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COURAGE.
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
from
Society and Solitude (1870)
Chapter VII
COURAGE
I OBSERVE that there are three qualities which conspicuously attract the
wonder and reverence of mankind: 1. Disinterestedness, as shown in indifference
to the ordinary bribes and influences of conduct, ?a purpose so sincere and
generous that it cannot be tempted aside by any prospects of wealth or other
private advantage. Self?love is, in almost all men, such an over?weight, that
they are incredulous of a man's habitual preference of the general good to his
own; but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth, rank, and of
life itself, there is no limit to their admiration. This has made the power of
the saints of the East and West, who have led the religion of great nations.
Self?sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grew.
This makes the renown of the heroes of Greece and Rome,? of Socrates, Aristides,
and Phocion ; of Quintus Curtius, Cato, and Regulus; of Hatem Tai's hospitality;
of Chatham, whose scornful magnanimity gave hint immense popularity; of
Washington, giving his service to the public without salary or reward.
2. Practical power. Men admire the man who can organize their wishes and
thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass, ??the man who can build the
boat, who has the impiety to male the rivers run the way he wants them, who can
lead his telegraph through the ocean from shore to shore; who, sitting in his
closet, can lay out the plans of a campaign, ?? sea?war and land?war ; such that
the best generals and admirals, when all is done, see that they must thank him
for success ; the power of better combination and foresight, however exhibited,
which; whether it only plays a game of chess, or whether, more loftily, a
cunning mathematician, penetrating the cubic weights of stars, predicts the
planet which eyes had never seen; or whether, exploring the chemical elements
whereof we and the world are made, and seeing their secret, Franklin draws off
the lightning in his hand, suggesting that one day a wiser geology shall make
the earthquake harmless and the volcano an agricultural resource. Or here is one
who, seeing the wishes of men, knows how to come at their end ; whispers to this
friend, argues down that adversary, moulds society to his purpose, and looks at
all men as wax for his hands, ??takes command of them as the wind does of
clouds, as the mother does of the child, or the man that knows more does of the
man that knows less ; and leads them in glad surprise to the very point where
they would be: this man is followed with acclamation.
3. The third excellence is courage, the perfect will, which no terrors can
shake, which is attracted by frowns or threats or hostile armies, nay, needs
these to awake and fan its reserved energies into a pure flame, and is never
quite itself until the hazard is extreme ; then it is serene and fertile, and
all its powers play well. There is a Hercules, an Achilles, a Rustem, an Arthur,
or a Cid in the mythology of every nation ; and in authentic history, a Leonidas,
a Scipio, a Caesar, a Richard Coeur de Lion, a Cromwell, a Nelson, a Great
Condé, a Bertrand du Guesclin, a Doge Dandolo, a Napoleon, a Massena, and Ney.
'T is said courage is common, but the immense esteem in which it is held proves
it to be rare. Animal resistance, the instinct of the male animal when cornered,
is no doubt common; but the pure article, courage with eyes, courage with
conduct, self?possession at the cannon's mouth, cheerfulness in lonely adherence
to the right, is the endowment of elevated characters. I need not show how much
it is esteemed, for the people give it the first rank. They forgive everything
to it. What an ado we make through taco thousand years about Thermopylae and
Salamis 1 What a memory of Poitiers and Crecy, and Bunker Hill, and Washington's
endurance! And any man who puts his life in peril in a cause which is esteemed
becomes the darling of all men. The very nursery?books, the ballads which
delight boys, the romances which delight men, the favorite topics of eloquence,
the thunderous emphasis which orators give to every martial defiance and passage
of arms, and which the people greet, may testify. How short a time since this
whole nation rose every morning to read or to hear the traits of courage of its
sons and brothers in the field, and was never weary of the theme! We have had
examples of men who, for showing effective courage on a single occasion, have
become a favorite spectacle to nations, and must be brought in chariots to every
mass meeting.
