58 MEMOIR. 



moved up a little, and the shout went up, "Thorne has 

 it," but Saunders shook Clingstone, and he responding, 

 recovered his lead of a throat-latch ; then Turner drew 

 his whip, and its sharp hiss through the air proved the 

 earnest manner in which it was wielded. Thorne, the 

 gamest race-horse that ever lived, responded to every 

 stroke, but the machine beside him could not be beaten, 

 and won in 2:14. Thorne is a great race horse, with 

 the ardent impulses, sympathies and passions that make 

 him akin to a man with the true instincts of a sportsman. 

 All that a mighty purpose, a grand passion can accom- 

 plish, he can do ; but he is flesh and blood, limited and 

 bound down to the possibilities of physical attainment. 

 He can not beat an automaton, a piece of mechanical per- 

 fection that goes on and on forever, who is moved by 

 neither passion or impulse. Cool, imperturbable, impas- 

 sive, the smooth, even piston-like stroke of this Flying 

 Dutchman among horses breaks the heart of all opposi- 

 tion. I doubt whether he is a real flesh and blood horse ; 

 he is a wraith, a ghost, a Satanic invention. Men are 

 consumed with an insane passion to own the fastest trotter 

 in the world. Some one, careless of the future, has 

 placed his soul in pawn, and the result is what we call 

 Clingstone. The great enemy of mankind must be cir- 

 cumvented before he can be beaten. Maud S., St. Julien, 

 Trinket, have no show to beat him, until cope and stole, 

 and book and ring, have exorcised the demon that pos- 

 sesses him. 



"Second Heat — A long skirmish for an advantage, 

 which resulted in a slight lead on the send-off for Thorne, 

 now began the bitterest struggle I have ever seen on a 

 race-track. Thome's partisans shouted that he had him, 

 but Clingstone still kept his nose in the gap between 



