset! But this wedding had gone off so particularly well—"quite like a Durbar" in the opinion of Lady Edser, and she thoroughly agreed ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... the everlasting hills around, even as they had grown and grown for countless ages, beneath the still depths of the primeval chalk ocean, in the milky youth of this great English land. And here was he, the insect of a day, fox-hunting upon THEM! He felt ashamed, and more ashamed when the inner voice whispered—'Fox- hunting is not the shame—thou art the shame. If thou art the insect of a day, it is thy sin ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... gale carried the sound away. The vixen is now at peace, though perhaps it would scarcely be safe to wander too near the close-shaven mead where the keeper is occupied more and more every day with his pheasant-hatching. And far down on the lonely outlying farms, where even in fox-hunting England the music of the hounds is hardly heard in three years (because no great coverts cause the run to take that way), foul murder is sometimes done on Reynard or his family. A hedge-cutter marks the sleeping-place in the withies where the fox curls up by day; and with his rusty gun, ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... wood. Wheat-sowing. The Church. Village girls. The mad girl. The bird-boy's hut. Disappointments; reflections, &c. Euston-hall. Fox-hunting. Old Trouncer. Long ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... not so rich as he was later nor so famous, but he was strong and well and young, he had abundant friends, and his neighbors thought well enough of him to send him to the Burgesses and to make him a vestryman of old Pohick Church; if he felt the need of recreation he went fishing or fox-hunting or attended a horse race or played a game of cards with his friends, and he had few things to trouble him seriously. But fussy kings and ministers overseas were meddling with the liberties of subjects and were creating a situation out of which was to come a mighty ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... prison scenes of which Smollett seems to have been so fond. As for the description of the parliamentary election, it is by no means the least graphic of its kind in the fiction of the last two centuries. The speech of Sir Valentine Quickset, the fox-hunting Tory candidate, is excellent, both for its brevity and for its simplicity. Any of his bumpkin audience could understand perfectly his principal points: that he spends his estate of "vive thousand clear" at home in old English hospitality; that he comes of pure old English stock; that he ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... year for the pheasants; in their sense, not the sportsman's. For all the Colonel's friends were in the Crimea, and the October shooting had been sadly neglected except by the poachers. He was now back from the Crimea, but was not good for much shooting or fox-hunting, having been himself shot through the lungs in September at the Battle of the Alma, and invalided home. But he was already equal to the duties of host to a shooting-party, and though he could kill nothing himself, he could hear others do so, and could smell the nice ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... well bred 'uns," remarked a short gentleman in a fox-hunting coat, examining Virginia through his eye-glass; "coxswain, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Richmond put off a large party at Goodwood for the sake of an important division in the House of Lords; and he did not always agree with Lord John Cavendish as to what constitutes a decent and reasonable quantity of fox-hunting for a political leader in a crisis. But it was part of the steadfastness of his whole life to do his best with such materials as he could find. He did not lose patience nor abate his effort, because his friends would miss the opportunity of a great political ...
— Burke • John Morley
... who once had dealings with this man, gentlemen—that's from twenty to five-and-twenty years ago—there was one: a rough fox-hunting, hard-drinking gentleman, who had run through his own fortune, and wanted to squander away that of his sister: they were both orphans, and she lived with him and managed his house. I don't know whether it was, originally, to back his influence and try to over-persuade the young woman or not, ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... I remember her saying to me once, "that we English should hold up our hands in horror at the thought of bull-fights, while so many of us take pleasure in the hateful business of the kill in fox-hunting." ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... onslaught on the ravagers of their flocks; having the dens and thickets driven, and stationing themselves on the outskirts with their long roers to shoot down the vermin as they issue forth. Such meetings are jovial, and the sport is exciting, but not to be compared, I think, to deer-stalking or fox-hunting, to say nothing of a foray against ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... London; he was invariably accompanied by an equerry when he rode or drove. He wanted to be irreproachable and, if that involved friendlessness, it could not be helped. Besides, he had no very high opinion of the English. So far as he could see, they cared for nothing but fox-hunting and Sunday observances; they oscillated between an undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you spoke to them of friendly joyousness they stared; and they did not understand either the Laws of Thought or the wit of a German University. Since it was clear that with such people he could ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... than the practice of hunting bag-foxes. It encourages a set of rascals to steal from other hunts; therefore keep in mind, that if there were no receivers there would be no thieves. What chiefly contributes to make fox-hunting so very far superior to other sports is the wildness of the animal you hunt, and the difficulty in catching him. It is rather extraordinary, but nevertheless a well-known fact, that a pack of hounds, which are in sport and blood, will not eat a bag-fox. I remember hearing an ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... will be over to-morrow, and will make fine snowshoeing. Amos Locke is going with me fox-hunting, and we want ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... others; but as the main body, consisting of upward of a hundred, still remained undisturbed, the signal for attack was reserved, as the first object in buffalo-hunting appears to be precisely that in our own glorious fox-hunting—to get on good terms with the chase. Cautiously, and restraining the ardent and fierce spirit of our horses to keep within the compass of control, we still slowly advanced in a double line, while many of the animals knowing, like an old seasoned English hunter ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... of plate and fine linen in New York cupboards. There were good things to eat and drink in New York households. Down South the gentlefolk lived as gentlefolk lived in England, with perhaps a more lavish ostentation, a more liberal hospitality. They loved horses and dogs, horse-racing and fox-hunting, dancing, music, high living, all things that added to the enjoyment of life. Their servants were their own black slaves. The great city of the South was Charleston, the third of the colonial cities. The fourth and last was Philadelphia, the "faire greene country town" of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Yorkshire men liked a good, honest horse-race, and fox-hunting was a favorite sport with them. It is told of a Mr. Kirkton that he followed the hounds on horseback until he was eighty, and from that period to one hundred he regularly attended the unkennelling of the fox in his ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... whoop or hallow as in fox-hunting don't chatter, or stare at every new fangle, but walk soberly, taking your cap off to all, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... Bessie! Imagine that, Allie!" his hearers would cry. Then they would ask him about the fox-hunting in Bucks, and tease him for further particulars about his sister Edith, who had married ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... a fox-hunting morning, and during a long run Frank sustained his character as a good and daring rider, to the admiration of Diana and Sir Hildebrand, and to the secret disappointment of his other kind kinsfolk, who had prophesied that he would certainly "be off at the first ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Black Fan, his fox-hunting mare. She was seventeen hands high, mostly legs, a natural pacer. She could jump over anything under the moon. Her hind legs the longer,—they seemed to be the propelling power and appeared to move faster than her front legs. When at top speed she traveled ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... of fox-hunting, pleasant shooting, and country neighbors; all the means of excitement around him exhausted, L'Isle lounged in the library at C——d Hall, with half a dozen open but discarded volumes before him, revolving in his mind all possible ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... famous Derby breed of the twelfth Earl had extended in past times throughout the length and breadth of the land; and the next visit to Knowsley convinced me that the legend was based on fact. As regards cruelty, all popular sports, fox-hunting and pigeon-shooting, are cruel. Grallus, however, has gained since the days of Cock-Mondays and Cock-Fridays, when he was staked down to be killed by 'cock-sticks' or was whipped to his death by blindfolded ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... regarded as a boy. She had no intuition to divine the presence, or appreciate the worship, of one of the future master-minds of England, nor any ambition to ally herself with the wild race of Newstead, and preferred her hale, commonplace, fox-hunting squire. "She was the beau ideal," says Byron, in his first accurate prose account of the affair, written 1823, a few days before his departure for Greece, "of all that my youthful fancy could paint of beautiful. ...
— Byron • John Nichol |
