17
‘I believe you think, my good man,’ I protested, ‘that I have never had the deeds of Demosthenes drummed into me; I should be singular among rhetoricians, then.’ ‘It was on the assumption,’ he said, ‘implied by you, that we want assistance. But perhaps your case is a very different one; is the light so bright that you cannot manage to fix your eyes on the dazzling glory of Demosthenes? Well, I was rather like that about Homer at first. Indeed, I came very near turning mine away, thinking I could not possibly face my subject. However, I got over it somehow or other; became gradually inured, as it were, superior to the weakness of vision that would have condemned me for a bastard eagle and no true son of Homer.