The Two Stages of a Hero

IN 1862, when President Lincoln issued his second call for troops, a certain young man quitted the gold fields of Colorado, and hastened across the plains to Omaha as fast as the enduring ox-teams of the time could carry him. There he took a train for Michigan, the state of his residence; stopped at Kalamazoo to marry his sweetheart, and to deliver to her his belt of gold dust ; and then sped on to the recruiting station at Detroit. He enlisted in the ranks, went to the front, fought in no less than seven of the historic battles, incurred serious physical troubles, was wounded, and in the third year of the war was discharged and sent, home a lieutenant of his company. This man, still in the prime of life, sitting under his own vine and apple tree, heard of the recent war with irritation.

“ Why can’t we have peace ? ” he asked. What is all this trouble about, anyway? What’s all this talk about civilization, if men must fall at one another’s throats ? As for these young boys who are enlisting, they ’ll be crying for their mothers. Why, Bill Brown left his father, now getting to be an old man, to look after the farm alone this summer. Bill’d no business to go off. The best way for him to serve his country is by staying at home and getting in the crops. And Conover, who was clerking for Sisson, he’s gone too, and has n’t been married but a month. Why can’t he stay at home and take care of his wife ? She ’ll be a widow, the first thing she knows ! It’s a very strange thing to me that men can’t attend to their business, and get over the habit of killing one another.”

While there are many exceptions to the rule, this lament of the civil-war veteran is that of many of his class. They represent what may be termed the subjectivity of the spontaneous patriot. They are not men accustomed to viewing historical events in an objective way, and they are interested in the course of things chiefly as it affects themselves. It is an open question whether such men as Bill Brown, and Conover, and the veteran as he was in his youth (for they are all of the same class) are not of more use to a commonwealth than men of reflection. At any rate, they make up the ranks; they do the work in the fields, in the shops, in the trenches, in the churches ; they comprise the great majority of this enormous, heterogeneous nation. But what distinguishes them most from the men of reflection is the fact that they unconsciously obey the laws of nature. When they are young, they are young. When they are old, they are old. They have a time for seeking the bubble reputation at the cannon’s mouth, and a time for the lean and slippered pantaloon; nor do they feel impelled to accept sentiments inconsistent with their time of life, nor to affect a state of mind they do not feel. This simple obedience to the course of nature makes many of the heroes of our past generation intolerant of those of today. Years have softened them ; their aggressive masculinity is a thing of the past,—all the more because they once put it to the test, and expressed themselves passionately in the most strenuous conflict of the world ; having satisfied themselves, their women, and their friends of their manhood in this most conclusive way, they rest content with peace. They forget that the present generation has a right to its drama; that the young women want their heroes, and the old women wish to see their sons distinguish themselves; and that deep in the souls even of young men half drugged by commercial monotony is a dream of prowess, a desire for adventure, and an impatience for some form of intense personal expression.

This histrionic self-expression the present generation has now had. It has idealized itself for its own delight, and is able to regard itself poetically. Now it, too, is ready to move on to unimpassioned work and prudent living.