502 
JKKOMK BUCK. 
while for us as a nation persistently to renew and maintain an in¬ 
terest in the cultivation of the fields, so surely we should do what 
we may to care for and develop the horse. His strength and his 
speed, his fidelity and his docility will take care of themselves if 
only we will not thwart his natural tendencies. His speed as well 
as his strength, taking as much care not to overdraw upon his 
speed as not to overtax his strength. 
With such disposition towards him we may hold a good race 
an exponent of advancement in social life, well up with, not in 
the rear and out of sight of an exhibition of the fine arts. The 
part which the two-legged animal has taken in the past, perhaps 
not in the immediate past in what is known as a race, often has 
deserved reprobation. But the share of the four-legged in that 
institution is altogether to his credit. Injustice, as is often the 
case, has marked man’s treatment of the subject by his attributing 
to a silent friend, faults which he should have avowed to be his 
own. Some of those philosophers who think that man assumes 
that the visible creation is, as between him and these dumber 
animals, all prepared and designed for him rather than for them 
in part without satisfying proof to justify his arrogance, would 
probably say, therefore, that he is often unjust to them bot > 
ways. He claims more than his due, and shuns censure by falsi¬ 
fying about the fault. This, however, involves a question which 
you do not expect me to decide, or even to seem wise about. I 
am not sure that the undistinguishing use of a common term like 
‘ beast’ to describe various kinds of quadrupeds, helps to do injus¬ 
tice to the horse. In its secondary sense, this word, for example, 
carries a meaning which we would hardly select to describe an 
amiable personal friend. May-be something of a lack of gener¬ 
osity in man; an exaggeration of his own merits at another’s ex¬ 
pense, is to be found even here. Certain it is that, whoever wrote 
“ The nobler spirit bore the load, 
The beast, it was that spurred and rode,” 
did not draw an unparalleled picture. 
But really, we may sincerely enough regard Longfellow with 
something of the feeling with which we cherish the poet from 
whom he took his name, and for Dexter reserve a little of that 
