PREFACE. xxv 



time a picture of the racer, as the human eye perceives him at full stretch, has 

 never yet been put on paper, though Herring in one direction and John Charlton 

 in another have approached the nearest. The rest are beautiful if you like, and 

 often succeed admirably in conveying the desired impression; but they are not 

 true ; and I have often wondered when it will be possible to get a picture which 

 will preserve the truth of the instantaneous photograph, and will yet appeal to 

 that combination of judgment and attention which is implied in our " seeing " 

 anything. It is easy to suggest how the accepted artistic convention for a galloping 

 horse arose. When an artist draws a wheel we let him give us the idea of pace 

 by putting in some extra fifty spokes, because few of us are quite clear how many 

 spokes a wheel should really have. But he cannot use the same simple method 

 in depicting a gallop, because the intelligence of the youngest of his spectators 

 would revolt at any drawing of a horse with more than four legs. So the artist 

 went to the animal that was most commonly to be seen running, the dog. He 

 gave the horse the same action to convey the idea of pace, and his spectators 

 were satisfied to see Ormonde s legs in the same position as those of " Fullerton." 

 They have been satisfied ever since. 



It has often occurred to me that by a skilful combination of the mechanism of the 

 biograph with the known properties of the human retina a picture of the racehorse at 

 full stretch as -we see him might for the first time be put on paper by some enthusiastic 

 scientist. The machine registers a great many more separate actions in a single second 

 than the eye can distinguish ; but, as the capacity of each is known, it ought to be 

 possible to print upon one plate the exact number of " biograph movements " which 

 occur in the space of time necessary for the passage of a single impression through 

 the eye to the brain. Luckily " sight " is a composite matter, and until a few years 

 ago the artist had as much to say as anyone about what we all "saw "coming round 

 Tattenham Corner on a Derby Day. Then the instantaneous photographer began 

 to contribute an entirely new factor, and with his subtle assistance we are already 

 beginning to "see "many motions in the galloping horse which our grandfathers 

 would have scouted as impossible. I have given one example of instantaneous 

 photography, in the pages of this Preface, which may be compared with Herring's 

 painting of The F/ying Dutchman at full speed, one of the masterpieces in Lord 

 Rosebery's collection. 



I cannot help feeling a good deal of sympathy with a large number of sportsmen 

 who prefer a good photograph of a thoroughbred at rest to anything else ; and to 



VOL. I. 



