IV. 



HORSEMANSHIP 



1. 



The horse is undoubtedly the noblest of all the 

 four-footed animals that minister to the needs 

 of man. There are nevertheless many estimable 

 persons to whose imagination this particular 

 quadruped makes little or no appeal; who find 

 its society singularly uninteresting; who do not 

 know what on earth to say to it (except " Woa !" 

 and " Gee up !") when they see it. 



It is, of course, a mere platitude to assert 

 that the appreciation of horses is an hereditary 

 rather than an acquired taste. The simple fact 

 of being born with bandy legs is not sufficient 

 to enable a man to feel thoroughly at home in 

 a loose-box, unless he is also naturally imbued 

 with that passion for horseflesh which ex- 

 presses itself in tight trousers, short side- 

 whiskers, and a certain obliquity of moral 

 vision that seems inevitably to infect those 

 who spend the greater portion of their existence 

 in the stable-yard. 



104 



