142 MY HORSE ; MY LOVE 



sent it to my publisher, and from him at once received 

 some valuable suggestions. 



He convinced me that it would never do to bring out a 

 book on horses in England, without saying something— a 

 good deal, in fact — about the famous English favourites, 

 so dear to the heart and pride of every true Englishman, 

 and often so closely allied with his pockets, and involved 

 with his pursestrings. I realised the importance of what 

 he said, and, armed with a letter of introduction, I hied me 

 to the British Museum, and presenting my letter to Mr 

 Garnett, was received by him with charming courtesy. He 

 instructed me so kindly, as to the methods employed in 

 finding the necessary books of reference for my use, that 

 it was all made very easy for me. 



In the grateful quiet and studious hush of that most 

 delightful reading-room — the like of which is unknown in 

 all the world beside — not even a muffled suggestion of 

 noise, reaching it, from the roar of the London streets, the 

 shrill cries of the hawkers, and the maddening clinkety- 

 clank of the ubiquitous organ-grinder, I sat and read and 

 wrote. 



Never before had I imagined such a wealth of horse- 

 lore literature ! It was truly an ' emharras des richesses^ 

 as by the thoughtful suggestions of the courteous assistants 

 in the reading-room, my desk was heaped with great tomes. 

 So full were they of wonderful knowledge and information, 

 and of statements conflicting and contradictory (do any 

 two men ever quite agree about horses ?), that when I had 

 recovered from the sense of being merely a crushed atom 

 under this overwhelming mass of matter, and could bring 

 myself to realise that an attack must begin somewhere, I 

 happily opened Jiice's History of the British Turf, and 



