Brawn

“ Oh! how I prayed for Bravo! The thoughts of death were bitter. To die thus in the wild forest, alone, with none to help! Thoughts of home and friends coursed like lightning through my brain. At that moment, when Hope herself had fled, deep and clear over the neighboring hill, came the baying of my gallant Bravo! I should have known his voice among a thousand. I pealed forth in one faint shout, 'On Bravo, on!' The next moment, with tiger-like bounds, the noble dog came leaping down the declivity, scattering the dried autumnal leaves like a whirlwind in his path. ”

“ If, fighting quietly, the jaws enjoy
One re-embrace in mid back-bone they break,
After their weary work thro' the foe's flesh?
That's the wolf-nature. Don't mistake my trope!
A Cardinal so qualmish? Eminence,
My fight is figurative, blows i' the air,
Brain-war with powers and principalities,
Spirit-bravado, no real fisticuffs!
I shall not presently, when the knock comes,
Cling to this bench nor claw the hangman's face,
No, trust me! I conceive worse lots than mine. ”

“ It is when, under the insults, the lashings, the kicks, and maulings of this preliminary ordeal, and in the fiercer agonies of the stake, the brave can maintain his calm and serenity of countenance, with exalted spirit, taunting his tormentors because their devices are so weak and harmless, boasting of the number of them whom he has treated in the same way, and raising his death-song above their yellings, — it is then that they reward him with their admiration. ”

“ I asked myself if, in supreme danger, I could sacrifice my life to save Falmouth's, and, I confess to my shame, I dared not reply with certainty.
It is true, I knew myself to be brave, with a cool, stubborn bravery. I had had a duel in which my calm energy had done me honour: but was that true courage? Can a man, well born, refuse a duel? Can he bear himself becomingly, except through good breeding or pride? ”

“ You are brave, in a sense, but the bravery that attacks weakness, and shouts over its own triumphs, is a spurious bravery. A fine Sir Galahad or Sir Philip Sidney you would make! There is as crying need of brave and courtly men now as in the days of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but where are they? ”

“ Thou shalt a moral teach to me and mine.
The hand that wore thee smooth is cold, and spins
No more. Debility press'd hard around
The seat of life, and terrors fill'd her brain;
Nor causeless terrors: Giants grim and bold. ”

“ Thou liest!—I am braver than thou; for my body is covered with wounds—from the crown to the sole, there is no part but is mangled;—and yet thou hast not a limb but is untouched! You call me craven! God smite you with punishment, for you are all cravens, knaves, and murderers together! You wait on the banks, while we are dying, and you call us cravens! God will do us right! God will avenge us! God will hear our prayers! and so God curse you all, and keep your bones for the maws of infidels! ”

“ Something like “Yes—courage; only fools will call it fear.”
If aught
Comfort you, my great unhappy hero Clive, in that I heard,
Next week, how your own hand dealt you doom, and uttered just the word
“Fearfully courageous!”—this, be sure, and nothing else I groaned.
I’m no Clive, nor parson either: Clive’s worst deed—we’ll hope condoned.
[Pg 59]
MULÉYKEH.
If a stranger passed the tent of Hóseyn, he cried “A churl’s!”
Or haply “God help the man who has neither salt nor bread!” ”

“ A woman is weak, but a warrior is strong, And a lovelorn brave is a scorn to see. Mah-pí-ya Dúta, O listen to me! Revenge is swift and revenge is strong, And sweet as the hive in the hollow tree. The proud Red Cloud will revenge his wrong Let the brave be patient, it is not long Till the leaves be green on the maple tree, And the Feast of the Virgins is then to be;— The Feast of the Virgins is then to be! ”

“ Nine times hath Guilt, through all his giant frame,
Convulsive trembled , as the Mighty came;
Nine times hath suffering Mercy spared in vain—
But Heaven shall burst her starry gates again !
He comes ! dread Brama shakes the sunless sky
With murmuring wrath , and thunders from on high,
Heaven's fiery horse, beneath his warrior form,
Paws the light clouds, and gallops on the storm !
Wide waves his flickering sword ; his bright arms glow
Like summer suns and light the world below !
Earth, and her trembling isles in Ocean's bed,
Are shook ; and Nature rocks beneath his tread ! ”

“ I have often seen men of bravery tremble at the roaring of a lion, caged up and strongly chained in a menagerie. I have often seen and heard a brave man whistle as he passed through a church-yard; a brave man will shudder and quail at the very sight of his own shadow. A bully, a cut throat, a highway robber, a Jesuit, or a traitor, may be brave ”

