For if one is alone one can sleep where one
chooses and walk at one's ease, and eat what God sends one and spend
what one has; but when one is responsible for any other being
(especially a horse) there come in a thousand farradiddles, for of
everything that walks on earth, man (not woman--I use the word in
the restricted sense) is the freest and the most unhappy.
Well, then, I was riding my horse and exploring the Island of
England, going eastward of a summer afternoon, and I had so ridden
along the ridge of the hills for some miles when I came, as chance
would have it, upon a very extraordinary being.
He was a man like myself, but his horse, which was grazing by his
side, and from time to time snorting in a proud manner, was quite
unlike my own. This horse had all the strength of the horses of
Normandy, all the lightness, grace, and subtlety of the horses of
Barbary, all the conscious value of the horses that race for rich
men, all the humour of old horses that have seen the world and will
be disturbed by nothing, and all the valour of young horses who have
their troubles before them, and race round in paddocks attempting to
defeat the passing trains. I say all these things were in the horse,
and expressed by various movements of his body, but the list of
these qualities is but a hint of the way in which he bore himself;
for it was quite clearly apparent as I came nearer and nearer to
this strange pair that the horse before me was very different (as
perhaps was the man) from the beings that inhabit this island.
Pages:
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163