LADIES IN THE FIELD

EDITED BY
THE LADY GREVILLE

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1894

PREFACE.

It is scarcely necessary nowadays to offer an apology for sport, withits entrancing excitement, its infinite variety of joys and interests.Women cheerfully share with men, hardships, toil and endurance, climbmountains, sail on the seas, face wind and rain and the chill gusts ofwinter, as unconcernedly as they once followed their quiet occupationsby their firesides. The feverish life of cities too, with itsenervating pleasures, is forgotten and neglected for the witchery oflegitimate sport, which need not be slaughter or cruelty. Women whoprefer exercise and liberty, who revel in the cool sea breeze, and loveto feel the fresh mountain air fanning their cheeks, who are afraidneither of a little fatigue nor of a little exertion, are the better,the truer, and the healthier, and can yet remain essentially femininein their thoughts and manners. They may even by their presence refinethe coarser ways of men, and contribute to the gradual disuse of badlanguage in the hunting field, and to the adoption of a habit ofcourtesy and kindness. The duties of the wife of the M. F. H. fully bearout this view.

When women prove bright and cheerful companions, they add to the man'senjoyment and to the enlarging of their own practical interests. When,in addition, they endeavour to love Nature in her serenest and grandestmoods, to snatch from her mighty bosom some secrets of her being, tostudy sympathetically the habits of birds, beasts and flowers, and topractise patience, skill, ingenuity and self-reliance, they have learntvaluable lessons of life.

Lastly, in the words of a true lover of art: "The sportsman who walkedthrough the turnip fields, thinking of nothing but his dog and his gun,has been drinking in the love of beauty at every pore of hisinvigorated frame, as, from each new tint of autumn, from every mistySeptember morning, from each variety of fleeting cloud, each flash oflight from distant spire or stream, the unnoticed influence stole overhim like a breeze, bringing health from pleasant places, and made himcapable of clearer thoughts and happier emotions."

Violet Greville.

CONTENTS.