Call it aestheticism, squeamishness,
namby-pamby sentimentalism, what you will it is stronger than oneself!
Yes, after one had once watched with an eye that did not merely see, the
thirsty gaping of a slowly dying bird, or a rabbit dragging a broken leg
to a hole where he would lie for hours thinking of the fern to which he
should never more come forth--after that, there was always the following
little matter of arithmetic: Given, that all those who had been shooting
were "good-fair" shots--which, Heaven knew, they never were--they yet
missed one at least in four, and did not miss it very much; so that if
seventy-five things were slain, there were also twenty-five that had been
fired at, and, of those twenty-five, twelve and a half had "gotten it"
somewhere in their bodies, and would "likely" die at their great leisure.
This was the sum that brought about the only cleavage in our lives; and
so, as he grew older, and trying to part from each other we no longer
could, he ceased going to Scotland. But after that I often felt, and
especially when we heard guns, how the best and most secret instincts of
him were being stifled. But what was to be done? In that which was left
of a clay pigeon he would take not the faintest interest--the scent of it
was paltry. Yet always, even in his most cosseted and idle days, he
managed to preserve the grave preoccupation of one professionally
concerned with retrieving things that smell; and consoled himself with
pastimes such as cricket, which he played in a manner highly specialised,
following the ball up the moment it left the bowler's hand, and sometimes
retrieving it before it reached the batsman.
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