On (Essays Collection). Hilaire Belloc

      "You have," said I, "a remarkable horse."

      At this word he brightened up as men do when something is spoken of that interests them nearly, and he answered: "Indeed, I have! and I am very glad you like him. There is no such other horse to my knowledge in England, though I have heard that some still linger in Ireland and in France, and that a few foals of the breed have been dropped of late years in Italy, but I have not seen them.

      "How did you come by this horse?" said I; "if it is not trespassing upon your courtesy to ask you so delicate a question."

      "Not at all; not at all," he answered. "This kind of horse runs wild upon the heaths of morning and can be caught only by Exiles: and I am one. … Moreover, if you had come three or four years later than you have I should have been able to give you an answer in rhyme, but I am sorry to say that a pestilent stricture of the imagination, or rather, of the compositive faculty so constrains me that I have not yet finished the poem I have been writing with regard to the discovery and service of this beast."

      "I have great sympathy with you," I answered, "I have been at the ballade of Val-ès-Dunes since the year 1897 and I have not yet completed it."

      "Well, then," he said, "you will be patient with me when I tell you that I have but three verses completed." Whereupon without further invitation he sang in a loud and clear voice the following verse:

       It's ten years ago to-day you turned me out of doors To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shores. And I thought about the all in all …

      "The 'all in all,'" I said, "is weak."

      He was immensely pleased with this, and, standing up, seized me by the hand. "I know you now," he said, "for a man who does indeed write verse. I have done everything I could with those three syllables, and by the grace of Heaven I shall get them right in time. Anyhow, they are the stop-gap of the moment, and with your leave I shall reserve them, for I do not wish to put words like 'tumty tum' into the middle of my verse."

      I bowed to him, and he proceeded:

       And I thought about the all in all, and more than I could tell; But I caught a horse to ride upon and rode him very well. He had flame behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side— And I ride; and I ride!

      "Of how many verses do you intend this metrical composition to be?" said I, with great interest.

      "I have sketched out thirteen," said he firmly, "but I confess that the next ten are so embryonic in this year 1907 that I cannot sing them in public." He hesitated a moment, then added: "They have many fine single lines, but there is as yet no composition or unity about them." And as he recited the words "composition" and "unity" he waved his hand about like a man sketching a cartoon.

      "Give me, then," said I, "at any rate the last two." For I had rapidly calculated how many would remain of his scheme.

      He was indeed pleased to be so challenged, and continued to sing:

       And once atop of Lambourne Down, towards the hill of Clere, I saw the host of Heaven in rank and Michael with his spear And Turpin, out of Gascony, and Charlemagne the lord, And Roland of the Marches with his hand upon his sword For fear he should have need of it;—and forty more beside! And I ride; and I ride! For you that took the all in all …

      "That again is weak," I murmured.

      "You are quite right," he said gravely, "I will rub it out." Then he went on:

       For you that took the all in all, the things you left were three: A loud Voice for singing, and keen Eyes to see, And a spouting Well of Joy within that never yet was dried! And I ride!

      He sang this last in so fierce and so exultant a manner that I was impressed more than I cared to say, but not more than I cared to show. As for him, he cared little whether I was impressed or not; he was exalted and detached from the world.

      There were no stirrups upon the beast. He vaulted upon it, and said as he did so:

      "You have put me into the mood, and I must get away!"

      And though the words were abrupt, he did speak them with such a grace that I will always remember them!

      He then touched the flanks of his horse with his heels (on which there were no spurs) and at once beating the air powerfully twice or thrice with its wings it spurned the turf of Berkshire and made out southward and upward into the sunlit air, a pleasing and a glorious sight.

      In a very little while they had dwindled to a point of light and were soon mixed with the sky. But I went on more lonely along the crest of the hills, very human, riding my horse Monster, a mortal horse—I had almost written a human horse. My mind was full of silence.

      Some of those to whom I have related this adventure criticise it by the method of questions and of cross-examination proving that it could not have happened precisely where it did; showing that I left the vale so late in the afternoon that I could not have found this man and his mount at the hour I say I did, and making all manner of comments upon the exact way in which the feathers (which they say are those of a bird) grew out of the hide of the horse, and so forth. There are no witnesses of the matter, and I go lonely, for many people will not believe, and those who do believe believe too much.

      ON A MAN AND HIS BURDEN

       Table of Contents

      Once there was a Man who lived in a House at the Corner of a Wood with an excellent landscape upon every side, a village about one mile off, and a pleasant stream flowing over chalk and full of trout, for which he used to fish.

      This man was perfectly happy for some little time, fishing for the trout, contemplating the shapes of clouds in the sky, and singing all the songs he could remember in turn under the high wood, till one day he found, to his annoyance, that there was strapped to his back a Burden.

      However, he was by nature of a merry mood, and began thinking of all the things he had read about Burdens. He remembered an uncle of his called Jonas (ridiculous name) who had pointed out that Burdens, especially if borne in youth, strengthen the upper deltoid muscle, expand the chest, and give to the whole figure an erect and graceful poise. He remembered also reading in a book upon "Country Sports" that the bearing of heavy weights is an excellent training for all other forms of exercise, and produces a manly and resolute carriage, very useful in golf, cricket and Colonial wars. He could not forget his mother's frequent remark that a Burden nobly endured gave firmness, and at the same time elasticity, to the character, and altogether he went about his way taking it as kindly as he could; but I will not deny that it annoyed him.

      In a few days he discovered that during sleep, when he lay down, the Burden annoyed him somewhat less than at other times, though the memory of it never completely left him. He would therefore sleep for a very considerable number of hours every day, sometimes retiring to rest as early as nine o'clock, nor rising till noon of the next day. He discovered also that rapid and loud conversation, adventure, wine, beer, the theatre, cards, travel, and so forth made him forget his Burden for the time being, and he indulged himself perhaps to excess in all these things. But when the memory of his Burden would return to him after each indulgence, whether working in his garden, or fishing for trout, or on a lonely walk, he began reluctantly to admit that, on the whole, he felt uncertainty and doubt as to whether the Burden was really good for him.

      In this unpleasing attitude of mind he had the good fortune one day to meet with an excellent Divine who inhabited a neighbouring parish, and was possessed of no less a sum than £29,000. This Ecclesiastic, seeing his whilom jocund Face fretted with the Marks of Care, put a hand gently upon his shoulder and said:

      "My young friend, I easily perceive that you are put out by this Burden which you bear upon your shoulders. I am indeed surprised that one so intelligent should take such a matter so ill. What! Do you not know that burdens are the common lot of humanity? I myself, though you may little