SEAT 



conclusions with the spectre ; and, Hke antagonists 

 of some automaton chess-player, retired defeated 

 and dismayed. 



For this universal failure, one could neither 

 blame the men nor the military system taught in 

 their schools. It stands to reason that human 

 wind and^ muscle must sooner or later succumb 

 to mechanical force. The inventor himself ex- 

 pressed surprise at the consummate horsemanship 

 displayed by many of his fallen visitors, and ad- 

 mitted that more than one rough-rider would have 

 tired out and subjugated any living creature of 

 real flesh and blood ; while the essayists univer- 

 sally declared the imitation so perfect, that at no 

 period of the struggle could they believe they 

 were contending with clock-work, rather than the 

 natural efforts of some wild unbroken colt. 



But those who succeeded best, I remarked (and 

 I speak with some little experience, having myself 

 been indebted to the mattresses in my turn), were 

 the horsemen who, allowing their loins to play 

 freely, yielding more or less to every motion of the 

 figure, did not trust exclusively for firmness of 

 seat to the clasp of their knees and thighs. The 

 mere balance-rider had not a chance ; the athlete 

 who stuck on by main force found himself hurled 

 into the air, with a violence proportioned to his 

 own stubborn resistance ; but the artist who 

 judiciously combined strength with skill, giving a 

 H 95 



