I suppose you thought I was dead? No such thing. Don’t flatter
yourselves that I haven’t got my eye upon you. I am wide awake, and you
give me plenty to look at.
I have begun my great work about you. I have been collecting materials
from the Horse, to begin with. You are glad to hear it, ain’t you? Very
likely. Oh, he gives you a nice character! He makes you out a charming
set of fellows.
He informs me, by the bye, that he is a distant relation of the pony
that was taken up in a balloon a few weeks ago; and that the pony’s
account of your going to see him at Vauxhall Gardens, is an amazing
thing. The pony says, that when he looked round on the assembled crowd,
come to see the realisation of the wood-cut in the bill, he found it
impossible to discover which was the real Mister Green—there were so
many Mister Greens—and they were all so very green!
But, that’s the way with you. You know it is. Don’t tell me! You’d go to
see anything that other people went to see. And don’t flatter yourselves
that I am referring to “the vulgar curiosity,” as you choose to call it,
when you mean some curiosity in which you don’t participate yourselves.
The polite curiosity in this country, is as vulgar as any curiosity in
the world.
Of course you’ll tell me, no it isn’t, but I say yes it is. What have
you got to say for yourselves about the Nepaulese Princes, I should like
to know? Why, there has been more crowding, and pressing, and pushing,
and jostling, and struggling, and striving, in genteel houses this last
season, on account of those Nepaulese Princes, than would take place in
vulgar Cremorne Gardens and Greenwich Park, at Easter time and
Whitsuntide! And what for? Do you know anything about ’em? Have you any
idea why they came here? Can you put your finger on their country in the
map? Have you ever asked yourselves a dozen common questions about its
climate, natural history, government, productions, customs, religion,
manners? Not you! Here are a couple of swarthy Princes very much out of
their element, walking about in wide muslin trousers, and sprinkled all
over with gems (like the clock-work figure on the old round platform in
the street, grown up), and they’re fashionable outlandish monsters, and
it’s a new excitement for you to get a stare at ’em. As to asking ’em to
dinner, and seeing ’em sit at table without eating in your company
(unclean animals as you are!), you fall into raptures at that. Quite
delicious, isn’t it? Ugh, you dunder-headed boobies!
I wonder what there is, new and strange, that you _wouldn’t_ lionise, as
you call it. Can you suggest anything? It’s not a hippopotamus, I
suppose. I hear from my brother-in-law in the Zoological Gardens, that
you are always pelting away into the Regent’s Park, by thousands, to see
the hippopotamus. Oh, you’re very fond of hippopotami, ain’t you? You
study one attentively, when you _do_ see one, don’t you? You come away,
so much wiser than you went, reflecting so profoundly on the wonders of
creation—eh?
Bah! You follow one another like wild geese, but you are not so good to
eat!
These, however, are not the observations of my friend the Horse. _He_
takes you, in another point of view. Would you like to read his
contribution to my Natural History of you? No? You shall then.
He is a Cab-horse now. He wasn’t always, but he is now, and his usual
stand is close to our Proprietor’s usual stand. That’s the way we have
come into communication, we “dumb animals.” Ha, ha! Dumb, too! Oh, the
conceit of you men, because you can bother the community out of their
five wits, by making speeches!
Well. I mentioned to this Horse that I should be glad to have his
opinions and experiences of you. Here they are:
“At the request of my honourable friend the Raven, I proceed to offer
a few remarks in reference to the animal called Man. I have had varied
experience of this strange creature for fifteen years, and am now
driven by a Man, in the hackney cabriolet, number twelve thousand four
hundred and fifty-two.
“The sense Man entertains of his own inferiority to the nobler
animals—and I am now more particularly referring to the Horse—has
impressed me forcibly, in the course of my career. If a Man knows a
Horse well, he is prouder of it than of any knowledge of himself,
within the range of his limited capacity. He regards it, as the sum of
all human acquisition. If he is learned in a Horse, he has nothing
else to learn. And the same remark applies, with some little
abatement, to his acquaintance with Dogs. I have seen a good deal of
Man in my time, but I think I have never met a Man who didn’t feel it
necessary to his reputation to pretend, on occasion, that he knew
something of Horses and Dogs, though he really knew nothing. As to
making us a subject of conversation, my opinion is that we are more
talked about, than history, philosophy, literature, art, and science,
all put together. I have encountered innumerable gentlemen in the
country, who were totally incapable of interest in anything but Horses
and Dogs—except Cattle. And I have always been given to understand
that they were the flower of the civilised world.
“It is very doubtful, to me, whether there is, upon the whole,
anything Man is so ambitious to imitate, as an ostler, a jockey, a
stage coachman, a horse-dealer, or a dog-fancier. There may be some
other character which I do not immediately remember, that fires him
with emulation; but, if there be, I am sure it is connected with
Horses, or Dogs, or both. This is an unconscious compliment, on the
part of the tyrant, to the nobler animals, which I consider to be very
remarkable. I have known Lords, and Baronets, and Members of
Parliament, out of number, who have deserted every other calling, to
become but indifferent stablemen or kennelmen, and be cheated on all
hands, by the real aristocracy of those pursuits who were regularly
born to the business.
