Reynard the Fox

"[...]lovely to watch nor so exhilarating. The only thing to be compared with it, in this country, is the sword dance, the old heroical dancing of the young men, still practised, in all its splendour of wild beauty, in some country places; (d) that we are a horse-loving people who have loved horses as we have loved the sea, and have made, in the course of generations, a breed of horse, second to none in the world, for beauty and speed.
But besides all these reasons, there is another that brings many out hunting. This is the delight in hunting, in the working of hounds, by themselves, or with the huntsmen, to find and kill their fox. Though many men and women hunt in order to ride, many still ride in order to hunt.[...]".