DECORATION. 



Men have an uneasy propensity for improvement, 

 which leads them to deform almost all the w^orks of 

 Nature of v^^hich they have control ; they cut down 

 trees in one place, and plant them in another, to 

 beautify the landscape ; they shave their own faces, 

 hang ornaments on their ears, and deform their 

 bodies ; they exclude the light of day from their 

 houses to create an artificial night, and at midnight 

 illuminate them with artificial light to create a mimic 

 day. Even the horse, the most beautiful and most 

 useful of all the lower animals, they strive to deco- 

 rate by depriving him of the most prominent of his 

 graces ; they convert his tail into a sightless stump, 

 and his mane into a stubborn brush. But the true 

 principle for man in morals, as in everything else, is 

 to let alone. 



Stablemen are not often blessed with a very keen 

 perception of the beautiful in externals ; and their 

 attempts at decoration in the case of the horse are 

 generally extremely unfortunate. Many of their 

 operations consist in removing something supposed 

 to be noxious or superfluous. To judge of their 

 propriety it is necessary to consider briefly the uses 

 and properties of 



HAIR. 



It is intended to keep the animal warm, and be- 

 ing a slow conductor of heat, is well adapted for 



