There are few phases of my life upon which I look back with so much of self-reproach as upon that during which I was a sort of sportman. Several incidents came to my knowledge which finally made me leave it off entirely. After shooting game it happened that I ran up and found the poor wounded bird or rabbit, bleeding, struggling, and looking up with fear and trembling as I approached to extinguish its life and its pain. Three days after a hunting party on an island, a splendid deer was found dying beside a brook, with a bullet through his jaw which had prevented his eating, and he had lingered in starving agony all that time. I could never shoot a deer after that and I finally renounced all sporting, all shooting and fishing for mere recreation. It changes matters somewhat if one pursues sport for mere purposes of health; though it is hardly conceivable that the same end could not be gained without killing animals. I was no better than other men; but I was led to reflect, and concluded that all and every kind of sporting for mere amusement is selfish, cruel and demoralizing in its tendencies. The sentiment of kindness and good will to others should be cultivated and extended as widely as possible, and not restricted to our own race. These sentiments are violated and stunted by indulging in any pursuit for our own pleasure, which carries terror, pain and death to any animal. Stick to your resolution, dear Maud. Cultivate in every possible way those sentiments which are to the human character what wild flowers are to the earth. They adorn, beautify, and refine a woman and add a fragrance to life which without them is comparatively blank.... Papa. CHAPTER VII SANTO DOMINGO