On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

[May 19, 1840.]

Hero-Gods, Prophets, Poets, Priests are forms of Heroism that belong to the old ages, make their appearance in the remotest times; some of them have ceased to be possible long since, and cannot any more show themselves in this world. The Hero as _Man of Letters_, again, of which class we are to speak to-day, is altogether a product of these new ages; and so long as the wondrous art of _Writing_, or of Ready-writing which we call _Printing_, subsists, he may be expected to continue, as one of the main forms of Heroism for all future ages. He is, in various respects, a very singular phenomenon.