Men are so charmed with valor, that they have pleased themselves with being
called lions, leopards, eagles, and dragons, from the animals contemporary with
us in the geologic formations. But the animals have great advantage of us in
precocity. Touch the snapping?turtle with a stick, and he seizes it with his
teeth. Gut off his head, and the teeth will not let go the stick. Break the egg
of the young, and the little embryo, before yet the eyes are open, bites
fiercely ; these vivacious creatures contriving, ? shall we say ? ? not only to
bite after they are dead, but also to bite before they are born.
But man begins life helpless. The babe is in paroxysms of fear the moment its
nurse leaves it alone, and it comes so slowly to any power of self-protection,
that mothers say the salvation of the life and health of a young child is a
perpetual miracle. The terrors of the child are quite reasonable, and add to his
loveliness; for his utter ignorance and weakness, and his enchanting indignation
on such a small basis of capital, compel every by?stander to take his part.
Every moment, as long as he is awake, he studies the use of his eyes, ears,
hands, and feet, learning how to meet and avoid his dangers, and thus every hour
loses one terror more. But this education stops too soon. A large majority of
men being bred in families, and beginning early to be occupied day by day with
some routine of safe industry, never come to the rough experiences that make the
Indian, the soldier, or the frontiersman self?subsistent and fearless. Hence the
high price of courage indicates the general timidity. "Mankind," said
Franklin, "are dastardly when they meet with opposition." In war even,
generals are seldom found eager to give battle. Lord Welling ton said,
"Uniforms were often masks"; and again, "When my journal appears,
many statues must come down." The Norse Sagas relate that when Bishop Magne
reproved King Sigurd for his wicked divorce, the priest who attended the bishop,
expecting every moment when the savage king would burst with rage and slay his
superior, said "that he saw the sky no bigger than a calf?skin." And I
remember when a pair of Irish girls, who had been run away with in a wagon by a
skittish horse, said that, when he began to rear, they were so frightened that
they could not see the horse.
Cowardice shuts the eyes till the sky is not larger than a calf?skin; shuts
the eyes so that we cannot see the horse that is running away with us; worse,
shuts the eyes of the mind and chills the heart. Fear is cruel and mean. The
political reigns of terror have been reigns of madness and malignity,? a total
perversion of opinion; society is upside down, and its best men are thought too
bad to live. Then the protection which a house, a family, neighborhood and
property, even the first accumulation of savings, gives go in all times to
generate this taint of the respectable classes. Voltaire said, "One of the
chief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly." Those
political parties which gather?in the well?disposed portion of the
community,-?how infirm and ignoble! what white lips they have f always on the
defensive, as if the lead were intrusted to the journals, often written in great
part by women and boys, who, without strength, wish to keep up the appearance of
strength. They can do the hurras, the placarding, the flags,? and the voting, if
it is a fair day; but the aggressive attitude of men who will have right s done,
will no longer be bothered with burglars and ruffians in the streets,
counterfeiters in public offices, and thieves on the bench ; that part, the part
of the leader and soul of the vigilance committee, must be taken by stout and
sincere men who are really angry and determined. In ordinary, we have a snappish
criticism which watches and contradicts the opposite party. We want the will
which advances and dictates. When we get an advantage, as in Congress the other
day, it is because our adversary has committed a fault, not that we have taken
the initiative and given the law. Nature has made up her mind that what cannot
defend itself shall not be defended. Complaining never so loud, and with never
so much reason, is of no use. One heard much cant of peace?parties long ago in
Kansas and elsewhere, that their strength lay in the greatness of their wrongs,
and dissuading all resistance, as if to make this strength greater. But were
their wrongs greater than the negro's ? and what kind of strength did they ever
give him? It was always invitation to the tyrant, and bred disgust in those who
would protect the victim. What cannot stand must fall ; and the measure of our
sincerity, and therefore of the respect of men, is the amount of health and
wealth eve will hazard in the defence of our right. An old farmer, my neighbor
across the fence, when I ask him if he is not going to town?meeting, says:
"No; 't; is no use balloting, for it will not stay; but what you do with
the gun will stay so." Nature has charged every one with his own defence as
with his own support, and the only title I can have to your help is when I have
manfully put forth all the means I possess to keep me, and, being overborne by
odds, the by?standers have a natural wish to interfere, and see fair play.
