To me there is something very touching in this primeval figure of Heroism;
in such artless, helpless, but hearty entire reception of a Hero by his
fellow-men. Never so helpless in shape, it is the noblest of feelings, and
a feeling in some shape or other perennial as man himself. If I could show
in any measure, what I feel deeply for a long time now, That it is the
vital element of manhood, the soul of man's history here in our world,--it
would be the chief use of this discoursing at present. We do not now call
our great men Gods, nor admire _without_ limit; ah no, _with_ limit enough!
But if we have no great men, or do not admire at all,--that were a still
worse case.

This poor Scandinavian Hero-worship, that whole Norse way of looking at the
Universe, and adjusting oneself there, has an indestructible merit for us.
A rude childlike way of recognizing the divineness of Nature, the
divineness of Man; most rude, yet heartfelt, robust, giantlike; betokening
what a giant of a man this child would yet grow to!--It was a truth, and is
none. Is it not as the half-dumb stifled voice of the long-buried
generations of our own Fathers, calling out of the depths of ages to us, in
whose veins their blood still runs: "This then, this is what we made of
the world: this is all the image and notion we could form to ourselves of
this great mystery of a Life and Universe. Despise it not. You are raised
high above it, to large free scope of vision; but you too are not yet at
the top. No, your notion too, so much enlarged, is but a partial,
imperfect one; that matter is a thing no man will ever, in time or out of
time, comprehend; after thousands of years of ever-new expansion, man will
find himself but struggling to comprehend again a part of it: the thing is
larger shall man, not to be comprehended by him; an Infinite thing!"