OURSELVES, AND OTHERS 205 



The horse is no track star, with a record 

 somewhere within hailing distance of two 

 minutes, but a two-sixty or three-minute 

 fellow, such as the average American citizen 

 likes to drives behind, with wife or daughter 

 at his side the daughter to-day, one would 

 say, her face bright with the joy and ex- 

 hilaration of rapid motion. With head erect, 

 and large eyes filled with generous emula- 

 tion, the native roadster flashes past the 

 heavy-moving trap, and breasts the incline at 

 a pace the mere beholding of which warms 

 the blood. He carries what Colonel Dodge, 

 one of the great equine authorities on this 

 side, would describe as ' a poem of a tail/ in 

 a proud arch. Of the admirably quiet and 

 tasteful harness there is as little as is com- 

 patible with safety ; the unused whip rests in 

 the socket. Another moment, and the most 

 perfect turn-out civilization has yet evolved 

 spins over the crest of the hill and is gone. 

 Such joys as these are distinctly native pro- 

 ducts. Why, when he is so proud of native 

 produce, does the American abandon them 

 for lower pleasures the pleasure, for in- 

 stance, of imitation, of reducing everything 



