we find the same courage
in the third generation, as on March 29, 1884, when La Motte Dupont, one
of the grandchildren, took his stand inside the dynamite-mill--his
mill--when it was threatened by fire, and stayed there after every man
had left it, struggling with hand and brain against the danger until the
explosion, coming like a thousand cannon, crashed his body deep into a
sand-heap and left it with the life gone out.

I suppose this is only an instance of nature's tendency to furnish
always what is needed, to raise up a hero for each emergency; but it is
encouraging to know that the very finest kind of courage may be thus
developed by the mere pressure of moral responsibility in a man under no
master, but free to be a craven if he will. We have seen something like
this in the splendid devotion of fire-department chiefs, who often
outshine all their men simply because they cannot resist the gallant
spirit in their own hearts.

Now for the exception to this rule of persisting courage, an exception
sometimes presented in the lives of explosive makers (and in the other
lives, too), and showing that in certain cases courage may suddenly and
strangely disappear. A man may be brave for years, and then cease to be
brave. The wild-beast tamer may awaken some morning and discover himself
afraid of his lions. The steeple-climber who has never flinched at any
height may shrink at last. The pilot in the rapids, the acrobat on his
swing, the diver sinking to a wreck, may feel a quaking of heart unknown
before. Here is apparent contradiction, for how can courage be made by
habit and then unmade? I don't know. I merely give the facts as I have
found them, and it is quite certain that a sturdy Irishman who has
shoveled powder all his life and waded in it knee-deep, as if it were so
much coal-dust, may, for no reason he can put finger on, find himself
lying awake of nights reflecting on what would happen if a spark should
strike under one of the big rollers he feeds so carelessly, or,
remembering uneasily that dream of his wife's about a white horse--every
powder-man knows the close relation between dreams and explosions,
and--well, they will all tell you this, that the only thing for a man to
do when his heart feels the cold touch of fear is to quit his job. If he
doesn't his knell is sounded, he is marked for sacrifice, his tigers
will rend him, the deep waters will overwhelm him, a swift fall will
crush him--he will surely die.