n himself and modestly confident--the very model
of what a well-to-do English countryman should wish to be--a Rugby and
Balliol man, above suspicion for honesty, a busy man of affairs, a
consummate horseman, a bad speaker, and a true-hearted Liberal, holding
an equally unblemished record for courage in convictions and at fences.

The race was three and a half miles--twice round the circuit. The first
circuit was run, the last fence of it safely cleared. The second circuit
was nearly complete: only that last fence remained. It was three
hundred yards away, and he rode fast for it along the bottom. Someone
was abreast of him, someone close behind. May Dolly rushed forward, and
the fence drew nearer and nearer. He was leading; once over that fence
and victory was his--the latest victory, always worth all the rest. He
felt the moving saddle between his thighs; he heard the quick beating of
the hoofs. Something happened; there was a swerve, a sideways jump, a
vain effort at recovery, a crashing fall too quick for thought; and
before the joy of victory had died, the darkness came.

Who would not choose to plunge out of life like that? A sudden end at
the moment of victory has always been the commonplace of human desire.
When the antique sage was asked to select the happiest man in history,
his choice fell on one whose destiny resembled that of the Member for
Crewe; for Tellus the Athenian had lived a full and well-contented life,
had seen fine and gentlemanly sons and many grandchildren growing up
around him, had shared the honour and prosperity of his country, and
died fighting at Eleusis when victory was assured. Next in happiness to
Tellus came the two Argive boys, who, for want of oxen, themselves drew
their mother in a cart up the hill to worship, and, as though in answer
to her prayer for blessings on them, died in the temple that night. It
has always been so. The leap of Rome's greatest treasure into the Gulf
of earthquake was accounted an enviable opportunity. When they asked
Caesar what death he would choose, he answered, "A sudden one," and he
had his wish. "Oh, happy he whom thou in battles findest," cried Faust
to Death in the midst of all his learning; and "Let me like a soldier
fall" is the natural marching song of our Territorials.

The advantages of these hot-blooded ends are so obvious that they need
hardly be recalled, and, indeed, they have provided a theme for many of
our most inspiriting writers. To go w