ys, "In battles the eye is first overcome." Entire
self-possession may make a battle very little more dangerous to life
than a match at foils or at football. Examples are cited by soldiers of
men who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire given to it, and who
have stepped aside from the path of the ball. The terrors of the storm
are chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin. The drover, the
sailor, buffets it all day, and his health renews itself at as vigorous
a pulse under the sleet as under the sun of June.

In the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes
readily to heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party;
but it is a bad counsellor. Every man is actually weak and apparently
strong. To himself he seems weak; to others, formidable. You are afraid
of Grim; but Grim also is afraid of you. You are solicitous of the
good-will of the meanest person, uneasy at his ill-will. But the
sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip
up his claims, is as thin and timid as any, and the peace of society is
often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid, and the other dares
not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten; bring them hand to hand,
and they are a feeble folk.

It is a proverb that 'courtesy costs nothing'; but calculation might
come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but
kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an
eye-water. If you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan, never recognize
the dividing lines, but meet on what common ground remains,--if only
that the sun shines and the rain rains for both; the area will widen
very fast, and ere you know it, the boundary mountains on which the eye
had fastened have melted into air. If they set out to contend, Saint
Paul will lie and Saint John will hate. What low, poor, paltry,
hypocritical people an argument on religion will make of the pure and
chosen souls! They will shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to
confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a
thought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of bravery,
modesty, or hope. So neither should you put yourself in a false
position with your contemporaries by indulging a vein of hostility and
bitterness. Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs,
assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely
that which all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll o