"PUTTING ON AIRS" 191 



your saddle-horse, to make any considerable distance, regu- 

 late yourself accordingly— but then you are travelling, not 

 riding for pleasure. If you go out for the mere ride, it is 

 for your nag to subserve your comfort, not for you to save 

 his strength. Do you measure a painting by superficies 

 or by execution? Is not a square foot of a Gerard Douw 

 or a Hans Memling worth more than one hundred square 

 feet of — well, let us say even a Rubens, after he had de- 

 scended to political wall-paintings, oblivious of his work in 

 Antwerp? So a saddle-horse's ability is to be measured 

 by his gaits, not the distance he can go. Would you ask 

 to go for a pleasure ride on a " Captain McGown " or a 

 " Nancy Hanks" because, forsooth, the one might take you 

 forty miles in two hours, or the other a mile in 2.05 ? 

 Speed is a corollary of the Sunday rider's problem, not 

 yours and mine, dear boy, when we ride along the pretty 

 suburban roads, or on the soft bridle-paths of the Park. 



I have often heard it said of a man with a well-trained 

 horse that he appears to be putting on airs. But why is 

 he showing off any more than the man who rides along 

 with his elbows up at an angle of sixty degrees, or swing- 

 ing his legs, or acting as if he were bestriding a Genesee 

 County hunter, when he is atop of a three-dollar livery- 

 hack ? A man Avho makes his horse show his paces with- 

 in reason is as little to be accused of bumptiousness as the 

 other; and if he were, he has a sounder reason for his van- 

 ity. If your nag can canter a well - collected four- mile 

 gait, w^th all the proud bearing w^iich such an accom- 

 plishment lends, why must you let him go an uncollected 

 eight-mile gait, when the slower one is the very poetry of 

 motion? To dub this "putting on airs" is on all fours 

 with the outcry against "those d literary fellers." 



4. A rack or singlefoot is not a sine qua non ; but I 

 would vastly rather have a racker who could trot besides, 



