H.D. Thoreau : The Horse and Man

19th Century Noble English Man with Horse and Dogs

H.D. Thoreau

Journal

Sept. 3. Why was there never a poem on the cricket ? Its creak seems to me to be one of the most prominent and obvious facts in the world, and the least heeded. In the report of a man's contemplations I look to see somewhat answering to this sound.

When I sat on Lee's Cliff the other day (August 29th), I saw a man working with a horse in a field by the river, carting dirt ; and the horse and his relation to him struck me as very remarkable. There was the horse, a mere animated machine, though his tail was brushing off the flies, his whole existence subordinated to the man's, with no tradition, perhaps no instinct, in him of independence and freedom, of a time when he was wild and free, completely humanized. No compact made with him that he should have the Saturday afternoons, or the Sundays, or any holidays. His independence never recognized, it being now quite forgotten both by men and by horses that the horse was ever free. For I am not aware that there are any wild horses known surely not to be descended from tame ones. Assisting that man to pull down that bank and spread it over the meadow ; only keeping off the flies with his tail, and stamping, and catching a mouthful of grass or leaves from time to time, on his own account, all the rest for man. It seemed hardly worth while that he should be animated for this.

It was plain that the man was not educating the horse ; not trying to develop his nature, but merely getting work out of him. That mass of animated matter seemed more completely the servant of man than any inanimate. For slaves have their holidays; a heaven is conceded to them, but to the horse none. Now and forever he is man's slave. The more I considered, the more the man seemed akin to the horse; only his was the stronger will of the two. For a little further on I saw an Irishman shovelling, who evidently was as much tamed as the horse. He had stipulated that to a certain extent his independence be recognized, and yet really he was but little more independent.

I had always instinctively regarded the horse as a free people somewhere, living wild. Whatever has not come under the sway of man is wild. In this sense original and independent men are wild, not tamed and broken by society. Now for my part I have such a respect for the horse's nature as would tempt me to let him alone; not to interfere with him, his walks, his diet, his loves. But by mankind he is treated simply as if he were an en gine which must have rest and is sensible of pain. Sup pose that every squirrel were made to turn a coffee-mill ! Suppose that the gazelles were made to draw milk-carts !

There he was with his tail cut off, because it was in the way, or to suit the taste of his owner; his mane trimmed, and his feet shod with iron that he might wear longer. What is a horse but an animal that has lost its liberty ? What is it but a system of slavery ? and do you not thus by insensible and unimportant degrees come to human slavery ? Has lost its liberty ! and has man got any more liberty himself for having robbed the horse, or has he lost just as much of his own, and become more like the horse he has robbed ? Is not the other end of the bridle in this case, too, coiled round his own neck ? Hence stable-boys, jockeys, all

that class that is daily transported by fast horses. There he stood with his oblong square figure (his tail being cut off) seen against the water, brushing off the flies with his tail and stamping, braced back while the man was filling the cart.

It is a very remarkable and significant fact that, though no man is quite well or healthy, yet every one believes practically that health is the rule and disease the exception, and each invalid is wont to think himself in a minority, and to postpone somewhat of endeavor to another state of existence. But it may be some encourage ment to men to know that in this respect they stand on the same platform, that disease is, in fact, the rule of our terrestrial life and the prophecy of a celestial life. Where is the coward who despairs because he is sick ?

Every one may live either the life of Achilles or of Nestor. Seen in this light, our life with all its diseases will look healthy, and in one sense the more healthy as it is the more diseased. Disease is not the accident of the individual, nor even of the generation, but of life itself. In some form, and to some degree or other, it is one of the permanent conditions of life. It is, nevertheless, a cheering fact that men affirm health unanimously, and esteem themselves miserable failures. Here was no blunder. They gave us life on exactly these conditions, and methinks we shall live it with more heart when we perceive clearly that these are the terms on which we have it.

Life is a warfare, a struggle, and the diseases of the body answer to the troubles and defeats of the spirit. Man begins by quarrelling with the animal in him, and the result is immediate disease. In proportion as the spirit is the more ambitious and persevering, the more obstacles it will meet with. It is as a seer that man asserts his disease to be exceptional.

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