The Hero of the Humber

The Hero of the Humber is a Book of Biography. The book says that Mr. Gladstone, in a recent lecture thus defines a hero: quoting Latham's definition of a hero, —'a man eminent for bravery', he said he was not satisfied with that, because bravery might be mere animal bravery. Carlyle had described Napoleon I. as a great hero'. Now he (Mr. Gladstone) was not prepared to admit that Napoleon was a hero. He was certainly one of the most extraordinary men ever born. There was more power concentrated in that brain than in any brain probably born for centuries. That he was a great man in the sense of being a man of transcendent power, there was no doubt; but his life was tainted with selfishness from beginning to end, and he was not ready to admit that a man whose life was fundamentally tainted with selfishness was a hero.