HORSE. 315 



and life he has assisted his infuriated master to destroy. 

 Administering to all his wants, his most coveted luxury, 

 bearing him upon his imperial form in pursuit of pleasure, 

 he is the companion of princely gentlemen ; destroying 

 space on the wings of the wind in the ardor of the hunt, 

 or, humble and subdued, he carries the mill boy with the 

 widow's corn to be ground ; wise, good, and humanly work- 

 ing, like a creature of reason and thought. Thus, from 

 the king to the serf, he has become an inseparable friend 

 of man. The romance of the Arab's love for him seems 

 ideal and exaggerated, a story of the fancy only ; but every 

 genial and spirited boy who has wearied of his rocking- 

 horse, and dreams of the gallant steed he aspires to ride, 

 knows it to be true and real. The perfected splendor of the 

 whole animal world, his place in the system of uses demon- 

 strates him to be an indispensable element in the progressive 

 development* of the races of men ; and in his ancient alli- 

 ance, through bonds of fraternal love, with the perpetually 

 dominant tribes and nations, he has come at last to be 

 endowed, in imagination and affection, almost with the 

 transcendent faculties of a human being. 



* Of the horse, as a sanitary resource, or of horseback exercise as 

 a therapeutic agent, in the cure of many obstinate forms of disease, 

 see chapter Hygieia. The records of medicine show that a number 

 of physicians have been earnest and enthusiastic on the subject of 

 exercise on horseback as a remedy for many morbid conditions. Its 

 power is undoubtedly very great in some conditions, and specifically 

 assistant in many more. 



