luxury of daring deeds. Amid the changes of time,
the monotony of events, and the injustice of mankind, there is always
accessible to the poorest this one draught of enjoyment,--danger.
"In boyhood," said the Norwegian enthusiast, Ole Bull, "I loved to be
far out on the ocean in my little boat, for it was dangerous, and in
danger one draws near to God." Perhaps every man sometimes feels this
longing, has his moment of ardor, when he would fain leave politics
and personalities, even endearments and successes, behind, and would
exchange the best year of his life for one hour at Balaklava with
the "Six Hundred." It is the bounding of the Berserker blood in us,
--the murmuring echo of the old death-song of Regnar Lodbrog, as he
lay amid vipers in his dungeon:--"What is the fate of a brave man,
but to fall amid the foremost? He who is never wounded has a weary
lot."

This makes the fascination of war, which is in itself, of course,
brutal and disgusting. Dr. Johnson says, truly, that the naval and
military professions have the dignity of danger, since mankind
reverence those who have overcome fear, which is so general a
weakness. The error usually lies in exaggerating the difference, in
this respect, between war and peace. Madame de Sevigne writes to her
cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, after a campaign, "I cannot understand how
one can expose himself a thousand times, as you have done, and not
be killed a thousand times also." To which the Count answers, that
she overrates the danger; a soldier may often make several campaigns
without drawing a sword, and be in a battle without seeing an enemy,
--as, for example, where one is in the second line, or rear guard,
and the first line decides the contest. He finally quotes Turenne,
and Maurice, Prince of Orange, to the same effect, that a military
life is less perilous than civilians suppose.

It is, therefore, a foolish delusion to suppose, that, as the world
grows more pacific, the demand for physical courage passes away. It
is only that its applications become nobler. In barbarous ages, men
fight against men and animals, and need, like Achilles, to be fed on
the marrow of wild beasts. As time elapses, the savage animals are
extirpated, the savage men are civilized; but Nature, acting through
science, commerce, society, is still creating new exigencies of peril,
and evoking new types of courage to meet them. Grace Darling at her
oars, Kane in his open boat, Stephenson testing his safe