But with this pacific education, we have no readiness for bad times. I am
much mistaken if every man who went to the army in the late war had not a lively
curiosity to know how he should behave in action. Tender, amiable boys, who had
never encountered any rougher play than a base?ball match or a fishing
excursion, were suddenly drawn up to face a bayonet charge or capture a battery.
Of course, they must each go into that action with a certain despair. Each
whispers to himself: "My exertions must be of small account to the result;
only will the benignant Heaven save me from disgracing myself and my friends and
my State. Die! O yes, I can well die ; but I cannot afford to misbehave ; and I
do not know how I shall feel." So great a soldier as the old French Marshal
Montluc acknowledges that he has often trembled with fear, and recovered courage
when he had said a prayer for the occasion. I knew a young soldier who died in
the early campaign, who confided to his sister that lie had made up his mind to
volunteer for the war. "I have not," lie said, "any proper
courage, but I shall never let any one find it out." And lie had accustomed
himself always to go into whatever place of danger, and do whatever lie was
afraid to do, setting a dogged resolution to resist this natural infirmity.
Coleridge has preserved an anecdote of an officer in the British Navy, who told
him that when he, in his first boat expedition, a midshipman in his fourteenth
year, accompained Sir Alexander Ball, "as we were rowing up to the vessel
we were to attack, amid a discharge of musketry, I was overpowered with fear, my
knees shook, and I was ready to faint away. Lieutenant Ball seeing me, placed
himself close beside me, took hold of my hand and whispered,, I Courage, my dear
boy! you will recover in a minute or so; I was just the same when I first went
out in this way.' It was as if an angel spoke to me. From that moment I was as
fearless and as forward as the oldest of the boat's crew. But I dare not think
what would have become of me, if, at that moment, he had scoffed and exposed
me."
Knowledge is the antidote to fear, ?? Knowledge, Use, and Reason, with its
higher aids. The child is as much in danger from a staircase, or the fire?grate,
or a bath?tub, or a cat, as the soldier from a cannon or an ambush. Each
surmounts the fear as fast as he precisely understands the peril, and learns the
means of resistance. Each is liable to panic, which is, exactly, the terror of
ignorance surrendered to the imagination. Knowledge is the encourager, knowledge
that takes fear oust of the heart, knowledge and use, which is knowledge in
practice. They can conquer who believe they can. It is he who has done the deed
once who does not shrink from attempting it again. It is the groom who knows the
jumping horse well who can safely ride him. It is the veteran soldier, who,
seeing the flash of the cannon, can step aside from the path of the ball. Use
makes a better soldier than the most urgent considerations of duty, ???
familiarity with danger enabling him to estimate the danger. He sees how much is
the risk, and is not afflicted with imagination ; knows practically Marshal
Saxe's rule, that every soldier killed costs the enemy his weight in lead.
The sailor loses fear as fast as he acquires command of sails and spars and
steam; the frontiersman, when he has a perfect rifle and has acquired a sure
aim. To the sailor's experience every new circumstance suggests what he must do.
The terrific chances which make the hours and the minutes long to the passenger,
he whiles away by incessant application of expedients and repairs. To him a
leak, a hurricane, or a water?spout is so much work, ?? no more. The hunter is
not alarmed by bears, catamounts, or wolves, nor the grazier by his bull, nor
the dog?breeder by his bloodhound, nor an Arab by the simoom, nor a farmer by a
fire in the woods. The forest on fire looks discouraging enough to a citizen :
the farmer is skilful to fight it. The neighbors run together; with pine boughs
they can mop out the flame, and, by raking with the hoe a long but little
trench, confine to a patch the fire which would easily spread over a hundred
acres.
