A Hero and Some Other Folks

The hero is not a luxury, but a necessity. We can no more do without him than we can do without the sky. Every best man and woman is at heart a hero-worshiper. Emerson acutely remarks that all men admire Napoleon because he was themselves in possibil ... Read more

The hero is not a luxury, but a necessity. We can no more do without him than we can do without the sky. Every best man and woman is at heart a hero-worshiper. Emerson acutely remarks that all men admire Napoleon because he was themselves in possibility. They were in miniature what he was developed. For a like though nobler reason, all men love heroes. They are ourselves grown tall, puissant, victorious, and sprung into nobility, worth, service. The hero electrifies the world; he is the lightning of the soul, illuminating our sky, clarifying the air, making it thereby salubrious and delightful. What any elect spirit did, inures to the credit of us all. A fragment of Lowell's clarion verse may stand for the biography of heroism:   "When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad       earth's aching breast   Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east       to west;   And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within       him climb   To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime   Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem       of Time;" such being the undeniable result and history of any heroic service. Less