Читать книгу Patroclus and Penelope: A Chat in the Saddle - Theodore Ayrault Dodge - Страница 9

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One of the most distinctly promising features of the athletic tendencies of to-day is the mania for the saddle. Fifteen years ago, the boys along the Boston streets used to hoot at your master, Patroclus. Not, indeed, that he had a poor seat or needed to "get inside and pull down the blinds," as the London cad might phrase it, for a good or bad seat was all alike to them; rather at the wholly unusual sight of a man on horseback—outside of politics.

But the number of good horsemen, and horsewomen too, is growing every day. Here comes a couple at a brisk round trot. How can we notice the lad, Patroclus, when the lassie looks so sweetly? In her neat habit, with dainty protruding foot and ankle, sitting her trappy-gaited mount with ease and grace, the bloom of health fairly dazzling you as she rushes by, so that you doubt whether it be her pretty eye and white teeth or her ruddy skin and happy face which has set even your ancient heart a-throbbing, how can a woman look more attractive?