s released it for useful
service. After all, the black sheep is often only black by the accident of
circumstance, upbringing, or association. He is a misfit. In him, as in all
of us, there is an infinite complexity--good and ill together. No one who
has faithfully examined his own life can doubt how trifling a weight turns
the scales for or against us. An accidental meeting, a casual friendship, a
phrase in a book--and the current of life takes a definite direction this
way or that. There are no doubt people in whom the elements are so
perfectly adjusted that the balance is never in doubt. Their character is
superior to circumstance. But they are rare. They are the stars that dwell
apart from our human struggles. Most of us know what it is to be on the
brink of the precipice--know, if we are quite honest with ourselves, how
narrow a shave we have had from joining the black sheep. Perhaps, if we are
still honest with ourselves, we shall admit that the thing that turned the
balance for us was not a very creditable thing--that we were protected from
ourselves not by any high virtue, but by something mean, a touch of
cowardice, a paltry ambition, a consideration that we should be ashamed to
confess.

We are so strangely compact that we do not ourselves know what the ordeal
will discover in us. You have no doubt read that incident of the sergeant
who, in a moment of panic, fled, was placed under arrest and sentenced to
be shot. Before the sentence was ratified by the Commander-in-Chief, there
came a moment of extreme peril to the line, when irretrievable disaster was
imminent and every man who could fill a gap was needed. The condemned man
was called out to face the enemy, and, even in the midst of brave men,
fought with a bravery that singled him out for the Victoria Cross. Tell
me--which was the true man? I saw the other day a letter from a famous
doctor dealing with the question of the psychology of war. He was against
shooting a man for cowardice, because cowardice was not necessarily a
quality of character. It was often a temporary collapse due to physical
fatigue, or a passing condition of mind. "Five times," he said, "I have
been at work in circumstances in which my life was in imminent peril. On
four occasions I worked with a curious sense of exaltation. On the fifth
occasion I was seized with a sudden and unreasoning panic that paralysed
me. Perhaps it was a failure of digestion, perhaps a want of sleep. Anyhow,
at t