Explore "John Brent" by Theodore Winthrop on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Hector of Troy, Homer's Hector, was my first hero in literature. Not because he loved his wife and she him, as I fancy that noble wives and husbands love in the times of trial now; but simply because he was Hippodamos, one that could master the horse.
As soon as I knew Hector, I began to emulate him. My boyish experiments were on donkeys, and failed. "I couldn't wallop 'em. O no, no! " That was my difficulty. Had I but met an innocent and docile donkey in his downy years! Alas! only the perverted donkey, bristly and incorrigible, came under my tutorship. I was too humane to give him stick enough, and so he mastered me.