It enriches the whole human family. It makes us
lift our heads with pride that we are men--that there is in us at our best
this noble gift of valiant unselfishness, this glorious prodigality that
spends life itself for something greater than life. If we had met this
nameless sailor we should have found him perhaps a very ordinary man, with
plenty of failings, doubtless, like the rest of us, and without any idea
that he had in him the priceless jewel beside which crowns and coronets are
empty baubles. He was something greater than he knew.
How many of us could pass such a test? What should I do? What would you do?
We neither of us know, for we are as great a mystery to ourselves as we are
to our neighbours. Bob Acres said he found that "a man may have a deal of
valour in him without knowing it," and it is equally true that a man may be
more chicken-hearted than he himself suspects. Only the occasion discovers
of what stuff we are made--whether we are heroes or cowards, saints or
sinners. A blustering manner will not reveal the one any more than a long
face will reveal the other.
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