MORGAN HORSE: HIS RELATION TO BREEDING. 293 



distinctively theirs. Messenger was a remarkable horse ; 

 and America owes him more than words can express : 

 but Messenger lacked one thing, — the power to take of 

 other bloods, and dominate them, stamping them with 

 his imperial likeness. Diomed was a wonderful animal, 

 after my way of thinking, ranking on a level with Mes- 

 senger ; in no respect inferior. But Diomed lacked that 

 royal something, which, when existing in a horse, makes 

 all other families tributary to himself, — that power to 

 absorb, and not be absorbed ; to allow turbid currents 

 to be mingled with the stream of his life, and yet flow 

 on in the same pure majesty. This, neither Diomed 

 nor Messenger nor Bashaw, nor any other imported 

 horse from which we trace our trotting-action, ever 

 had. Their colts were of all sizes and colors and tem- 

 peraments and structural formation. One would be 

 coarse-limbed, big-headed, and rat-tailed, like Abdallah ; 

 another would have the countenance of a Barb, and 

 limbs like an Arab's. They were all royal ; but none 

 were kingly. Not one builded a throne and founded a 

 nation whose population were abundant, and all his chil- 

 dren. But Justin Morgan did this thing. He stands 

 the progenitor of a mighty race, spread over all the land 

 from Maine to California ; and, wherever you find a Mor- 

 gan horse, — whether in city or country. East or West, 

 North or South, — you know that he is a Morgan horse. 

 One glance is enough: color, shape, style, limbs, feet, 

 head, all suggest the little horse from which he lineally 

 descended, — Justin Morgan. Men say he had no 



