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Indeed, except for this, the tiresome monotony of life was most irksome at this period. Day after day the incessant rain poured down. The supplies were bad, scanty, and irregular; the hospitals crowded with sick; field-sports impracticable; books there were none; and a dulness and spiritless depression prevailed on every side.
It is difficult to understand how either law or public opinion, in a country occupied by a dense and intelligent population, and, comparatively speaking, with an infertile soil, can tolerate the continued withdrawal of a great portion of the territory from the cultivation of trees and from other kinds of rural economy, merely to allow wealthy individuals to amuse themselves with field-sports.
This slackness of rule might have been ruinous to a boy of slow understanding, who, feeling labour in the acquisition of knowledge, would have altogether neglected it, save for the command of a taskmaster; and it might have proved equally dangerous to a youth whose animal spirits were more powerful than his imagination or his feelings, and whom the irresistible influence of Alma would have engaged in field-sports from morning till night.
But let us remark how many people there are, especially outside the limits of the serious and conscientious middle-class to which Mr. Smith belonged, who take up with a meaner master-concern, whether it be pleasure, or field-sports, or bodily exercises, or business, or popular agitation, who take up with one of these exclusively, and neglect Mr.
Readers will complain, I doubt not, of the very mythical and mysterious denouement of a story which began by things so gross and palpable as field-sports and pauperism.
Quick sight and steady nerve, unfailing vigilance and instant resolve, the very qualities which their devotion to field-sports fostered, were those which had so often prevailed in the war of the Revolution over the mechanical tactics of well-disciplined battalions; and on ground with which they were perfectly familiar the men of the Shenandoah were formidable indeed.
Washington, as we have observed in the earlier portion of this work, was passionately fond of field-sports; and during the first years of his married life, and even to the kindling of the Revolution, he frequently indulged in the pleasures of the chase. He was an admirable equestrian, but was not a successful sportsman.
"The gaiety of our cottage life, previous to the departure of our elder brothers for Conway, and the constant field-sports in which she indulged with John, proved too much for a frame never too robust." "You express yourself well," said the poet.
"Ungrateful wretch," he said "after that dinner last night!" "All the same, Matthew Arnold had that dinner in mind chef and all! Listen! 'The graver self of the Barbarian likes honours and consideration; his more relaxed self, field-sports and pleasures. Isn't it exact? Grouse-driving in the morning bridge, politics, Cabinet-making, and the best of food in the evening.
By a revolution of humour which I am unable to account for, I changed my mind entirely on my plans of life, in consequence of the disappointment, the history of which fills the last chapter. I began to discover that the country would not at all suit me; for I had relinquished field-sports, and felt no inclination whatever to farming, the ordinary vocation of country gentlemen.
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