"Why will you, of all people, Sarah, quote that tinkling, superficial
trash of a proverb, so palpably French, when the true reason why a man is
not a hero to his lackey is only because he is seen with a lackey's eyes,
--the sight of a low, convention-ridden, narrow, uneducated mind, unable
to take a broad enough view to see that a man is a hero because he is a
man, because he overleaps the level of his life, and is greater than his
race, being one of them? If he were of the heroic race, what virtue in
being heroic? it is the assertion of his trivial life that makes his
speciality evident,--the shadow that throws out the bas-relief. We chatter
endlessly about the immense good of Washington's example: I believe its
good would be more than doubled, could we be made, nationally, to see him
as a human being, living on 'human nature's daily food,' having mortal and
natural wants, tastes, and infirmities, but building with and over all, by
the help of God and a good will, the noble and lofty edifice of a patriot
manhood, a pure life of duty and devotion, sublime for its very strength
and simpleness, heroic because manly and human."

The day had waned, and the sunset lit Josephine's excited eyes with fire:
she was not beautiful, but now, if ever, beauty visited her with a
transient caress. She looked up and met my eyes fixed on her.

"What is it, Sally?--what do I look like?"

"Very pretty, just now, Jo; your eyes are bright and your cheek flushed:
the sunshine suits you. I admire you tonight."

"I am glad," said she, naively. "I often wish to be pretty."

"A waste wish, Jo!--and yet I have entertained it myself."