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YMMV / Letters to His Son

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  • Designated Hero: "I dare assert too, in defiance of the favorers of the ancients, that Homer's hero, Achilles, was both a brute and a scoundrel, and consequently an improper character for the hero of an epic poem; he had so little regard for his country, that he would not act in defense of it, because he had quarreled with Agamemnon about a w—-e; and then afterward, animated by private resentment only, he went about killing people basely, I will call it, because he knew himself invulnerable; and yet, invulnerable as he was, he wore the strongest armor in the world; which I humbly apprehend to be a blunder; for a horse-shoe clapped to his vulnerable heel would have been sufficient." (letter 64)
  • Harsher in Hindsight: "for I do not suppose you capable of falling in love with a strumpet" (letter 117) As early as 1750, the son had met his later wife and mother of his two sons. Until his death in 1768, he wouldn't tell his father about them.
  • Values Resonance: About fox-hunting: "The poor beasts are here pursued and run down by much greater beasts than themselves".


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