difference between
St. Simon and his opponent, yet when Archer let the multitude see how
fast a horse _could_ travel, and the great thoroughbred swept along like
a flash, the excitement and enthusiasm rose to fever-pitch. Those men
had an unaffected pleasure in observing the beauty and symmetry and
speed of a noble creature, and they were unharmed by the little treat
which the good-natured magnate provided for them. It is quite otherwise
with the mob of stay-at-home gamblers; they do not care a rush for the
horses; they long, with all the crazy greed of true dupes, to gain money
without working for it, and that is where the mischief comes in.
Cupidity, mean anxieties, unwholesome excitements, gradually sap the
morality of really sturdy fellows--the last shred of manliness is torn
away, and the ordinary human intelligence is replaced by repulsive
vulpine cunning. If you can look at a little group of the stay-at-homes
while they are discussing the prospects of a race, you will see
something that Hogarth would have enjoyed in his large, lusty fashion.
The fair human soul no longer shines through those shifty, deceitful
eyes; the men have, somehow, sunk from the level of their race, and they
make you think that Swift may-have been right after all. From long
experience I am certain that if a cultured gentleman, accustomed to high
thinking, were suddenly compelled to live among these dismal beings, he
would be attacked by a species of intellectual paralysis. The affairs of
the country are nothing to them; poetry, art, and all beautiful things
are contemptible in their eyes; they dwell in an obscure twilight of the
mind, and their relaxation, when the serious business of betting is put
aside for awhile, mostly lies in the direction of sheer bawdry and
abomination. It is curious to see the oblique effect which general
degradation has upon the vocabulary of these people; quiet words, or
words that express a plain meaning, are repugnant to them; even the
old-fashioned full-mouthed oaths of our fathers are tame to their fancy,
for they must have something strongly spiced, and thus they have by
degrees fitted themselves up with a loathly dialect of their own which
transcends the comparatively harmless efforts of the Black Country
potter. Foul is not the word for this ultra-filthy mode of talk--it
passes into depths below foulness. I may digress for a little to
emphasize this point. The latter-day hanger-on of the Turf has
introduced