The cynicism that regards all hero worship as comical is always shadowed by a sense of physical
inferiority. Invariably, it is the man who believes himself to be physically lacking in heroic
attributes who speaks mockingly of the hero; and when he does so, how dishonest it is that his
phraseology, partaking ostensibly of a logic so universal and general, should not (or at least
should be assumed by the general public not to) give any clue to his physical characteristics. I
have yet to hear hero worship mocked by a man endowed with what might justly be called
heroic physical attributes. Facile cynicism, invariably, is related to feeble muscles or obesity,
while the cult of the hero and a mighty nihilism are always related to a mighty body and well-
tempered muscles. For the cult of the hero is, ultimately, the basic principle of the body, and in
the long run is intimately involved with the contrast between the robustness of the body and the
destruction that is death.