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?

Some of these days I believe it is going to be discovered that the
atmosphere and the encompassing radiance and sweetness of Heaven are
composed of the dear sighs and loving aspirations of earthly motherhood.
If it turns out otherwise, rest assured Heaven will not have reached
its perfect point of evolution. Why is it, then, that mothers
will--will--will--try, so mistakenly, to extirpate the jewel of honest,
manly savagery from the breasts of their boys? I wonder if they know
that when grown men see one of these "pretty-mannered boys," cocksure
as a Swiss toy new painted and directed by watch spring, they feel an
unholy impulse to empty an ink-bottle over the young calf? Fauntleroy
kids are a reproach to our civilization. Men, women and children, all of
us, crowd around the grimy Deignan of the Merrimac crew, and shout and
cheer for Bill Smith, the Rough Rider, who carried his mate out of the
ruck at San Juan and twirls his hat awkwardly and explains: "Ef I hadn't
a saw him fall he would 'a' laid thar yit!"--and go straight home and
pretend to be proud of a snug little poodle of a man who doesn't play
for fear of soiling his picture-clothes, and who says: "Yes, sir, thank
you," and "No, thank you, ma'am," like a French doll before it has had
the sawdust kicked out of it!

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