Excerpt from A Hero and Some Other Folk The image was gold, which was, in fact, thin gilt. Achilles sulks in his tent, while Greek armies are thrown back defeated from the Trojan gates. In nothing is he admirable save that, when his pout ing fit is over and when he rushes into the battle, he has might, and overbears the force opposing him as a wave does some petty Obstacle. But no higher quality shines in his conquest. He is vain, brutal, and impervious to high motive. In jeneas one can find little attractive save his filial regard. He bears Anchises on his shoulders from toppling Troy; but his wanderings constitute an Odyssey Of commonplaces, or chance, or mean ness. NO one can doubt Virgil meant to create a hero of commanding proportions, though we, looking at him from this far remove, find him uninteresting, unheroic, and vulgar; and why the goddess should put herself out to allay tempests in his behalf, or why hostile deities should be dis turbed to tumble seas into turbulence for such a voyager, is a query. He merits neither their wrath nor their courtesy. I confess to liking heroes of the Old Norse mythology better. They, at least, did not cry nor grow voluble with words when Obstacles obstructed the march. They possess the merit of tremendous action. Eneas, in this regard, is the inferior Of Achilles. Excuse us from hero worship, if zeneas be hero. In this old company of heroes, Ulysses is. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.