“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 [pg 595] found him, I should describe man as an unmeaning and conceited creature, very seldom to be trusted, and not likely to make advances toward 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 Guild-hall 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 any thing 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? Ay, 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 downward. 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.