ve; does he love the
right, he may die in glory on a bed of down; is he false and base,
these things thrust discord into his hymn of dying anguish, and no
crown of thorns can sanctify his drooping head. Physical courage is,
after all, but a secondary quality, and needs a sublime motive to
make it thoroughly sublime.

Among all these different forms of courage it is almost equally true
that it is the hardest of all qualities to predict or identify, in
an individual case, before the actual trial. Many a man has been
unable to discover, till the critical moment, whether he himself
possessed it or not. It is often denied to the healthy and strong,
and given to the weak. The pugilist may be a poltroon, and the
bookworm a hero. We have seen the most purely ideal philosopher in
this country face the black muzzles of a dozen loaded revolvers with
his usual serene composure. And on the other hand, we have known a
black-bearded backwoodsman, whose mere voice and presence would
quell any riot among the lumberers,--yet this man, nicknamed by his
_employees_ "the black devil," confessed himself to be in secret
the most timid of lambs.

One reason of this difficulty of estimate lies in the fact, that
courage and cowardice often complicate themselves with other
qualifies, and so show false colors. For instance, the presence or
absence of modesty may disguise the genuine character. The
unpretending are not always timid, nor always brave. The boaster is
not always, but only commonly, a coward. Were it otherwise, how
could we explain the existence of courage in Frenchmen or Indians?
Barking dogs sometimes bite, as many a small boy, too trustful of the
proverb, has found to his cost. "If that be a friend of yours," says
Branteme's brave Spanish Cavalier, "pray for his soul, for he has
quarrelled with me." Indeed, the Gascons, whose name is identified
with boasting, (gasconade,) were always among the bravest races in
Europe.

Again, the mere quality of caution is often mistaken for cowardice,
while heedlessness passes for daring. A late eminent American
sculptor, a man of undoubted courage, is said to have always taken
the rear car in a railroad train. Such a spirit of prudence, where
well-directed, is to be viewed with respect. We ought not to
reverence the blind recklessness which sits on the safety-valve
during a steamboat-race, but the cool composure which neither
underrates a danger nor shrinks from it. The best encomium is that