has four lines of
action--first, towards the breast (to stop or rein back); second,
towards the right shoulder (to turn to the right); third, towards the
left shoulder (to turn to the left); fourth, towards the horse's head
(to advance)." Try the second motion: you will find it a very nice
operation, and that you are capable of shortening the right rein only in
a very slight degree; you will also find that, if the hand ceases to be
precisely opposite the centre of the body, the moment it is passed to
the right the right rein becomes slackened, and the left rein is pulled.
This is still more the case when the horse's neck is between the reins;
the left rein is then instantly shortened across the neck.

[Sidenote: A soldier's horse must turn on the wrong rein.]

I will not assert that the art of riding thus is impossible, though it
has ever been so to me; and though, in my own experience, I never saw a
cavalry soldier, rough-rider, riding-master, or any horseman whatever,
who turned his horse, single-handed, on the proper rein. But I may
assert that it is an exceedingly nice and delicate art. It is the
opera-dancing of riding. And it would be as absurd to put the skill of
its professors in requisition in common riding or across country, as to
require Taglioni to _chasser_ over a ploughed field. For single-handed
indications, supposing them to be correctly given--which, as I have
said, I have never known; but supposing them to be correctly given--they
are not sufficiently distinct to turn a horse, except in a case of
optimism. That is, supposing for a short time a perfectly broken horse,
in perfect temper, perfectly on his haunches, going perfectly up to his
bit, and on perfect ground. Without all these perfections--suppose even
the circumstance of the horse being excited or alarmed, or becoming
violent from any other cause; that he is sluggish or sullen; that he
stiffens his neck or pokes his nose--single-handed indications are worth
nothing. But as for riding a horse perfectly on his haunches through a
long day's journey, or in rough or deep ground, or across country, one
might as well require infantry to make long forced marches at ordinary
time, and to strictly preserve their touch and dressing; or, still to
compare it to opera-dancing, Coulon to go through a day's shooting with
the pas de zephir.

But correct single-handed indications, with the fourth finger only
between the reins, will not be obeyed by one horse in