“Ail this, I say, is a tribute to our superiority which I consider to
be very remarkable. Yet, still, I can’t quite understand it. Man can
hardly devote himself to us, in admiration of our virtues, because he
never imitates them. We Horses are as honest, though I say it, as
animals can be. If, under the pressure of circumstances, we submit to
act at a Circus, for instance, we always show that we are acting. We
never deceive anybody. We would scorn to do it. If we are called upon
to do anything in earnest, we do our best. If we are required to run a
race falsely, and to lose when we could win, we are not to be relied
upon, to commit a fraud; Man must come in at that point, and force us
to it. And the extraordinary circumstance to me, is, that Man (whom I
take to be a powerful species of Monkey) is always making us nobler
animals the instruments of his meanness and cupidity. The very name of
our kind has become a byeword for all sorts of trickery and cheating.
We are as innocent as counters at a game—and yet this creature WILL
play falsely with us!
“Man’s opinion, good or bad, is not worth much, as any rational Horse
knows. But, justice is justice; and what I complain of, is, that
Mankind talks of us as if We had something to do with all this. They
say that such a man was ‘ruined by Horses.’ Ruined by Horses! They
can’t be open, even in that, and say he was ruined by Men; but they
lay it at _our_ stable-door! As if we ever ruined anybody, or were
ever doing anything but being ruined ourselves, in our generous desire
to fulfil the useful purposes of our existence!
“In the same way, we get a bad name as if we were profligate company.
‘So and so got among Horses, and it was all up with him.’ Why, _we_
would have reclaimed him—_we_ would have made him temperate,
industrious, punctual, steady, sensible—what harm would he ever have
got from _us_, I should wish to ask?
“Upon the whole, speaking of him as I have found him, I should
describe Man as an unmeaning and conceited creature, very seldom to be
trusted, and not likely to make advances towards the honesty of the
nobler animals. I should say that his power of warping the nobler
animals to bad purposes, and damaging their reputation by his
companionship, is, next to the art of growing oats, hay, carrots, and
clover, one of his principal attributes. He is very unintelligible in
his caprices; seldom expressing with distinctness what he wants of us;
and relying greatly on our better judgment to find out. He is cruel,
and fond of blood—particularly at a steeple-chase—and is very
ungrateful.
“And yet, so far as I can understand, he worships us too. He sets up
images of us (not particularly like, but meant to be) in the streets,
and calls upon his fellows to admire them, and believe in them. As
well as I can make out, it is not of the least importance what images
of Men are put astride upon these images of Horses, for I don’t find
any famous personage among them—except one, and _his_ image seems to
have been contracted for, by the gross. The jockeys who ride our
statues are very queer jockeys, it appears to me, but it is something
to find Man even posthumously sensible of what he owes to us. I
believe that when he has done any great wrong to any very
distinguished Horse, deceased, he gets up a subscription to have an
awkward likeness of him made, and erects it in a public place, to be
generally venerated. I can find no other reason for the statues of us
that abound.
“It must be regarded as a part of the inconsistency of Man, that he
erects no statues to the Donkeys—who, though far inferior animals to
ourselves, have great claims upon him. I should think a Donkey
opposite the Horse at Hyde Park, another in Trafalgar Square, and a
group of Donkeys, in brass, outside the Guildhall of the City of
London (for I believe the Common Council Chamber is inside that
building) would be pleasant and appropriate memorials.
“I am not aware that I can suggest anything more, to my honorable
friend the Raven, which will not already have occurred to his fine
intellect. Like myself, he is the victim of brute force, and must bear
it until the present state of things is changed—as it possibly may be
in the good time which I understand is coming, if I wait a little
longer.”
There! How do you like that? That’s the Horse! You shall have another
animal’s sentiments, soon. I have communicated with plenty ’of em, and
they are all down upon you. It’s not I alone who have found you out. You
are generally detected, I am happy to say, and shall be covered with
confusion.
Talking about the horse, are you going to set up any more horses? Eh?
Think a bit. Come! You haven’t got horses enough yet, surely? Couldn’t
you put somebody else on horseback, and stick him up, at the cost of a
few thousands? You have already statues to most of the “benefactors of
mankind,” (SEE ADVERTISEMENT) in your principal cities. You walk through
groves of great inventors, instructors, discoverers, assuagers of pain,
preventers of disease, suggesters of purifying thoughts, doers of noble
deeds. Finish the list. Come!
Whom will you hoist into the saddle? Let’s have a cardinal virtue! Shall
it be Faith? Hope? Charity? Aye, Charity’s the virtue to ride on
horseback! Let’s have Charity!
How shall we represent it? Eh? What do you think? Royal? Certainly.
Duke? Of course. Charity always was typified in that way, from the time
of a certain widow, downwards. And there’s nothing less left to put up;
all the commoners who were “benefactors of mankind” having had their
statues in the public places, long ago.
How shall we dress it? Rags? Low. Drapery? Common-place. Field-Marshal’s
uniform? The very thing! Charity in a Field-Marshal’s uniform (none the
worse for wear) with thirty thousand pounds a year, public money, in its
pocket, and fifteen thousand more, public money, up behind, will be a
piece of plain uncompromising truth in the highways, and an honor to the
country and the time.
Ha, ha, ha! You can’t leave the memory of an unassuming, honest,
good-natured, amiable old Duke alone, without bespattering it with your
flunkeyism, can’t you? That’s right—and like you! Here are three brass
buttons in my crop. I’ll subscribe ’em all. One, to the statue of
Charity; one, to a statue of Hope; one, to a statue of Faith. For Faith,
we’ll have the Nepaulese Ambassador on horseback—being a prince. And for
Hope, we’ll put the Hippopotamus on horseback, and so make a group.
Let’s have a meeting about it!