before he won a steeplechase on his own, and if ever a rider fulfilled Montaigne’s ideal of a life spent in the saddle, it was he.  So he rode to the starting-post, happy in 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 when life is strongest and passion is at its height; to avoid the terrors of expectation and escape the lingering paraphernalia of sick chambers and deathbed scenes; to shirk the stuffy and inactive hours, marked by nothing but medicines and unwelcome meals; to elude the doctor’s feigned encouragements, the sympathy of relations anxious to resume their