Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford, page 29 by Edward Berens
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ling to risk limbs, health, or life itself, for the benefit of his fellow-creatures. He should, like Hamlet, "hold his life at a pin's fee," when any adequate object is to be answered by putting it in jeopardy. But a man has no right to risk either his life or his limbs for a bravado, in mere idle vanity and ostentation. Such wanton risk is cruelty to his parents and friends, and a presumptuous tempting of Providence.
Riding, for riding's sake, must, with your finances, be out of the question. The utmost that you ought to allow yourself, is a hack once or twice a term, for some specific purpose--to visit a distant friend, perhaps, or to see some interesting object lying beyond the range of a walk. What I have said of riding, applies, with ten-fold force, to hunting, which entails expense--(the hire of a hunter, the hire of a hack probably to take you to cover, sundry ostlers and helpers, and very likely a jovial dinner at an inn)--utterly inconsistent with an average allowance; which entails, also, a waste of time, which, in the short period of an Oxford residence, can ill be spared.
What shall I say of cricket? I have great respect for cricket, as a national and a manly game. The demand which it makes upon your Oxford time is confined to the short term between Easter and the long vacation, and it does not require a very large portion of the day. It is not necessarily attended with any expense. Whether the incidental expenses of uniform (if you belong to a club), tent, dinner, &c. &c. are such as you can fairly afford, is for your consideration. They need not be high, and, in my good will to the game, I am anxious that they should be kept down.
Tennis is an animated game, of much variety in itself, and requiring great variety of muscular exertion. It is connected with many historical and chivalrous recollections, and carries the mind back to our Henry the Fifth and the "mocking Dauphin" of France. As it cannot be played without a s