DEFINITIVE SYNTHESIS. 437 



tions happy, and, should they be so, it would be imprudent to consider 

 them even as accidental signs of beauty, for that beauty is not of the 

 kind which satisfies the eye of the competent man, which indicates the 

 perfect adaptation of the thing to the end for which it is intended, 



And still, how many people become the victims of this fancy and 

 sacrifice everything to pride and to appearance! It is in good style, for 

 example, to have a team composed of horses of the same form and of the 

 same color. You go to select them from a horse-dealer. He is ever so 

 ready to satisfy your wishes, but especially the above, since you have 

 begun by laying great stress upon them. What happens then ? It 

 happens that, in most instances, as it is almost impossible to find two 

 subjects absolutely identical in other respects than the two you have 

 mentioned, he will supply you with horses which will be a match 

 neither in the gait nor vigor, energy, solidity, dressing, etc. And for 

 the sake of being able to display a team exactly uniform in relation to 

 color and size, you will have ignored defects, vices of character, or 

 some other grave imperfection ! 



Very fortunately, it is the people of means, consequently the very 

 small minority, who thus make themselves slaves to the fancies and 

 whims of their period. Indeed, there is perhaps no great harm in 

 their doing so ; all horses must needs be utilized, and it is better, on 

 the whole, that the bad ones should fall to the lot of those who only 

 use them for public display. 



Concerning horses, fashion, like prejudice, has tendencies which we 

 must struggle against, for it only gives to the horse superficial qual- 

 ities, of quite a transient kind, sought after to-day and condemned 

 to-morrow, according to the arbitrary conventionalities of the moment. 

 All such practices should be deprecated, were it but to save the horse 

 from the senseless tastes of a few renowned ladies of the demi-monde 

 or of pretentious and ignorant idlers ! 



