276 A WELCOME SORT OF GHOST. 



cuinstances of life, the dread of an event is often 

 more horrible than the realisation itself. Many a 

 man, who has worked himself into a fever and high 

 state of nervous irritability during the night from 

 the apprehension of an operation in the morning, has 

 borne that operation firmly, and allowed his fears 

 had greatly exceeded the reality. Fear is a most 

 powerful agent, and, where it is once awakened, a 

 most difficult one to tranquillise. With horses a 

 minute awakens fear that years will not eradicate. 

 We cannot reason with them, or explain away the 

 cause of their alarm ; so, if any irrational animal is 

 once hurt by any thing he sees or hears, or is 

 seriously alarmed by it, hearing or seeing the same 

 thing without sustaining any injury from it a 

 hundred times afterwards barely suffices to re-assure 

 his fears of it. Frighten a boy by the appearance of 

 a ghost, he is alarmed : throw off the sheet, and let 

 him see it was his sister dressed up, his alarm is 

 gone ; nay, he would probably think less of ghosts 

 in future. We can do this with animals; but, in 

 educating them, nothing but length of time can over- 

 come terror ; and till terror is assuaged, they have 

 not even the instinct nature gave them. 



Ladies may fancy that if a horse has a tender 

 mouth, there can be no fear of his going off with 

 them : he would not on any ordinary occasion or 

 under any ordinary excitement : if, however, he gets 

 frightened, mouth will avail nothing: he becomes 

 totally insensible to pain. The more timid therefore 

 he is, the more dangerous he is ; and, vice versa, the 

 more courageous the more safe. Why are veterans 

 more to be depended on than raw troops ? Mainly 



