The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-02
SEATTLE. SUNDAY. AUe. 2.
HEEorsm A PERENNIAL PLANT.

On the 18th, Captain Hedberg, Of
the Fifteenth United States infantry, taxi
ing with him 12-year-old lad, who was
visiting him, went out for sail, and when
half . mile from shore the boat was cap
sized. The waves carried Captain He'd
berg, who held the boy on one arm and
chung to the boat with the other, further
and further from shore. When two miles
out in the lake boats overlook them.
With the greatest difficulty they were
taken aboard. For three hours the cap
tain had chung by one arm to the boat and
held the underground boy with the other.
David Trumbull, Yale college boy, a
few years ago, jumped overheard from
yacht to save a child, and persisted. Lieu
tenant Rucker, u. S. A., is on the
regular army's roll OF honor as a man
who faced danger and died rather than see
his friend perish unaided, refused to ac-
cept the philosophy of Falstaff and pur-
chase length of days by letting love and
honor die.
Commander Woolsey, o. 8. N, died OF
yellow fever at Pensacolain 1874, martyr
TO his sense of duty. He was under orders
to proceed north, but stayed at his post, al
though the department informed him that
even under such circumstances he might
properly leave his command. An eminent
New York physician, an old resident Of
New Orleans, left wife, children and
friends, went to the fever-stricken city,
worked night and day in the hospitals,
caught the fever and died, writing his
wife and children the day before his death
that 1t was small consequence where
man died, so that he died doing his duty.
A gallant English ship captain few years
ago lifted his newly-married wife tenderly
In his arms and dropping her into one of
the ships boats, said: s'Good-bye, my
darling; we shall never see each other
again; for my place is here as long as the
ship floats" Henry D. Rumsey, of
Omaha, lost his life at Buffalo, n. Y,
going back into a burning hotel to
save the little daughter of a stranger.
He was bound to earth by the tenderest
family ties, yet when the news of his death
reached Omaha, his old clerk said: "He
died like hero: if he had died in any
other manner / would have been sur
prised." At the horrible disaster at Nam
aimo mine Samuel Hudson, miner, lost
his life trying to rescue his comrades from
their frightful grave. Last month young
college boy, John McKeown, rich, popu-
lar, with troops of friends, sprang into the
lake where his playmate was struggling
and sank to death with him; Fred Bro
has L.
surf and was drowned trying to save
helpless servant girl. Harry Russell,
printer, at New Orleans, seized by the bits
pair of frightened horses as they tore
through crowd of women and children,
and before he was trampled TO death had
so checked their speed that they were
stopped by others. Edward Bowers, a 1G-
year-old schoolboy, went to the rescue of
two drowning comrades and brought both
ashore.
What do all these object lessons of the
spirit of self-forgetting courage and SYM
patty meanf They mean that the old
so-called romantic school of fiction, derided
by Howells and his school of imitators as
obsolete. is still the true evangelist and
inspired prophet of the best in human ma
ture, for these men of all ranks and condi-
tons of life, of different degrees of intelli-
gence and culture and circumstances serve
10 illustrate how frequently the poets
dream, the novelist's ideal of the heroic
possibilities of humanity are made part
of the glowing actualities of existence.
The dream becomes deed: the ideal hero
is constantly bursting out of the ground
in unexpected places. like gnome in the
forest. or coming mp like lovely blossom
out of the dark bog, whose sphagnum we
had scarcely suspected hid in its heart the
seeds of so many soulful shapes of beauty.
True it IL that genuine heroism is al
ways the unexpected, but it is not, there
fore, as Mr.. Howells argues, the unreal,
the unhealthy, the unnatural, the affected,
the fantastic, the morbid. sentimentally
sick side of human nature; on the con-
trary, it comes, when il comes at all.
instinctively, spontaneously; it is ire
pressible as the volcanic impulse of genius
contrasted with the trained effort of mere
talent The courage that charges bat
terry is indamed by the sights and sounds
Of war exhibited in its drums and tifes
and bugles and banners; it is but a bull.
dog leased to raging madness and then
slipped in its fury AZ the foe; tits COM
paratiyely common and cheap courage.
but heroism is rare. because il is not the
creature and hound Of military discipline:
10 Is not the weak slave of that pride.
vanity and self-esteem which makes even
q coward keep his place. or even lead A
charge 10 capture cheer: heroism is self.
sbnegation; seif-forgetfuness; il is the
stout soldier, sailor or surgeon standing
by their sick wheE they know that the
ar is not only full of farewells to the
dying, but in its inspiration is death
Itself
Iago had the inaexible courage OF a pitt
less villain concentrating his villainv;
Hlehard the Third and Macbeth had the
Satanic courage TO dare and DO all devil
sasfs Tor personal ambition. and die fight
leg desperately 20 the last. like vol.
among the mangled hounds: Antony
wst,id have faced an empire in arms or