ON PARADE—A REPRESENTATIVE CLASS OF ONE OF NEW YORK’S RIDING SCHOOLS.
In a later edition of the “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table,” from which the foregoing quotation is made, Dr. Holmes adds in a foot note: “Since the days when this was written, the bicycle has appeared as the rival of the wherry. The boat flies like a sea bird with its long, narrow, outstretched pinions; the bicycle rider, like feathered Mercury with his wings on his feet.”
THE GIRL OF THE PERIOD CAN RIDE AS WELL AS DANCE.
These are eloquent tributes to boating and to cycling, and well deserved they are; but after all, for refined sport in its highest development one must turn to that most exhilarating of all pleasures—horseback riding. That this view is held by those whose income is sufficient to warrant the indulgence of their tastes is evidenced by the enormous growth in horsemanship in America within the last few years. It is hardly too much to say that it is now regarded as quite as important in a social sense for young men and young women to be proficient in riding as in dancing. Rowing, yachting, swimming, and tennis, it is true, share its popularity in the midsummer months, but riding is an all the year round sport—a sport that in the cool months of spring and fall, and the colder months of winter, has no rival among all the forms of outdoor exercise. And, indeed, I know of no other pleasure on a brisk, cool day that gives the physical invigoration, the keen enjoyment, and the ruddy glow to be obtained from a gallop in the park. But to get the fullest pleasure the rider must be well mounted and well trained in his art. He should have his own horse—an animal with light, springy action and graceful movement, one that pleases the eye, too, for pleasure comes not alone from a sense of exercise. Furthermore, the rider and his horse should be on good terms. The latter, if an animal of good temper and intelligence, is sure to do his part well when the proper overtures are made to him—when he is treated kindly and wisely, and is made to understand clearly what he is expected to do. With such an understanding between rider and horse each enters into the sport with spirit and zest, with a mutual confidence and mutual desire for an exhilarating dash that rewards each alike with—as Dr. Holmes says of boating—“the most luxurious form of locomotion indulged to an embodied spirit.”
THE PROPRIETOR OF A NEW YORK ACADEMY.
This degree of pleasure is not within the compass of the novice—not within the grasp of the man of bad temper and coarse mental composition, who hasn’t the confidence and love of his horse—not within the bounds of possibility to him who rides a school horse, which is, as a rule, little more than a hack—a horse in appearance, to be sure, but not a horse in the finer instincts and finer feelings of the carefully bred and well cared for animal.