“That is what I object to,” said Rachel; “it is accustoming them to confound heroism with pugnacity.”
“No, but Rachel dear, they do quarrel and fight among themselves much less now that this is all in play and good humour,” pleaded Fanny.
“Yes, that may be, but you are cultivating the dangerous instinct, although for a moment giving it a better direction.”
“Dangerous? Oh, Alick! do you think it can be?” said Fanny, less easily borne down with a supporter beside her.
“According to the Peace Society,” he answered, with a quiet air of courteous deference; “perhaps you belong to it?”
“No, indeed,” answered Rachel, rather indignantly, “I think war the great purifier and ennobler of nations, when it is for a good and great cause; but I think education ought to protest against confounding mere love of combat with heroism.”
“Query, the true meaning of the word?” he said, leaning back.
“Heros, yes from the same root as the German herr,” readily responded Rachel, “meaning no more than lord and master; but there can be no doubt that the progress of ideas has linked with it a much nobler association.”
“Progress! What, since the heroes were half divine!”
“Half divine in the esteem of a people who thought brute courage godlike. To us the word maintains its semi-divinity, and it should be our effort to associate it only with that which veritably has the god-like stamp.”