In short, courage consists in equality to the problem before us. The
school?boy is daunted before his tutor by a question of arithmetic, because he
does not yet command the simple steps of the solution which the boy beside him
has mastered. These once seen, he is as cool as Archimedes, and cheerily
proceeds a step farther. Courage is equality to the problem, in affairs, in
science, in trade, in council, or in action; consists in the conviction that the
agents with whom you contend are not superior in strength or resources or spirit
to you. The general must stimulate the mind of his soldiers to the perception
that they are men, and the enemy is no more. Knowledge, yes ; for the danger of
dangers is illusion. The eye is easily daunted; and the drums, flags, shining
helmets, beard, and mustache of the soldier have conquered you long before his
sword or bayonet reaches you.
But we do not exhaust the subject in the slight analysis; we must not forget
the variety of temperaments, each of which qualifies this power of resistance.
It is observed that men with little imagination are less fearful ; they wait
till they feel pain, whilst others of more sensibility anticipate it, and suffer
in the fear of the pang more acutely than in the pang. 'T is certain that the
threat is sometimes more formidable than the stroke, and 't is possible that the
beholders suffer more keenly than the victims. Bodily pain is superficial,
seated usually in the skin and the extremities, for the sake of giving us
warning to put us on our guard; not in the vitals, where the rupture that
produces death is perhaps not felt, and the victim never knew what hurt him.
Pain is superficial, and therefore fear is. The torments of martyrdoms are
probably most keenly felt by the by?standers. The torments are illusory. The
first suffering is the last suffering, the later hurts being lost on
insensibility. Our affections and wishes for the external welfare of the hero
tumultuously rush to expression in tears and outcries; but we, like him, subside
into indifferency and defiance, when we perceive how short is the longest arm of
malice, how serene is the sufferer.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell
in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give
this virtue ; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free
to do that which is constitutional to him to do. It is directness, ??the instant
performing of that which he ought. The thoughtful man says, you differ from me
in opinion and methods; but do you not see that I cannot think or act otherwise
than I do? that my way of living is organic? And to be really strong we must
adhere to our own means. On organic action all strength depends. Hear what women
say of doing a task by sheer force of will: it costs them a fit of sickness.
Plutarch relates that the Pythoness who tried to prophesy without command in
the: Temple at Delphi, though she performed the usual rites, and inhaled the air
of the cavern standing on the tripod, fell into convulsions, and died.
Undoubtedly there is a temperamental courage, a warlike blood, which loves a
fight, does not feel itself except in a quarrel, as one sees in wasps, or ants,
or cocks, or cats. The like vein appears in certain races of n men and in
individuals of every race. In every school there are certain fighting boys; in
every society, the contradicting men; in every town, bravoes and bullies, better
or worse dressed, fancy?men, patrons of the cock?pit and the ring. Courage is
temperamental, scientific, ideal. Swedenborg has left this record of his king:
"Charles XII., of Sweden, did not know what that was which others called
fear, nor what that spurious valor and daring that is excited by inebriating
draughts, for he never tasted any liquid but pure water. Of him we may ;say,
that he led a life more remote from death, and in fact lived more, than any
other man. It was told of the Prince of Condé, "that there not being a
more furious man in the world, danger in fight never disturbs him more than just
to make him civil, and to command in words of great obligation to his officers
and men, and without any the least disturbance tohis judgment or spirit."
Each has his own courage, as his own talent ; but the courage of the tiger is
one, and of the horse another. The dog that scorns to fight, will fight for his
master. The llama that will carry a load if you caress him, will refuse food and
die if he is scourged. The fury of onset is one, and of calm endurance another.
There is a courage of the cabinet as well as a courage of the field ; a courage
of manners in private assemblies, and another in public assemblies; a courage
which enables one man to speak masterly to a hostile company, whilst another man
who can easily face a cannon's mouth dares not open his own.
