Character — Ch 5c - Courage, cont.

Intellectual intrepidity is one of the vital conditions of independence and self-reliance of character.

A man must have the courage to be himself, and not the shadow or the echo of another.

He must exercise his own powers, think his own thoughts, and speak his own sentiments.

He must elaborate his own opinions, and form his own convictions.

It has been said that he who dare not form an opinion, must be a coward; he who will not, must be an idler; he who cannot, must be a fool.

But it is precisely in this element of intrepidity that so many persons of promise fall short, and disappoint the expectations of their friends.

They march up to the scene of action, but at every step their courage oozes out.

They want the requisite decision, courage, and perseverance.

They calculate the risks, and weigh the chances, until the opportunity for effective effort has passed, it may be never to return.

Men are bound to speak the truth in the love of it.

"I had rather suffer," said John Pym, the Commonwealth man, "for speaking the truth, than that the truth should suffer for want of my speaking."

When a man's convictions are honestly formed, after fair and full consideration, he is justified in striving by all fair means to bring them into action.

There are certain states of society and conditions of affairs in which a man is bound to speak out, and be antagonistic--when conformity is not only a weakness, but a sin.

Great evils are in some cases only to be met by resistance; they cannot be wept down, but must be battled down.

The honest man is naturally antagonistic to fraud, the truthful man to lying, the justice-loving man to oppression, the pureminded man to vice and iniquity.

They have to do battle with these conditions, and if possible overcome them.

Such men have in all ages represented the moral force of the world.

Inspired by benevolence and sustained by courage, they have been the mainstays of all social renovation and progress.

But for their continuous antagonism to evil conditions, the world were for the most part given over to the dominion of selfishness and vice.

All the great reformers and martyrs were antagonistic men--enemies to falsehood and evildoing.

The Apostles themselves were an organised band of social antagonists, who contended with pride, selfishness, superstition, and irreligion.

And in our own time the lives of such men as Clarkson and Granville Sharpe, Father Mathew and Richard Cobden, inspired by singleness of purpose, have shown what highminded social antagonism can effect.

It is the strong and courageous men who lead and guide and rule the world.

The weak and timid leave no trace behind them; whilst the life of a single upright and energetic man is like a track of light.

His example is remembered and appealed to; and his thoughts, his spirit, and his courage continue to be the inspiration of succeeding generations.

It is energy--the central element of which is will--that produces the miracles of enthusiasm in all ages.

Everywhere it is the mainspring of what is called force of character, and the sustaining power of all great action.

In a righteous cause the determined man stands upon his courage as upon a granite block; and, like David, he will go forth to meet Goliath, strong in heart though an host be encamped against him.

Men often conquer difficulties because they feel they can.

Their confidence in themselves inspires the confidence of others.

When Caesar was at sea, and a storm began to rage, the captain of the ship which carried him became unmanned by fear.

"What art thou afraid of?"

cried the great captain; "thy vessel carries Caesar!"

The courage of the brave man is contagious, and carries others along with it.

His stronger nature awes weaker natures into silence, or inspires them with his own will and purpose.

The persistent man will not be baffled or repulsed by opposition.

Diogenes, desirous of becoming the disciple of Antisthenes, went and offered himself to the cynic.

He was refused.

Diogenes still persisting, the cynic raised his knotty staff, and threatened to strike him if he did not depart.

"Strike!"

said Diogenes; "you will not find a stick hard enough to conquer my perseverance."

Antisthenes, overcome, had not another word to say, but forthwith accepted him as his pupil.

Energy of temperament, with a moderate degree of wisdom, will carry a man further than any amount of intellect without it.

Energy makes the man of practical ability.

It gives him VIS, force, MOMENTUM.

It is the active motive power of character; and if combined with sagacity and self-possession, will enable a man to employ his powers to the best advantage in all the affairs of life.

Hence it is that, inspired by energy of purpose, men of comparatively mediocre powers have often been enabled to accomplish such extraordinary results.

