BREAMS AND DELUSIONS. 101 



with, to show how harmless and inanimate it is, then allow the 

 animal deliberately to look at the object, sniff at it, perhaps 

 also kick it or trample on it, until familiarity begets a con- 

 tempt for it as a terrifying object and the animal thereby 

 realises the fact that it has committed an error of timidity. 

 The result in such a case is, probably, that the horse, con- 

 vinced of its blunder, satisfied of the utter innocuousness 

 of the supposed dreadful, or of the mysterious, object, trots 

 briskly forward and shows no fear of the next fluttering 

 piece of paper, whose real qualities, or nature, it has learned 

 by experience to recognise or appreciate. 



But now suppose the rider of the same horse, under the 

 same circumstances, not to be intelligent, or experienced, 

 sympathetic, humane, or judicious. Let us regard him, 

 as what he too frequently is, alas! inexperienced and un- 

 intelligent, some tipsy, impatient, irritable, ignorant, in- 

 different boor. Annoyed at the animal's hesitancy, looking 

 upon its shyness and shying as a mere vice of temper, to be 

 corrected by firmness or punishment, determined to assert 

 his own supremacy, he lashes and spurs the frightened brute 

 up to, and past the object of its terror. The animal protests 

 by every means in its power, rears, plunges, backs, tries to 

 throw its rider; but finding all these efforts fruitless, 

 goaded into fury by ill-usage, all but 'frightened out of its 

 wits ' by abject terror, or horror, the animal rushes off at 

 full gallop, in desperation, possibly in unconcern, almost in 

 unconsciousness, far past the cause of all its groundless 

 alarm. The next bit of paper, in this case, produces a 

 repetition of the scene, and the incident happens so fre- 

 quently, that the animal acquires a ' character ' for dangerous 

 skittishness, the result wholly of man's evil usage, until its 

 owner is glad, at any sacrifice, to part with his, perhaps once 

 favourite horse, on account of a supposed incorrigible vice. 



If even yet, under a new proprietor, the animal is but 

 treated kindly and judiciously, all will, or at least may, 

 probably go on well : the morbid dread may be, sooner or 

 later, eradicated, or corrected. But under other circum- 

 stances, a morbid fear of moving bits of paper, or of other 

 white objects in motion, may possess the animal for life, and 



