Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill HEEO-WORSHIP IN THE DRAMA " Abraham Lincoln " Hero-worship, as Carlyle has told us, is a fundamental instinct of the human mind; and this is particularly evident whenever people are gathered together in crowds. Nothing else so strongly stirs emotion in a multitude as the visible presence of a hero, whatever be the nature of his prowess. Line Fifth Avenue with congregated thousands; let General Persh- ing ride adown that human lane on horseback; and only the walking dead will be callous to resist that gulping in the throat which is the prelude to enthusiastic tears. In the good old days of baseball, this phenomenon could often be observed at the Polo Grounds, when Christopher Mathewson was called upon in the ninth inning to save a game that hung tremulously in the balance. It was beautiful to see him as he strolled serenely to the center of the diamond, apparently unconscious of the plaudits of the crowd. He was a great man in his own profession; and he had the dignity of greatness. He excelled all other pitchers; and this excellence was testified immediately to the eye by the unusual simplicity and ease of his bodily movements.His two arms swept superbly upward in an absolute curve that reminded the spectator of Graeco-Roman statues of athletes in the Vatican; and that was all. He had perfect personal poise; he was never nervous, never flustered, never angry. Mathewson made himself a hero not merely by his prowess, but also by his personality. The multitude adored him. And, by awakening this adoration, he bestowed a benefit upon uncounted crowds; for nothing more effectually emancipates the average man from his dreary prison-cell of self than a wished-for opportunity to worship some big person who does something — it does not really matter what it is — much better th...