Let us agree at the start that no perfect hero can be entirely mortal. The nearer the element of mortality in him corresponds to the heel measure of Achilles, the better his chance as hero. The Egyptian and Greek heroes were invariably demi-gods on the paternal or maternal side. Few actual historic heroes have escaped popular scandal concerning their origin, because the savage logic in us demands lions from a lion; that Theseus shall trace to Mars; that courage shall spring from courage. Another most excellent thing about the ideal hero is that the immortal quality enables him to go about the business of his heroism without bothering his head with the rights or wrongs of it, except as the prevailing sentiment of social honor (as distinguished from the inborn sentiment of honesty) requires at the time. Of course, there is a lower grade of measly, “moral heroes,” who (thank heaven and the innate sense of human justice!) are usually well peppered with sorrow and punishment. The hero of romance is a different stripe; Hyperion to a Satyr. He doesn't go around groaning page after page of top-heavy debates as to the inherent justice of his cause or his moral right to thrust a tallow candle between the particular ribs behind which the heart of his enemy is to be found--balancing his pros and cons, seeking a quo for each quid, and conscientiously prowling for final authorities. When you invade the chiropodical secret of the real hero's fine boot, or brush him in passing--if you have looked once too often at a certain lady, or have stood between him and the sun, or even twiddled your thumbs at him in an indecorous or careless manner--look to it that you be prepared to draw and mayhap to be spitted upon his sword's point, with honor. Sdeath! A gentlemen of courage carries his life lightly at the needle end of his rapier, as that wonderful Japanese, Samsori, used to make the flimsiest feather preside in miraculous equilibration upon the tip of his handsome nose. No hero who does more or less than is demanded by the best practical opinion of the society of his time is worth more than thirty cents as a hero. Boys are literary and dramatic critics so far above the critics formed by strained formulas of the schools that you can trust them. They have an unerring distrust of the fellow who moves around with his confounded conscientious scruples, as if the well-settled opinion of the breathing world were not good enough for him! Who the deuce has got any business setting everybody else right?