Arizona republican., 1910-09-11
OUR OWN EVERYDAY HEROES
Ons May CsrslessIy Look Over Their Heads to Names Illuminated
 By Fame.

Jean is at the age of hero worship and just now her affections are cen tered on Napoleon. She has estab- lished a Napoleon corner in her room, where pictures of her hero as sol dler, emperor and conqueror adorn the walls. She reads everything that she can find about him, wishes that she might have lived when he lived. argues the case of Josephine. and ends with the decision that any wo- man should have felt honored by the love of the Little Corporal, even though it brought tragedy.
 Some day" I tell Jean. you will learn that the love of an every-dav man is more satisfactory than the uncertain adoration of a celebrity"
 But Jean refuses to admit this To her, just now, nothing is worth while but her dreams of greatness. She aspires to be Joan of Arc leading her country to victory. She reads The Idyls. of the Kings" and wishes there was a King Arthur or Lancelot upon whom she might waste her hearts adoration. The virtues of the men of her own world pale in com parison. l am glad to have Jean take such vivid interest in great men and women, and I am glad, too, that her imagination carries her into the world of wonderful people, but I shall be sorry if it units her for eyerv-dav life and for the understanding of ev- ery-day men and women. I want her to know that there are heroes and heroines whom we meet every day and yet do not recognize. and that there are sacrifices being made by many plain people, upon whom Jean looks with contempt, and in whom she sees nothing but commonplace ness. Jeans own father, if she only knew it, is a hero. He is . thin and spare man, with quiet manner and eyes that smile only now and then
 l knew Jeans father when his eyes always had smile in them He is a man who loves life and as a boy dreamed of the days when he might conquer worlds He was a hero wor- shipper like Jean. For twenty years Jeans mother has been an invalid. and there was a failure in business which brought the family to the brink of poverty; hence for twenty years Jeans father has been bound to a treadmill of commonplace things, yet no one has ever heard of complaint, his wife has been treated with unfail- ing tenderness, and the children have been given an education at the ex- pense of his own dreams. One may say that he has only done his duty, but the fact that he has done it with out complaint, without irritation, and that instead of being submerged by the fact of his failure he has won the respect of his community. makes him more worth while than many a man who by some spectacular act wins the aplause of the multitude. It is perhaps such men who make women happy. l do not mean happy from the standpoint of selfish indulgence, but rather from the standpoint of the deep devotion for which every true woman yearns.
 There is a teacher of Jeans who is heroine, but Jean does not know it. and will never understand until she is older what this self contained woman has put behind her. Perhaps Jean will never know such a romance as came into the life of her teacher or all that was set aside because of devotion to principle. Jeans teacher would not marry a a divorced man, although she loved him passion ately. Right or wrong, she held to what she believed, and no martyr go- ing to the stake ever suffered more
 After all, I wonder if there are any commonplace people? Perhaps if we could go deeply into the lives of others we might find that touching elbows with us every day are heroes and heroines as great as those about whom we read in history