before him some hideous indefinable Image, which he took for the
Evil One, to forbid his work: Luther started up, with fiend-defiance;
flung his inkstand at the spectre, and it disappeared! The spot still
remains there; a curious monument of several things. Any apothecary's
apprentice can now tell us what we are to think of this apparition, in
a scientific sense: but the man's heart that dare rise defiant, face to
face, against Hell itself, can give no higher proof of fearlessness.
The thing he will quail before exists not on this Earth or under
it.--Fearless enough! "The Devil is aware," writes he on one occasion,
"that this does not proceed out of fear in me. I have seen and defied
innumerable Devils. Duke George," of Leipzig, a great enemy of his,
"Duke George is not equal to one Devil,"--far short of a Devil! "If I
had business at Leipzig, I would ride into Leipzig, though it rained
Duke Georges for nine days running." What a reservoir of Dukes to ride
into--!

At the same time, they err greatly who imagine that this man's courage
was ferocity, mere coarse disobedient obstinacy and savagery, as many
do. Far from that. There may be an absence of fear which arises from the
absence of thought or affection, from the presence of hatred and stupid
fury. We do not value the courage of the tiger highly! With Luther it
was far otherwise; no accusation could be more unjust than this of mere
ferocious violence brought against him. A most gentle heart withal, full
of pity and love, as indeed the truly valiant heart ever is. The tiger
before a _stronger_ foe--flies: the tiger is not what we call valiant,
only fierce and cruel. I know few things more touching than those soft
breathings of affection, soft as a child's or a mother's, in this great
wild heart of Luther. So honest, unadulterated with any cant; homely,
rude in their utterance; pure as water welling from the rock. What, in
fact, was all that down-pressed mood of despair and reprobation,
which we saw in his youth, but the outcome of pre-eminent thoughtful
gentleness, affections too keen and fine? It is the course such men as
the poor Poet Cowper fall into. Luther to a slight observer might have
seemed a timid, weak man; modesty, affectionate shrinking tenderness the
chief distinction of him. It is a noble valor which is roused in a heart
like this, once stirred up into defiance, all kindled into a heavenly
blaze.

In Luther's _Table-Talk_, a posthumous Book of anecdot