s very pleasant to hear--for a moment.

My position on the bow of the boat was absolutely safe, and I knew it.
There was no risk at all, except of a bruise or a wetting. My toe was
firmly hooked under the for'ard thwart, and short of my leg breaking, I
could not have lost my hold. Besides, even had I fallen overboard, I
could easily have swum round while Tony 'bouted the boat. Tony was
deceived. There was no pluck.

His words set me thinking, and I had to recognise, rather bitterly,
that what I call pluck did not form a great part of my birthright. I
find myself too apprehensive by nature; imagine horrid possibilities
too keenly; and indeed would far rather hurt myself than think about
doing so. I suppose I have a certain amount of courage, for I am
usually successful in making myself do what I funk; but I like doing it
none the better for that. And up to the present, I have not failed
badly in tight corners. On the contrary, I find (like most nervy
people) that actual danger, once arrived, is curiously exhilarating;
that it makes one cooler and sharper, even happy. One has faced the
worst in imagination, and the reality is play beside it.

[Sidenote: _AND COURAGE_]

In the dictionary, _courage_ is defined as 'The quality which enables
men to meet danger without fear.' _Pluck_ is merely defined as courage.
There is, or ought to be, an essential difference between the meaning
of the two words. Courage is a premeditated matter, into which the
will enters, whilst pluck is an unpremeditated expression of the
personality, an innate quality which, so to speak, does not need to be
set in operation by the will. Courage rises to the occasion; pluck is
found ready for it. Would it not, therefore, be more correct to say
that _pluck_ is the quality which enables men to meet danger without
fear: and that _courage_ is the quality which enables men to meet
danger with fear overcome? The greatest courage might go farther than
the greatest pluck, but for occasions on which either can be used,
pluck, the more spontaneous, is also the superior. Most of us are
irregularly, erratically plucky; one man with horses, who funks the
sea; another man at sea who is afraid of horses. One man who fears live
fists may think nothing of watching by the dead. Another who stands up
pluckily in a fight, refuses to go near a corpse. One of the pluckiest
men I know 'don't like dogs.' Pluck runs in streaks, but courage, to
whatever degree a man possesses