
“He is as loving and tender as a child, but strong and sturdy as a rock.”
Source: Platero and I (1917), Ch. 1 : Platero, as translated by Eloïse Roach (1957).
Context: He is as loving and tender as a child, but strong and sturdy as a rock. When on Sundays I ride him through the lanes in the outskirts of the town, slow-moving countrymen, dressed in their Sunday clean, watch him a while, speculatively:
"He is like steel," they say.
Steel, yes. Steel and moon silver at the same time.