Out then burst the mother's heart
             Betwixt a groan and a cry:
          "Oh, daughter, thy husband lieth here
             With dead and closed eye!

          "My child, I sought to hide the truth
             Till you had stronger grown.
          Oh, I have played a weary part,
             And all must now be known!"

          The young wife sank upon the grave,
             And lay as though in sleep:
          Of all who gathered about her there
             Not one could cease to weep.

          They took her back into the house,
             And laid her on the bed;
          But long before the night had come,
             They saw that she was dead.

EQUINE ANALOGIES.

THE Horse, even more than Literature, is
the expression of the society in which he
exists. " Tell me what sort of horse a people
have," exclaims M. Toussenel (whom we
continue to quote), " and I will tell you the
manners and institutions of that people. The
history of the horse is the history of the human
race; for the horse is the personification of the
aristocracy of blood—the warrior caste; and
all societies of men, alas! have been obliged
to pass through a period of oppression by the
warrior caste. I strongly advise all Professors
of History to open their ears attentively.
There is only one horse in the world—that
is to say, one real horse, the Arab horse. I
am aware that the world is full of ambitious
quadrupeds, which unlawfully assume the
title; but the place of the majority of these
usurpers could be easily supplied by steam or
the camel."

The real horse is the emblem of the true
gentleman. So perfect is the resemblance
between the two types, that there can be no
dispute about their analogical relationship.
Either the Arab horse signifies the cavalier,
or he has nothing at all to say for himself.
Observe, in fact, how the animal seems
to pant for war in every movement of his
body and every aspiration of his soul. His
burning nostrils expand and smoke; his
impatient feet tear up the ground; his ardent
eye darts lightning, and devours space; his
mouth champs the bit, and whitens it with
foam; his elegant and dishevelled mane
undulates and rises as his passions boil; his tail
expands into a fan-like plume. He displays
self-adulation and pride before the eyes of the
crowd, and prances at the sound of his own
praises. Listen to the shrill neigh which is
the declaration of his jealous fury; hear that
voice, which is more warlike than even the
trumpet itself. It is ever a provocation to
combat, a menace of death. If you cannot
recognise in these features the legendary
knight, the hero of the crusades, the cavalier
with glittering arms and floating plumes,
anxious only to shine and to please—thirsting
for tournaments, perils, pomp, and din—
M. Toussenel will not waste words upon you.

The wild horse, who is still master at the
present day of a good third of the terrestrial
surface of the globe, also bears the haughty
character, the warlike habits, and the chivalrous
manners of the Arab courser; but it
would be unfair to require of him that
exquisite grace of carriage, that courtesy of
behaviour, that richness of condition, that
elegance, in short, which education alone and
contact with the great world are able to
communicate. Speed itself is a quality which is
completely developed in the horse, only under
the influence and care of Man. It is well
known that the entire space which stretches
from the banks of the Danube to the frontier
of China—that is to say, all the central plain
of Asia, and the region of the steppes, belong
to the horse in complete sovereignty; and
that in America his domains embrace the
immeasurable solitudes of the prairies in the
North, and of the pampas in the South—from
the banks of the Amazon to the fields of
Patagonia; and that, not content with reigning
over so vast an extent of territory, the
ambitious animal has lately planted his foot on
the lands of Australia and Polynesia. The
sun never sets on the present empire of the
horse. This empire, greater than that of
Charles V. or Genghis Khan, greater than
those of England and of Rome, is cut up and
parcelled out into a myriad of little aristocratic
republics, authority in which—the
source of endless combats—lapses by right to
the strongest for the time being. So many
cantons, so many chiefs; exactly as, during
the feudal system of the Middle Ages, so
many manors, so many states. There, young
stallions who aspire to power strive to render
themselves worthy of it by brilliant actions,
and ordinarily commence their career of
glory by the slaughter of a wolf. In the
steppes of Russia it is not rare to see a
two-year-old colt rush singly to attack a band of
four or five wolves, kill one or two of them,
lame the rest, and spread the terror of his
name throughout the country. The wild
horse strikes with his fore feet, like the stag,
and not with his hind legs, as is popularly
believed. He draws himself up to his full
height against his enemy, pounds him beneath
his murderous pestles, then seizes him
between the shoulders with his formidable
incisors, and tosses him to his mares to make
sport for themselves and their offspring. The
mare herself requires very little pressing to
fly to the combat whenever danger looks
impending. War is the element of the species.

It is impossible to deny the identity of the
passional dominant in the gentleman and the
charger, when we remember that, of all
animals, the thoroughbred horse is the only
one, till very lately, possessing a genealogical
tree;—when we see a horse parading himself
on public occasions, like an Austrian