There is a courage of a merchant in dealing with his trade, by which
dangerous tunes of affairs are met and prevailed over. Merchants recognize as
much gallantry, well judged too, in the conduct of a wise and upright man of
business, in difficult times, as soldiers in a soldier.
There is a courage in the treatment of every art by a master in architecture,
in sculpture, in painting, or in poetry, each cheering the mind of the spectator
or receiver as by true strokes of genius, which yet nowise implies the presence
of physical valor in the artist. This is the courage of genius, in every hind. A
certain quantity of power belongs to a certain quantity of faculty. The
beautiful voice at church goes sounding on, and covers up in its volume, as in a
cloak, all the defects of the choir. The singers, I observe, all yield to it,
and so the fair singer indulges leer instinct, and dares, and dares, because she
knows she can.
It gives the cutting edge to every profession. The judge puts his mind to the
tangle of contradictions in the case, squarely accosts the question, and, by not
being afraid of it, by dealing with it as business which must be disposed of, he
sees presently that common arithmetic and common methods apply to this affair.
Perseverance strips it of all peculiarity, and ranges it on the same ground as
other business. Morphy played a daring game in chess : the daring was only an
illusion of the spectator, for the player sees his move to be well fortified and
safe. You may see the same dealing in criticism ; a new book astonishes for a
few days, takes itself out of common jurisdiction, and nobody knows what to say
of it: but the scholar is not deceived. The old principles which books exist to
express are more beautiful than any book ; and out of love of the reality he is
an expert judge how far the book has approached it and where it has come short.
In all applications 't is the same power,?the habit of reference to one's own
mind, as the home of all truth and counsel, and which can easily dispose of any
book because it can very well do without all books. When a confident man comes
into a company magnifying this or that author lie has freshly read, the company
grow silent and ashamed of their ignorance. But I remember the old professor,
whose searching mind engraved every word he spoke on the memory of the class,
when we asked if he had read this or that shining novelty, "No, I have
never read that book" ; instantly the book lost credit, and was not to be
heard of again.
Every creature has a courage of his constitution fit for his duties : ??
Archimedes, the courage of a geometer to stick to his diagram, heedless of the
siege and sack of the city; and the Roman soldier his faculty to strike at
Archimedes. Each is strong, relying on his own, and each is betrayed when he
seeks in himself the courage of others.
Captain John Brown, the hero of Kansas, said to me in conversation, that
"for a settler in a new country, one good, believing, strong minded man is
worth a hundred, nay, a thousand men without character ; and that the right men
will give a permanent direction to the fortunes of a state. As for the bullying
drunkards, of which armies are usually made up, he thought cholera, small?pox,
and consumption as valuable recruits." He held the belief that courage and
chastity are silent concern. ing themselves. He said, "As soon as I hear
one of my men say, I Ali, let me only get my eye on such a man, I 'll bring hint
down,' I don't expect much aid in the fight from that talker. 'T is the quiet,
peaceable men, the men of principle, that make the best soldiers."
" 'T is still observed those men most valiant are Who arc most modest
ere they came to war."
True courage is not ostentatious; men, who wish to inspire terror seem
thereby to confess themselves cowards. Why do they rely on it, but because they
know how potent it is with themselves ?
The true temper has genial influences. It makes a bond of union between
enemies. Governor Wise of Virginia, in the record of his first interviews with
his prisoner, appeared to great advantage. If Governor Wise is a superior man,
or inasmuch as he is a superior man, he distinguishes John Brown. As they
confer, they understand each other swiftly ; each respects the other. If
opportunity allowed, they would prefer each other's society and desert their
former companions. Enemies would become affectionate. Hector and Achilles,
Richard and Saladin, Wellington and Soult, General Daumas and Abdel Kader,
become aware that they are nearer and more alike than any other two, and, if
their nation and circumstance did not keep them apart, would run into each
other's arms.
