ABSTRACT
The subject for this chapter came into my head as, looking out of my study window, I beheld the pathetic picture of a poor, dilapidated, worn-out caricature of a horse panting and blowing after he had dragged up the hill a ramshackle, disreputable old landau in which the family washing is returned by the laundress. This visitation takes place once a week; that is to say, it does at present, though how much longer its continuance will remain unbroken I cannot say, for the last spoke in the patched-up wheels must part company with its hub and felloes in time; the poor old harness, a veritable thing of shreads and patches now, will sooner or later get utterly beyond cobbling at all, and, surest thing of all, the wretched, emaciated bag of bones on which the harness is suspended must find relief from his earthly troubles in the not very distant future.
