es, and hats.
XIII. CHAT ABOUT TEACHERS Foreign and native instructors--Why
American women learn slowly--"Keep riding!"

I.

Impatient to mount and ride.
_Longfellow_.

And you want to learn how to ride, Esmeralda?

Why? Because? Reason good and sufficient, Esmeralda; to require
anything more definite would be brutal, although an explanation
of your motives would render the task of directing you much
easier.

As you are an American, it is reasonable to presume that you
desire to learn quickly; as you are youthful, it is certain that
you earnestly wish to look pretty in the saddle, and as you are a
youthful American, there is not a shadow of a doubt that your
objections to authoritative teaching will be almost unconquerable,
and that you will insist upon being treated, from the very
beginning, as if your small head contained the knowledge of a
Hiram Woodruff or of an Archer. Perhaps you may find a teacher
who will comply with your wishes; who will be exceedingly
deferential to your little whims; will unhesitatingly accept your
report of your own sensations and your hypotheses as to their
cause; and, Esmeralda, when once your eyes behold that model man,
be content, and go and take lessons of another, for either he is
a pretentious humbug, careless of everything except his fees, or
he is an ignoramus.

It may not be necessary that you should be insulted or ridiculed
in order to become a rider, although there are girls who seem
utterly impervious by teaching by gentle methods. Is it not a
matter of tradition that Queen Victoria owes her regal carriage
to the rough drill-sergeant who, with no effect upon his pupil,
horrified her governess, and astonished her, by sharply saying:
"A pretty Queen you'll make with that dot-and-go-one gait!" Up
went the little chin, back went the shoulders, down went the
elbows, and, in her wrath, the little princess did precisely what
the old soldier had been striving to make her do; but his
delighted cry of "Just right!" was a surprise to her, inasmuch as
she had been conscious of no muscular effort whatsoever. From
that time forth, _incessit regina_.

You may not need such rough treatment, but it is necessary that
you should be corrected every moment and almost every second
until you learn to correct yourself, until every muscle in your
body becomes self-conscious, and until an improper position is
almost instantly felt as uncomfortable, and the teacher