And I must protest, in like wise, against a misuse of the words “hero.” “heroism,” “heroic,” which is becoming too common, namely, applying them to mere courage. We have borrowed the misuse, I believe, as we have more than one beside, from the French press. I trust that we shall neither accept it, nor the temper which inspires it. It may be convenient for those who flatter their nation, and especially the military part of it, into a ruinous self-conceit, to frame some such syllogism as this: “Courage is heroism: every Frenchman is naturally courageous: therefore every Frenchman is a hero.” But we, who have been trained at once in a sounder school of morals, and in a greater respect for facts, and for language as the expression of facts, shall be careful, I hope, not to trifle thus with that potent and awful engine—human speech. We shall eschew likewise, I hope, a like abuse of the word “moral,” which has crept from the French press now and then, not only into our own press, but into the writings of some of our military men, who, as Englishmen, should have known better. We were told again and again, during the late war, that the moral effect of such a success had been great; that the _morale_ of the troops was excellent; or again, that the _morale_ of the troops had suffered, or even that they were somewhat demoralised. But when one came to test what was really meant by these fine words, one discovered that morals had nothing to do with the facts which they expressed; that the troops were in the one case actuated simply by the animal passion of hope, in the other simply by the animal passion of fear. This abuse of the word “moral” has crossed, I am sorry to say, the Atlantic; and a witty American, whom we must excuse, though we must not imitate, when some one had been blazing away at him with a revolver, he being unarmed, is said to have described his very natural emotions on the occasion, by saying that he felt dreadfully demoralised. We, I hope, shall confine the word “demoralisation,” as our generals of the last century would have done, when applied to soldiers, to crime, including, of course, the neglect of duty or of discipline; and we shall mean by the word “heroism,” in like manner, whether applied to a soldier or to any human being, not mere courage, not the mere doing of duty, but the doing of something beyond duty; something which is not in the bond; some spontaneous and unexpected act of self-devotion. I am glad, but not surprised, to see that Miss Yonge has held to this sound distinction in her golden little book of “Golden Deeds,” and said, “Obedience, at all costs and risks, is the very essence of a soldier’s life. It has the solid material, but it has hardly the exceptional brightness, of a golden deed.”