THE KING'S HORSES
I started work at once, and did not stop an instant until after half-past five. The result is four sketches—a large head, a front view, a back view, and the study in oils. The horse was fretting and fuming at the finish, but I was sorry I could not go on all night. You have no idea of the beauty of the great creature in his trappings.
They allowed me to watch the disrobing. The purple rosettes were taken from the mane, and the mane was taken out of plait, and slowly and carefully all the heavy harness was taken off. When the bridle was pulled from him his face gleamed out pale and pink, with two small, angry eyes shining in the glimmer of the electric light hanging just over him. *****
I have just come in from the stables, where I made three more sketches, this time of the horses' heads, which are more difficult than their tails. It seems almost presumptuous in me to attempt, without any former and prolonged experience in the drawing of animals, this kind of work; and to begin on the bodies of those precious aristocrats, the "cream" of society among horses, the exclusive eight, as it were, is like putting sacrilegious and unblessed hands upon things that are holy. The fool gets more out of life than the angel, I shrewdly suspect, and always when there is some "wit" closely allied to his fooling.
The noble "Pistachio" has been holding a levée, and while his royal nose was being wiped, his mane brushed and combed, and his sleek and glossy coat rubbed down by the deft and diminutive Slack, his portrait was painted,
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