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