Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/293

Rh destitute of gloss and grace, and forget all our circus manners.

That which the grooming and breaking-in are to a horse, that culture is to a man, a sacrifice of freedom. The lower classes of men, the great undisciplined, or imperfectly disciplined bulk of mankind look on at the easy motions and trained grace of the higher classes, with much the same puzzlement as would a cluster of wild ponies stand and watch the passing of a cavalcade of elaborately-trained horses. Both would be equally ignorant of the amount of self-abnegation and submission to rule which go to give ease and gloss.

According to a Mussulman legend, the Queen of Sheba had some smack of savagery about her; she had goat's hair on her ankles. King Solomon heard this by report, and being desirous of ascertaining the truth, he had water poured over the pavement of his court when she came to visit him. As she approached she raised her skirt, and Solomon detected the goat's hair.

There are a good many men as well as women who appear in the best courts nowadays with hair about their hocks; they have been insufficiently groomed. But in this they differ from the Queen of Sheba, that they persistently show us their hocks, and even thrust them in our faces. Merciful powers! how many half-broken, ill-trimmed cobs I have met with, kicking up their undocked heels, showing us that they can jump over poles and overleap hurdles, that they can balance themselves on chairs, and dance and rear on their hind legs, and paw the air, and whinny for applause. We politely pat our palms, and look all the while, not at their antics, but at their hocks, not at all impressed with their silver and spangled trappings, but very conscious of the hair about their hoofs.

It is the fashion for moralists to hold up their hands, and shake their heads, and declaim against the artificialities, the