Observing all this and much more of a like nature, one might well wonder whether the only possible heroism was the heroism of the weak. Yet what heroism was more at one with the times? Gustav Aschenbach was the writer of all those who labor on the brink of exhaustion, the heavy-laden, the worn-down who yet hold their heads high, the moralists of achievement who, though slight of stature and chary of means, manage to attain, for a time at least, the trappings of greatness by combining rapture of the will with clever management. They are legion; they are the heroes of the age.
