THE BARB AND THE BRIDLE.
CHAPTER I.
Riding, considered as a means of recreation, as a promoter of health, or
as the best mode in which to display to the greatest advantage beauty
and symmetry of face and form, is perhaps unequalled among the many
accomplishments necessary to a lady.
Out of doors croquet may be interesting as a game, and fascinating
enough when a lady has an agreeable partner, but as an exercise
physically its healthfulness is doubtful.
There is too much standing about, often on damp grass, too little real
exertion to keep the circulation up properly, and too many intervals of
quiescence, wherein a lady stands perfectly still (in a very graceful
attitude no doubt) long enough in the chill evening air to create
catarrh or influenza.
Archery, although a far more graceful exercise than croquet, is open to
the same objection as regards danger of taking cold.
Skating, though both healthful and elegant, is so seldom available as
scarcely to be reckoned among the exercises beneficial to ladies.
Moreover, it is attended with considerable danger in many cases.
_To be well_ is to look well. Healthy physical exertion is indispensable
to the former state, and in no way can it be so well secured as by
riding. Mounted on a well-broken, well-bred horse, and cantering over a
breezy down, or trotting on the soft sward, on the way to covert, a lady
feels a glow of health and flow of spirits unattainable by any other
kind of out or in door recreation.
That the foregoing truths are fully appreciated by the ladies of the
Upper Ten Thousand is abundantly proved by the goodly gathering of fair
and aristocratic equestrians to be seen in Rotten Row during the London
season, and at every fashionable meet of hounds in the kingdom in the
winter time.
Nor is riding confined to those only whose names figure in the pages of
"Burke" or "Debrett." Within the last twenty years the wives and
daughters of professional men and wealthy tradesmen, who were content
formerly to take an airing in a carriage, have taken to riding on
horseback. And they are quite right. It is not (with management) a bit
more expensive, while it is beyond comparison the most agreeable and
salubrious mode of inhaling the breeze.
The daughter of the peer, or other great grandee of the country, may be
almost said to be a horsewoman to the manner born. Riding comes as
naturally to her as it does to her brothers. Both clamber up on their
ponies, or are lifted on, almost as soon as they can walk, and
consequently "grow" into their riding, and become at fifteen or sixteen
years of age as much at home in the saddle as they are on a sofa. In the
hunting field they see the best types of riding extant, male and female,
and learn to copy their style and mode of handling their horses, while
oral instruction of the highest order is always at hand to supplement
daily practice. To the great ladies of England, then, all hints on the
subject would be superfluous. Most of them justly take great pride in
their riding, spare no pains to excel in it, and are thoroughly
successful.