See too what good contagion belongs to it. Everywhere it finds its own with
magnetic: affinity. Courage of the soldier awakes the courage of woman. Florence
Nightingale brings lint and the blessing of her shadow. Heroic women offer
themselves as nurses of the brave veteran. ' The troop of Virginian infantry
that had marched to guard the prison of John Brown ask leave to pay their
respects to the prisoner. Poetry and Eloquence catch the hint, and soar to a,
pitch unknown before. Everything feels the new breath, except the old doting,
nigh?dead politicians, whose heart the trumpet of resurrection could not wake.
The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions, inspirations,
flashes of genius. The hero could not have done the feat at another hour, in a
lower mood. The best act of the marvellous genius of Greece was its first act;
not in the statue or the Parthenon, but in the instinct which, at Thermopylae,
held Asia at bay, kept Asia out of Europe, ?? Asia with its antiquities and
organic slavery, ?-from corrupting the hope and new morning of the West. The
statue, the architecture, were the later and inferior creation of the same
genius. In view of this moment of history, w e recognize a certain prophetic
instinct better than wisdom. Napoleon said well, "My hand is immediately
connected with my head" ; but the sacred courage is connected with the
heart. The head is a half, a fraction, until it is enlarged and inspired by the
moral sentiment. For it is not the means on which eve draw, as health or wealth,
practical skill ox dexterous talent, or. multitudes of followers, that count,
but the aims only. The aim reacts each. on the means A great aim aggrandizes the
means. The meal and water that arc the commissariat of the forlorn hope that
stake their lives to defend the pass axe sacred as the Holy Grail, or as if one
had eyes to see in chemistry the fuel that is rushing to feed the sun.
There is a persuasion in the soul of man that he is here for cause, that he
was put down in this place by the Creator to do the work for which he inspires
him, that thus he is an overmatch for all antagonists that could combine against
him. The pious Mrs. Hutchinson says of some passages in the defence of
Nottingham against the Cavaliers, "It was a great instruction that the best
and highest courages are beams of the Almighty." And whenever the religious
sentiment is adequately affirmed, it must be with dazzling courage. As long as
it is cowardly insinuated, as with the wish to succor some partial and temporary
interest, or to make it affirm some pragmatical tenet which our parish church
receives to?day, it is not imparted, and cannot inspire or create. For it is
always new, leads and surprises, and practice never comes up with it. There are
ever appearing in the world men who, almost as soon as they are born, take a bee
line to the rack of the inquisitor, the axe of the; tyrant, like Jordano Bruno,
Vanini, Huss, Paul, Jesus, and Socrates. Look at Fox's Lives of the Martyrs,
Sewel's History of the Quakers, Southey's Book of the Church, at the folios of
the Brothers Bollandi, who collected the lives of twenty?five thousand martyrs,
confessors, ascetics, and self?tormentor. There is much of fable, but a broad
basis of fact. The tender skin does not shrink from bayonets, the timid woman is
not scared by fagots ; the rack, is not frightful, nor the rope ignominious. The
poor Puritan, Antony Parsons, at the stake, tied straw on his head, when the
fire approached him, and said, "This is God's hat." Sacred courage
indicates that a man loves an idea better than all things in the world ; that he
is aiming neither at pelf or comfort, but will venture all to put in act the
invisible thought in his mind. He is everywhere a liberator, but of a freedom
that is ideal ; not seeking to have land or money or conveniences, but to have
no other limitation than that which his own constitution imposes. He is free to
speak truth; he is not free to lie. He wishes to break every yoke all over the
world which hinders his brother from acting after his thought.
