Twenty-nine
The beauty of horses, timid creatures, sensitive and graceful and irrational as young girls, is a thing apart; and what is strange is that their vast strength does not seem incongruous with it. To be above that proud and lovely organism, listening, apprehensive, palpitating, nervous far beyond the human, to feel one’s self almost part of it by intimate contact, to yield to it, and make it yield, to draw from it into one’s self some of its exultant vitality—in a word, to ride—I can comprehend a fine enthusiasm for that.
Thirty
The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided into two classes, according to its method and manner of complete immersion in water. One class, the more dashing, dashes into a cold tub every morning. Another, the more cleanly, sedately takes a warm bath every Saturday night. There can be no doubt that the former class lends tone and distinction to the country, but the latter is the nation’s backbone.
Thirty-one
Although you may easily practise upon the credulity of a child in matters of fact, you cannot cheat his moral and social judgment. He will add you up, and he will add anybody up, and he will estimate conduct, upon principles of his own and in a manner terribly impartial. Parents have no sterner nor more discerning critics than their own children.
[39]
April
One
A person’s character is, and can be, nothing else but the total result of his habits of thought.