"Poor fellow!" his driver says,--"it is like our having to pass a plate
of peaches. Let him have a bite."

And so we wait while he grazes awhile. It is the same thing when we
cross a brook, and Soldier pauses in it to cool his feet and look at his
reflection in the water.

"Perhaps he wants a drink. We won't hurry him. We will let him see that
we can afford to wait."

If he had not come to that conclusion from the very start, he must have
believed human beings were miracles of patience and forbearance.

I could write a fine dissertation upon Kate's foolish fondness and her
blind indulgence. I could show that these are the great failings of her
sex, and prove how very much more rational _my_ sex would be in like
circumstances. But I find it too pleasant to be the recipient of such
favors myself just now, to find fault. Wait until I do not need woman's
tenderness, and then I'll abuse it famously. I will say then, that she
is weak, foolish, imprudent; I will say, she kills with kindness, spoils
with indulgence, and all that; but just now I will say nothing.

In one thing I think her kindness very sensible,--she uses no
check-rein. I think with Sir Francis Head, that all horses are handsomer
with their heads held as Nature pleases. I pity the poor creatures when
I see them turning to one side and the other, to find a little relief
in change of position. To restrain horses thus, who have heavy loads to
pull, is the height of folly, as a waste of power.