RECOLLECTIONS OF MEN AND HORSES 



breeder, exhibitor, and campaigner of horses, he 

 made an Impression that only cycles of time will 

 erase. For years my relations with him were inti- 

 mate, and I had an excellent opportunity to measure 

 the keenness of his Intellect and his resolute pur- 

 pose. The Roman world had Its Augustan age, In 

 which a city of bricks was transformed into a city 

 of marble, and which was so deeply Impressed by 

 the genius of writers of the stamp of Horace and 

 Virgil, that the enlightened world feels the force of 

 the movement centuries after the fall of the powerful 

 Empire. The period of trotting evolution shaped 

 by determined and creative Intellects like those of 

 Bonner, Hamlin, Tracy, Vanderbllt, Backman, Alex- 

 ander, Thorne, Veech, McFerran, and Stanford, 

 may In one sense be compared to the Augustan age 

 of literature and art, because the historian cannot 

 forget It even if he wished to do so, and the passing 

 of years will add to, not dim, its radiance. I 

 am glad that I was able to play an humble part in 

 this momentous era of development. 



For more than half a century the brain of C. J. 

 Hamlin was over-stimulated. The absence of rest 

 drained it of that vitality which he deemed so essen- 

 tial to the perpetuation, to the continuity of life, and 

 it is not surprising that adolescent dreams should have 

 marked his closing years. Herbert Spencer tells us 

 that, if some function Is habitually performed in 

 excess of the requirement, there is derangement In 

 the balance of the functions which leads to decay. 



146 



