Ladies in The Field; Sketches of Sport _{Sketches of Sport}

It is scarcely necessary nowadays to offer an apology for sport, with its entrancing excitement, its infinite variety of joys and interests. Women cheerfully share with men, hardships, toil and endurance, climb mountains, sail on the seas, face wind and rain and the chill gusts of winter, as unconcernedly as they once followed their quiet occupations by their firesides. The feverish life of cities too, with its enervating pleasures, is forgotten and neglected for the witchery of legitimate sport, which need not be slaughter or cruelty. Women who prefer exercise and liberty, who revel in the cool sea breeze, and love to feel the fresh mountain air fanning their cheeks, who are afraid neither of a little fatigue nor of a little exertion, are the better, the truer, and the healthier, and can yet remain essentially feminine in their thoughts and manners. They may even by their presence refine the coarser ways of men, and contribute to the gradual disuse of bad language in the hunting field, and to the adoption of a habit of courtesy and kindness. The duties of the wife of the M. F. H. fully bear out this view.