Explore "John Brent" by Theodore Winthrop on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It happened that, on a journey, early in the same summer, some twenty miles from my mine, I had come upon a band of horses feeding on the prairie. They cantered off as I went riding down the yellow slope, and then, halting just out of lasso reach, stopped to reconnoitre me. Animals are always eager to observe man. Perhaps they want ideas against the time of their promotion to humanity, so that they need not be awkward, and introduce quadruped habits into biped circles.
The mass of the herd inspected me stupidly enough. Man to them was power, and nothing else, -- a lasso-throwing machine, -- something that put cruel bits into equine mouths, got on equine backs, and forced equine legs to gallop until they were stiff. Man was therefore something to admire, but to avoid, -- so these horses seemed to think; and if they had known man as brother man alone knows him, perhaps their opinion would have been confirmed.