these of ours have the honour to resemble in all their lineaments,
however their intellectuals came to degenerate.

I began last week to permit my wife to sit at dinner with me, at the
farthest end of a long table; and to answer (but with the utmost brevity)
the few questions I asked her. Yet, the smell of a _Yahoo_ continuing
very offensive, I always keep my nose well stopped with rue, lavender, or
tobacco leaves. And, although it be hard for a man late in life to
remove old habits, I am not altogether out of hopes, in some time, to
suffer a neighbour _Yahoo_ in my company, without the apprehensions I am
yet under of his teeth or his claws.

My reconcilement to the _Yahoo_ kind in general might not be so
difficult, if they would be content with those vices and follies only
which nature has entitled them to. I am not in the least provoked at the
sight of a lawyer, a pickpocket, a colonel, a fool, a lord, a gamester, a
politician, a whoremonger, a physician, an evidence, a suborner, an
attorney, a traitor, or the like; this is all according to the due course
of things: but when I behold a lump of deformity and diseases, both in
body and mind, smitten with pride, it immediately breaks all the measures
of my patience; neither shall I be ever able to comprehend how such an
animal, and such a vice, could tally together. The wise and virtuous
_Houyhnhnms_, who abound in all excellences that can adorn a rational
creature, have no name for this vice in their language, which has no
terms to express any thing that is evil, except those whereby they
describe the detestable qualities of their _Yahoos_, among which they
were not able to distinguish this of pride, for want of thoroughly
understanding human nature, as it shows itself in other countries where
that animal presides. But I, who had more experience, could plainly
observe some rudiments of it among the wild _Yahoos_.

But the _Houyhnhnms_, who live under the government of reason, are no
more proud of the good qualities they possess, than I should be for not
wanting a leg or an arm; which no man in his wits would boast of,
although he must be miserable without them. I dwell the longer upon this
subject from the desire I have to make the society of an English _Yahoo_
by any means not insupportable; and therefore I here entreat those who
have any tincture of this absurd vice, that they will not presume to come
in my sight.

FOOTNOTES:

{301} A stang is a po