The merit of this sailor's heroism was that it was done with
calculation--in cold blood, as it were, with that
"two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage" of which Napoleon spoke as the real
thing. Many of us could do brave things in hot blood, with a sudden rush of
the spirit, who would fail if we had time, as this man had, to pause and
think, to reckon, to doubt, to grow cold and selfish. The merit of his deed
is that it was an act of physical courage based on the higher quality of
moral courage.
Nor because a man fails in the great moment is he necessarily all a coward.
Mark Twain was once talking to a friend of mine on the subject of courage
in men, and spoke of a man whose name is associated with a book that has
become a classic. "I knew him well," he said, "and I knew him as a brave
man. Yet he once did the most cowardly thing I have ever heard of any man.
He was in a shipwreck, and as the ship was going down he snatched a
lifebelt from a woman passenger and put it on himself. He was saved, and
she was drowned.
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