women like ourselves, courage shows
itself chiefly by refusing to surrender our convictions of what is true
and right just because other people will like us better if we pretend to
think as they do; and by enduring without flinching the rubs and bumps
and bruises which this close contact with our fellows brings to us.

+Moral courage.+--The brave man everywhere is the man who has a firm
purpose in his own breast, and goes forth to carry out that purpose in
spite of all opposition, or solicitation, or influence of any kind that
would tend to make him do otherwise. He does the same, whether men blame
or approve; whether it bring him pain or pleasure, profit or loss. The
purpose that is in him, that he declares, that he maintains, that he
lives to realize; in defense of that he will lay down wealth,
reputation, and, if need be, life itself. He will be himself, if he is
to live at all. Men must approve what he really is, or he will have none
of their praise, but their blame rather. By no pretense of being what he
is not, by no betrayal of what he holds to be true and right, will he
gain their favor. The power to stand alone with truth and right against
the world is the test of moral courage. The brave man plants himself on
the eternal foundations of truth and justice, and bids defiance to all
the forces that would drive him from it.

Wordsworth, in his character of "The Happy Warrior," has portrayed the
kind of courage demanded of the modern man:

'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends.
Who if he rise to station of command
Rises by open means, and there will stand
On honorable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire:
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow, on whose head must fall
Like showers of manna, if they come at all.
'Tis finally the man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
Or left unthought of in obscurity,
Who with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content t