PRINCE 81 



full-fed man. The desert appeals to the in- 

 tellect; the verdant, rain-nurtured valley to 

 the emotions. The variance is as that between 

 percipience and sensation. The stimulation 

 with which a healthy organism responds to 

 rigorous conditions expresses itself in an in- 

 creased efficiency that is usually invincible. 

 Thus it is that from the physically unfruitful 

 desert all really great ideas have sprung. The 

 wilderness has ever been the rich storehouse 

 of spiritual things. Man gains corporeal, 

 moral and intellectual power in the arid waste, 

 and loses them in the land of corn and wine. 

 Dearth is the parent and the tutor of thought, 

 the desert is the harvest-field of wisdom. Soli- 

 tude is the fruitful mother of noble resolve, — 

 the kind nurse of the spirit. 



I wished my horse had another, a more suit- 

 able name. " Prince " smacked of the stable 

 — the brougham. He should have been called 

 by some term expressive of steadfast endur- 

 ance, of faithfulness, — of excellent skill as a 

 pursuer of the oryx. That elderly bay gelding 

 with the spatulate feet was an ideal desert 

 mount. It was in the course of a long chase 

 after oryx that one appreciated him to the full. 

 I had more than once ridden him at a gallop 

 for ten miles without a check ; then, after a roll 



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