KINDNESS 



friends. Make him understand that you are his 

 best and wisest, that all you do conduces to his 

 comfort and happiness, be careful at first not to 

 deceive or disappoint him, and you will find his 

 reasoning powers quite strong enough to grasp 

 the relations of cause and effect. 



In a month or six weeks he will come to your 

 call, and follow you about like a dog. Soon he 

 will let you lift his feet, handle him all over, pull 

 his tail, and lean your weight on any part of 

 his body, without alarm or resentment. When 

 thoroughly familiar with your face, your voice, and 

 the motions of your limbs, you may back him 

 with perfect safety, and he will move as soberly 

 under you in any place to which he is accustomed 

 as the oldest horse in your stable. 



Do not forget, however, that education should 

 be gradual as moon-rise, perceptible, not in pro- 

 gress, but result. I recollect one morning riding 

 to covert with a Dorsetshire farmer whose horses, 

 bred at home, were celebrated as timber-jumpers 

 even in that most timber-jumping of countries. I 

 asked him how they arrived at this proficiency 

 without breaking somebody's neck, and he im- 

 parted his plan. 



The colt, it seemed, ran loose from a yearling 

 in the owner's straw-yard, but fed in a lofty out- 

 house, across the door of which was placed a 

 single tough ashen bar that would not break under 



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