“You are right there!” “Very well. Refinement is a quality of the individual who has--and conforms to--a true (not a conventional) sense of proportion; and vulgarity is either the natural conduct of people without that sense of proportion, or of people who imitate and reproduce the tricks of refinement wholesale, without any real feeling for proportion; or again, it is mere conscious departure from the sense of proportion for the sake of cutting a dash.” “Ah!” I said; “and to which of these kinds of vulgarity is the fashion of docking horses’ tails a guardian angel?” “Imagine,” he answered gravely, “that you dock your horse’s tail. You are either horribly deficient in feeling for a perfectly proportioned horse, or you imitate what you believe--goodness knows why--to be the refined custom of docking horses’ tails, without considering the question of proportion at all.” “Yes,” I said; “but what makes so many people do it, if there isn’t something in it, either useful or ornamental?” “Because people as a rule do not love proportion; they love the grotesque. You have only to look at their faces, which are very good indications of their souls.” “You have begged the question,” I said. “Who are you to say that the perfect horse is not the horse----?” “With the imperfect tail?” “Imperfect? Again, you’re begging.” “As Nature made it, then. Oh!” he went on with vehemence, “think of the luxury of having your own tail. Think of the cool swish of it. Think of the real beauty of it! Think of the sheer hideousness of all that great front balanced behind by a few scrub hairs and a wriggle! It became ‘smart’ to dock horses’ tails; and smart to wear ‘aigrettes.’ ‘Smart’--‘neat’--‘efficient’--for all except the horse and the poor egrets.” “Your argument,” I said, “is practically nothing but æsthetics.” He fixed his eyes upon my hat. “Well,” he said slowly. “I admit that neither on horse nor on man would long tails go at all well with that bowler hat of yours. Odd how all of a piece taste is! From a man’s hat, or a horse’s tail, we can reconstruct the age we live in, like that scientist, you remember, who reconstructed a mastodon from its funny-bone.” The thought went sharply through my head: Is his next tirade to be on mastodons? Till I remembered with relief that the animal was extinct, at all events in England. § 4. With but little further talk we had nearly reached my rooms, when he said abruptly: “A lark! Can’t you hear it? Over there, in that wretched little goldfish shop again.” But I could only hear the sounds of traffic. “It’s your imagination,” I said. “It really is too lively on the subject of birds and beasts.” “I tell you,” he persisted, “there’s a caged lark there. Very likely half-a-dozen.” “My dear fellow,” I said, “suppose there are! We could go and buy them and set them free, but it would only encourage the demand. Or we could assault the shopmen. Do you recommend that?” “I don’t joke on this subject,” he answered shortly.