For the men who have most powerfully influenced the world have not been so much men of genius as men of strong convictions and enduring capacity for work, impelled by irresistible energy and invincible determination: such men, for example, as were Mahomet, Luther, Knox, Calvin, Loyola, and Wesley.

Courage, combined with energy and perseverance, will overcome difficulties apparently insurmountable.

It gives force and impulse to effort, and does not permit it to retreat.

Tyndall said of Faraday, that "in his warm moments he formed a resolution, and in his cool ones he made that resolution good."

Perseverance, working in the right direction, grows with time, and when steadily practised, even by the most humble, will rarely fail of its reward.

Trusting in the help of others is of comparatively little use.

When one of Michael Angelo's principal patrons died, he said: "I begin to understand that the promises of the world are for the most part vain phantoms, and that to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value, is the best and safest course."

Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness.

On the contrary, gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterise the men, not less than the women, who have done the most courageous deeds.

Sir Charles Napier gave up sporting, because he could not bear to hurt dumb creatures.

The same gentleness and tenderness characterised his brother, Sir William, the historian of the Peninsular War.

[1410] Such also was the character of Sir James Outram, pronounced by Sir Charles Napier to be "the Bayard of India, SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE"--one of the bravest and yet gentlest of men; respectful and reverent to women, tender to children, helpful of the weak, stern to the corrupt, but kindly as summer to the honest and deserving.

Moreover, he was himself as honest as day, and as pure as virtue.

Of him it might be said with truth, what Fulke Greville said of Sidney: "He was a true model of worth--a man fit for conquest, reformation, plantation, or what action soever is the greatest and hardest among men; his chief ends withal being above all things the good of his fellows, and the service of his sovereign and country."

When Edward the Black Prince won the Battle of Poictiers, in which he took prisoner the French king and his son, he entertained them in the evening at a banquet, when he insisted on waiting upon and serving them at table.

The gallant prince's knightly courtesy and demeanour won the hearts of his captives as completely as his valour had won their persons; for, notwithstanding his youth, Edward was a true knight, the first and bravest of his time--a noble pattern and example of chivalry;

his two mottoes, 'Hochmuth' and 'Ich dien' [14high spirit and reverent service] not inaptly expressing his prominent and pervading qualities.

It is the courageous man who can best afford to be generous; or rather, it is his nature to be so.

When Fairfax, at the Battle of Naseby, seized the colours from an ensign whom he had struck down in the fight, he handed them to a common soldier to take care of.

The soldier, unable to resist the temptation, boasted to his comrades that he had himself seized the colours, and the boast was repeated to Fairfax.

"Let him retain the honour," said the commander; "I have enough beside."

So when Douglas, at the Battle of Bannockburn, saw Randolph, his rival, outnumbered and apparently overpowered by the enemy, he prepared to hasten to his assistance; but, seeing that Randolph was already driving them back, he cried out, "Hold and halt!

We are come too late to aid them; let us not lessen the victory they have won by affecting to claim a share in it."

Quite as chivalrous, though in a very different field of action, was the conduct of Laplace to the young philosopher Biot, when the latter had read to the French Academy his paper, "SUR LES EQUATIONS AUX DIFFERENCE MELEES."

The assembled SAVANS, at its close, felicitated the reader of the paper on his originality.

Monge was delighted at his success.

Laplace also praised him for the clearness of his demonstrations, and invited Biot to accompany him home.

Arrived there, Laplace took from a closet in his study a paper, yellow with age, and handed it to the young philosopher.

To Biot's surprise, he found that it contained the solutions, all worked out, for which he had just gained so much applause.

With rare magnanimity, Laplace withheld all knowledge of the circumstance from Biot until the latter had initiated his reputation before the Academy; moreover, he enjoined him to silence; and the incident would have remained a secret had not Biot himself published it, some fifty years afterwards.

An incident is related of a French artisan, exhibiting the same characteristic of self-sacrifice in another form.

