ible through the
youthful picture of imagination. Suddenly some one known to us
falls--a shell strikes amongst the crowd and causes some involuntary
movements--we begin to feel that we are no longer perfectly at ease and
collected; even the bravest is at least to some degree confused. Now, a
step farther into the battle which is raging before us like a scene in
a theatre, we get to the nearest General of Division; here ball follows
ball, and the noise of our own guns increases the confusion. From the
General of Division to the Brigadier. He, a man of acknowledged bravery,
keeps carefully behind a rising ground, a house, or a tree--a sure sign
of increasing danger. Grape rattles on the roofs of the houses and
in the fields; cannon balls howl over us, and plough the air in all
directions, and soon there is a frequent whistling of musket balls. A
step farther towards the troops, to that sturdy infantry which for
hours has maintained its firmness under this heavy fire; here the air
is filled with the hissing of balls which announce their proximity by a
short sharp noise as they pass within an inch of the ear, the head, or
the breast.

To add to all this, compassion strikes the beating heart with pity at
the sight of the maimed and fallen. The young soldier cannot reach any
of these different strata of danger without feeling that the light of
reason does not move here in the same medium, that it is not refracted
in the same manner as in speculative contemplation. Indeed, he must be a
very extraordinary man who, under these impressions for the first time,
does not lose the power of making any instantaneous decisions. It is
true that habit soon blunts such impressions; in half in hour we begin
to be more or less indifferent to all that is going on around us: but
an ordinary character never attains to complete coolness and the
natural elasticity of mind; and so we perceive that here again ordinary
qualities will not suffice--a thing which gains truth, the wider the
sphere of activity which is to be filled. Enthusiastic, stoical, natural
bravery, great ambition, or also long familiarity with danger--much of
all this there must be if all the effects produced in this resistant
medium are not to fall far short of that which in the student's chamber
may appear only the ordinary standard.

Danger in War belongs to its friction; a correct idea of its influence
is necessary for truth of perception, and therefore it is brought under
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