In his “Preface to Shakespeare,” Johnson writes: “Shakespeare has no heroes; his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion: Even where the agency is supernatural the dialogue is level with life.” That may be the secret to having a hero. They embody qualities we have in modest quantities. We sense a kinship in sensibilities. To admit you have heroes is to suggest they possess something you don’t, that you perhaps envy them — an admission intolerable to our swollen sense of self-importance. With age ought to come some measure of “down-sizing,” accepting one’s self more realistically and acknowledging that we’re pretty much stuck with who we are. Now I have heroes, all gifted, all flawed, all admired more deeply for their flaws because the essence of heroism is overcoming them.
My thanks to whoever told me I would enjoy reading ‘Anecdotal Evidence’, a literary blog written by Patrick Kurp. You can only imagine my delight to find someone blogging about both heroes and Johnson. I still have heroes, and I hope you all do too, Johnson, of course, being foremost.
I tried to think who might be a "literary" hero of mine, and the name that popped up was T.H. White, though come to think of it I basically know nothing about him. Now I am curious to try to find out more, but also a bit nervous.