In front of a lofty house in course of erection at Paris was the usual scaffold, loaded with men and materials.

The scaffold, being too weak, suddenly broke down, and the men upon it were precipitated to the ground--all except two, a young man and a middle-aged one, who hung on to a narrow ledge, which trembled under their weight, and was evidently on the point of giving way.

"Pierre," cried the elder of the two, "let go; I am the father of a family."

"C'EST JUSTE!"

said Pierre; and, instantly letting go his hold, he fell and was killed on the spot.

The father of the family was saved.

The brave man is magnanimous as well as gentle.

He does not take even an enemy at a disadvantage, nor strike a man when he is down and unable to defend himself.

Even in the midst of deadly strife such instances of generosity have not been uncommon.

Thus, at the Battle of Dettingen, during the heat of the action, a squadron of French cavalry charged an English regiment; but when the young French officer who led them, and was about to attack the English leader, observed that he had only one arm, with which he held his bridle, the Frenchman saluted him courteously with his sword, and passed on.

[1411] It is related of Charles V. , that after the siege and capture of Wittenburg by the Imperialist army, the monarch went to see the tomb of Luther.

While reading the inscription on it, one of the servile courtiers who accompanied him proposed to open the grave, and give the ashes of the "heretic" to the winds.

The monarch's cheek flushed with honest indignation: "I war not with the dead," said he; "let this place be respected."

The portrait which the great heathen, Aristotle, drew of the Magnanimous Man, in other words the True Gentleman, more than two thousand years ago, is as faithful now as it was then.

"The magnanimous man," he said, "will behave with moderation under both good fortune and bad.

He will know how to be exalted and how to be abased.

He will neither be delighted with success nor grieved by failure.

He will neither shun danger nor seek it, for there are few things which he cares for.

He is reticent, and somewhat slow of speech, but speaks his mind openly and boldly when occasion calls for it.

He is apt to admire, for nothing is great to him.

He overlooks injuries.

He is not given to talk about himself or about others; for he does not care that he himself should be praised, or that other people should be blamed.

He does not cry out about trifles, and craves help from none."

On the other hand, mean men admire meanly.

They have neither modesty, generosity, nor magnanimity.

They are ready to take advantage of the weakness or defencelessness of others, especially where they have themselves succeeded, by unscrupulous methods, in climbing to positions of authority.

Snobs in high places are always much less tolerable than snobs of low degree, because they have more frequent opportunities of making their want of manliness felt.

They assume greater airs, and are pretentious in all that they do; and the higher their elevation, the more conspicuous is the incongruity of their position.

"The higher the monkey climbs," says the proverb, "the more he shows his tail."

Much depends on the way in which a thing is done.

An act which might be taken as a kindness if done in a generous spirit, when done in a grudging spirit, may be felt as stingy, if not harsh and even cruel.

When Ben Jonson lay sick and in poverty, the king sent him a paltry message, accompanied by a gratuity.

The sturdy plainspoken poet's reply was: "I suppose he sends me this because I live in an alley; tell him his soul lives in an alley."

From what we have said, it will be obvious that to be of an enduring and courageous spirit, is of great importance in the formation of character.

It is a source not only of usefulness in life, but of happiness.

On the other hand, to be of a timid and, still more, of a cowardly nature is one of the greatest misfortunes.

A.

wise man was accustomed to say that one of the principal objects he aimed at in the education of his sons and daughters was to train them in the habit of fearing nothing so much as fear.

And the habit of avoiding fear is, doubtless, capable of being trained like any other habit, such as the habit of attention, of diligence, of study, or of cheerfulness.

Much of the fear that exists is the offspring of imagination, which creates the images of evils which MAY happen, but perhaps rarely do;

and thus many persons who are capable of summoning up courage to grapple with and overcome real dangers, are paralysed or thrown into consternation by those which are imaginary.

Hence, unless the imagination be held under strict discipline, we are prone to meet evils more than halfway--to suffer them by forestalment, and to assume the burdens which we ourselves create.