l among the Norsemen:
not a Phoenician Alphabet, but a native Scandinavian one. Snorro tells
us farther that Odin invented Poetry; the music of human speech, as
well as that miraculous runic marking of it. Transport yourselves into
the early childhood of nations; the first beautiful morning-light of
our Europe, when all yet lay in fresh young radiance as of a great
sunrise, and our Europe was first beginning to think, to be! Wonder,
hope; infinite radiance of hope and wonder, as of a young child's
thoughts, in the hearts of these strong men! Strong sons of Nature;
and here was not only a wild Captain and Fighter; discerning with his
wild flashing eyes what to do, with his wild lion-heart daring and
doing it; but a Poet too, all that we mean by a Poet, Prophet, great
devout Thinker and Inventor,--as the truly Great Man ever is. A Hero
is a Hero at all points; in the soul and thought of him first of all.
This Odin, in his rude semi-articulate way, had a word to speak. A
great heart laid open to take in this great Universe, and man's Life
here, and utter a great word about it. A Hero, as I say, in his own
rude manner; a wise, gifted, noble-hearted man. And now, if we still
admire such a man beyond all others, what must these wild Norse souls,
first awakened into thinking, have made of him! To them, as yet
without names for it, he was noble and noblest; Hero, Prophet, God;
_Wuotan_, the greatest of all. Thought is Thought, however it speak or
spell itself. Intrinsically, I conjecture, this Odin must have been of
the same sort of stuff as the greatest kind of men. A great thought in
the wild deep heart of him! The rough words he articulated, are they
not the rudimental roots of those English words we still use? He
worked so, in that obscure element. But he was as a _light_ kindled in
it; a light of Intellect, rude Nobleness of heart, the only kind of
lights we have yet; a Hero, as I say: and he had to shine there, and
make his obscure element a little lighter,--as is still the task of us
all.

We will fancy him to be the Type Norseman; the finest Teuton whom that
race had yet produced. The rude Norse heart burst-up into _boundless_
admiration round him; into adoration. He is as a root of so many great
things; the fruit of him is found growing, from deep thousands of
years, over the whole field of Teutonic Life. Our own Wednesday, as I
said, is it not still Odin's Day? Wednesbury, Wansborough, Wanstead,
Wandsworth: Odin grew