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 who does
not drill you steadily and continuously, permits you to fall into
bad habits.