"The result was in every way satisfactory. After two hours’ walking over the moors, I was able to laugh at my fears, and by lunch-time it was even a trouble to recall them. At dinner nothing seemed more important in life than perfect accuracy of aim, and my friends might easily have mistaken me for a sportomaniac by my conversation. The only thought I read that evening came, I believe, from my host, and took the form of regret that he had not selected a better shot than myself for the sake of the game returns which he intended to forward to _The Field_, and considering the number of birds which my nerves had succeeded in missing for me during the morning, I could not feel surprised. My dreams during the night did not trouble me. I felt but a momentary discomfiture even when the youth who was expected to fall in love with Vera rose up with a whirr just under my feet, and in the flurry of the moment I only succeeded in knocking a few feathers out of his coat-tail. "On the second day, therefore, after my proposal, I felt in a safe mental condition to think rationally over the prospect before me, and as I can always reason more quietly when walking and in the open air, I went for a stroll by myself over the moors. "The day was bright, and the wind blew softly from the south-west. I felt that life was very good as I passed over the heather. Presently, however, a wounded bird which was lying by the side of the footpath upset my train of thought, and set me on a discussion of cruelty which I began to argue out from both sides. The impression which I arrived at, after wasting fully an hour, may be summed up as follows: that about an equal amount can be urged for and against sport, and that there is something wrong somewhere. Nearly every subject we approach seems beset with like difficulty, owing to the fact that our life is not as yet sufficiently under the rule of order to embrace, without causing additional misery, the doctrine of perfection. For instance, war can easily be shown to be unjustifiable, and socialism to be the only form of perfect justice; but it is equally clear that the abolition of armaments and the adoption of socialistic principles would lead to the greatest misery that has ever been experienced on earth, if they should be tried before men have learnt to control their evil passions without the whip of legal and military chastisement. Birds of prey and moral disease would quickly take the place of the fowling-pieces of modern civilization, whilst the dream of Paradise would be found more to resemble a nightmare, and the comparative peace of the past would be transformed into a pandemonium of unbridled passions.