There are degrees of courage, and each step upward makes us acquainted with a
higher virtue. Let us say then frankly that the education of the will is the
object of our existence. Poverty, the prison, the rack, the fire, the hatred and
execrations of our fellow?men, appear trials beyond the endurance of common
humanity; but to the hero whose intellect is aggrandized by the soul, and so
measures these penalties against the good which his thought surveys, these
terrors vanish as darkness at sunrise. 'tie have little right in piping times of
peace to pronounce on these rare heights of character ; but there is no
assurance of security. In the most private life, difficult duty is never far
off: Therefore we must think with courage. Scholars and thinkers are prone to an
effeminate habit, and shrink if a coarser shout comes up from the street, or a
brutal act is recorded in the journals. The Medical College piles up in its
museum its grim monsters of morbid anatomy, and there are melancholy sceptics
with a taste for carrion who batten on the hideous facts in history, ??
persecutions, inquisitions, St. Bartholomew massacres, devilish lives, Nero,
Caesar, Borgia, Marat, Lopez, ??men in whom every ray of humanity was
extinguished, parricides, matricides, and whatever moral monsters. These are not
cheerful facts, but they do not disturb a healthy mind ; they require of us a
patience as robust as the energy that attacks us, and an unresting exploration
of final causes. Wolf, snake, and crocodile are not inharmonious in nature, but;
are made useful as checks, scavengers, and pioneers; and we must have a scope as
large as Nature's to deal with beast?like men, detect what scullion function is
assigned them, and foresee in the secular Melioration of the planet how these
will become unnecessary, and will die out.
He has not learned the lesson of life, who does not every day surmount a
fear. I do not wish to put myself or any man into a theatrical ;position, or
urge him to ape the courage of his comrade. Have the courage not to adopt
another's courage. There is scope and cause and resistance enough for us in our
proper work and circumstance. And there is no creed of an honest man, be he
Christian, Turk, or Gentoo, which does not equally preach it. If you have no
faith in beneficent power above you, but see only an adamantine fate coiling its
folds about nature and man, then reflect that the best use of fate is to teach
us courage, if only because baseness cannot change the appointed event. If you
accept your thoughts as inspirations from the Supreme Intelligence, obey theirs
when they prescribe difficult duties, because they, come only so long as they
are used ; or, if your scepticism reaches to the last verge, and you have no
confidence in any foreign mind, then be brave, because there is one good opinion
which must always be of consequence to you, namely, your own.
_____________
I am permitted to enrich my chapter by adding an anecdote of pure courage
from real life, as narrated in a ballad by a lady to whom all the particulars of
the fact are exactly known.
GEORGE NIDIVER.
Men have done bravo deeds,
And bards have sung them well
I of good George Nidiver
Now the tale will tell.
In Californian mountains
A hunter bold was he
Keen his eye and sure his aim
As any you should see.
A little Indian boy
Followed him everywhere,
Eager to share the hunter's joy,
The hunter's meal to share.
And when the bird or deer
Fell by the hunter's skill,
The boy was always near
To help with right good?will.
One day as through the cleft
Between two mountains steep,
Shut in both right and left,
Their questing way they keep,
They see two grizzly bears
With hunger fierce and fell
Rush at them unawares
Right down the narrow dell.
The boy turned round with screams,
And ran with terror wild ;
One of the pair of savage beasts
Pursued the shrieking child.
The hunter raised his gun, ??
He knew one charge was all, ??
And through the boy's pursuing foe
He sent his only ball.
The other on George Nidiver
Came on with dreadful pace
The hunter stood unarmed,
And met him face to face.
I say unarmed he stood.
Against those frightful paws
The rifle but, or club of wood,
Could stand no more than straws.
George Nidiver stood still
And looked him in the face;
The wild beast stopped amazed,
Then came with slackening pace.
Still firm the hunter stood,
Although his heart beat high ;
Again the creature stopped,
And gazed with wondering eye.
The hunter met his gaze,
Nor yet an inch gave way;
The bear turned slowly round,
And slowly moved away.
What thoughts were in his mind
It would be hard to spell
What thoughts were in George Nidiver
I rather guess than tell.
But sure that rifle's aim,
Swift choice of generous part,
Showed in its passing gleam
The depths of a bravo heart.
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