A Hero and Some Other Folks | Page 2

their
courtesy. I confess to liking heroes of the old Norse mythology better.
They, at least, did not cry nor grow voluble with words when obstacles
obstructed the march. They possess the merit of tremendous action.
Aeneas, in this regard, is the inferior of Achilles. Excuse us from hero
worship, if Aeneas be hero. In this old company of heroes, Ulysses is
easy superior. Yet the catalogue of his virtues is an easy task. Achilles
was a huge body, associated with little brain, and had no symptom of
sagacity. In this regard, Ulysses outranks him, and commands our
respect. He has diplomacy and finesse. He is not simply a huge frame,
wrestling men down because his bulk surpasses theirs. He has a thrifty
mind. He is the man for councils of war, fitted to direct with easy
mastery of superior acumen. His fellow-warriors called him "crafty,"
because he was brainy. He was schooled in stratagem, by which he
became author of Ilium's overthrow. Ulysses was shrewd, brave,
balanced--possibly, though not conclusively, patriotic--a sort of Louis
XI, so far as we may form an estimate, but no more. He was selfish,
immoral, barren of finer instincts, who was loved by his dog and by
Penelope, though for no reason we can discover. Ten years he fought
before Troy, and ten years he tasted the irony of the seas--in these
episodes displaying bravery and fortitude, but no homesick love for
Penelope, who waited at the tower of Ithaca for him, a picture of
constancy sweet enough to hang on the palace walls of all these
centuries. We do not think to love Ulysses, nor can we work ourselves
up to the point of admiration; and he is the best hero classic Rome and
Greece can offer. No! Register, as the modern sense of the classic hero,

we do not like him.
He is not admirable, yet is not totally lacking in power to command
attention. What is his quality of appeal to us? This: He is action; and
action thrills us. The old hero was, in general, brave and brilliant. He
had the tornado's movement. His onset redeems him. He blustered, was
spectacular, heartless, and did not guess the meaning of purity; but he
was warrior, and the world enjoys soldiers. And this motley hero has
been attempted in our own days. He was archaic, but certain have
attempted to make him modern. Byron's Don Juan is the old hero, only
lost to the old hero's courage. He is a villain, with not sense enough to
understand he is unattractive. He is a libertine at large, who thinks
himself a gentleman. Don Juan is as immoral, impervious to honor, and
as villainous as the Greek gods. The D'Artagnan romances have
attempted the old hero's resuscitation. The movement of the "Three
Musketeers" is mechanical rather than human. D'Artagnan's honor is
limited to his fealty to his king. He has no more sense of delicacy
toward women, or honor for them as women, than Achilles had. Some
of his doings are too defamatory to be thought of, much less mentioned.
No! Excuse me from D'Artagnan and the rest of Dumas' heroes. They
may be French, but they are not heroic. About Dumas' romances there
is a gallop which, with the unwary, passes for action and art. But he has
not, of his own motion, conceived a single woman who was not
seduced or seducible, nor a single man who was not a libertine; for
"The Son of Porthros" [Transcriber's note: Porthos?] and his bride are
not of Dumas' creation. He is not open to the charge of having drawn
the picture of one pure man or woman. Zola is the natural goal of
Dumas; and we enjoy neither the route nor the terminus. Louis XIV,
Charles II, and George IV are modeled after the old licentious pretense
at manhood, but we may all rejoice that they deceive nobody now. Our
civilization has outgrown them, and will not, even in second childhood,
take to such playthings.
But what was the old hero's chief failure? The answer is, He lacked
conscience. Duty had no part in his scheme of action, nor in his
vocabulary of word or thought. Our word "virtue" is the bodily
importation of the old Roman word "virtus," but so changed in meaning

that the Romans could no more comprehend it than they could the
Copernican theory of astronomy. With them, "virtus" meant
strength--that only--a battle term. The solitary application was to
fortitude in conflict. With us, virtue is shot through and through with
moral quality, as a gem is shot through with light, and monopolizes the
term as light monopolizes the gem. This change is radical and
astonishing, but discloses a change which has revolutionized the world.
The old hero was conscienceless--a characteristic apparent