“ The furious courser lists his dauntless head, Fierce snaps the bit, and rolls his eye abroad, Sees death and carnage mark th' empurpled field, Neighs for his prey, and tramples o'er the dead. The happy steed may bite the blood stain'd ground, Untaught by reason, sympathy or love--- Unconscious of the pains---the ten fold pangs, That check the warrior in his bold career. ”

“ They are, says the other, no straws, but the flight of arrows, that have filled the atmosphere.
5. As long as the dust of the earth, cries another, is moistened by the bloodshed of the brave, so long are the heroes entitled to glory, and have their abode in heaven for myriads of years. [18]
6. Fear not these sable swords, says the sástra, whose blades are worn by the brave like petals of blue lotuses about their necks and breasts; and bravoes are favourites in the eyes of the goddess of fortune. (Fortune favours the brave) . ”

“ A stranger one—one Allen Gray,—
No braver hero ever died
Than he whose love she lost through pride.
Unselfish, earnest, daring, brave,
All but himself he tried to save;
Heedless of death and danger—why? ”

“ A YOUNG Fawn once said to his mother, "You are larger than a dog, and swifter, and more used to running, and you have, too, your horns as a defence. Why then, Mother! are you always in such terrible fright of the hounds?" She smiled and said: "I know full well, my son, that all you say is true. I have the advantages you mention, but yet when I hear only the bark of a single dog I feel ready to faint, and fly away as fast as I can."
No arguments will give courage to a coward. ”

“ Then hid herself close in the besom of the broom,
To hear what her true-love would say.
He wakend and found the gold ring on his hand,
Then sorrow of heart he was in:
‘My love has been here, I do well understand,
And this wager I now shall not win. ”

“ Brassid, really, I don’t love you. Not a bit—yet. It is courage—courage. But out here—to-day—Brassid, I like you—courage or no courage, I’ll confess that much—I like you a lot.” Then, presently, “Brassid, do you really think I love you?” ”

“ I gazed forth upon the romantic scene before me with intense delight, and felt melancholy and sorrowful at passing so fleetingly through it, and could not help shouting out, as I marched along, "Where is the coward who would not dare to die for such a land?" ”

“ He seemed to see in a vision that though he might now die alone and for naught save what perhaps some scoffing ones might call a foolish honor, still that bravery was to descend as a heritage to the people to whom he belonged, and was to become a part of their spirit, their courage, their power of everlasting—all this that moment brought. ”

“ You shall become a Bráhman's son on the earth, and display this arrogance once more, and by your father's curse you shall become a lion and fall into a well. And a man of noble character, out of compassion, shall draw you out, and when you have recompensed him in his calamity, you shall be delivered from this curse. ”

“ With every purer virtue: gave him all
That lifts the hero, or adorns the man.
Gave him the eye sublime; the searching glance
Keen, scanning deep, that smites the guilty soul
As with a beam from heaven; on his brow
Serene, and spacious front, set the broad seal
Of dignity and rule ”

“ The brave must needs honour and love the brave,
Though they are ranked against themselves in fight,
And only cowards at those foemen rave
Who manfully do blow for blow requite:
Shame then on those who libel the brave men
Who fight for all that is to them most dear ”

“ Thou know'st my deeds, my breast devoid of fear,
And hostile life-drops dim my gory spear.
Here is a soul with hope immortal burns,
And life, ignoble life, for Glory spurns. [4] 50
Fame, fame is cheaply earn'd by fleeting breath:
The price of honour, is the sleep of death."
Then Nisus:—"Calm thy bosom's fond alarms: [5]
Thy heart beats fiercely to the din of arms. ”

“ Who shall compel me to live? Death alone it is in your power to give!" He tears open his garment and offers his breast. "Forward, heroes! Slay the sinner with his affliction! The Grail perchance will glow for you then of Itself!" ”

“ They come out of it, and become part of our lives. Glory is a vivid creature, with her moods and fancies, her dual nature, with the one side of her in love with John Storm and his work, and the other side—and so much the stronger side, alas! in love with the world, and filled with merry, buoyant life. One follows her through every step of her course, and feels the moral deterioration coming upon her so gradually and yet so surely. ”

“ The reckless Bravo, the perpetrator of a score of atrocious crimes, the absolutely intrepid swordsman, would blush like a girl, and stand speechless and confused when he was alone for the first time with a pretty girl or a buxom dame whose mere side-glance made the blood tingle in his neck. Moreover, many women know that there are plenty of such men in the world; and I dare say that more than one man may read these lines who has faced the extremest danger without a quickened pulse, but has collapsed like a scared child before a girl of eighteen or a cool-handed widow of eight-and-twenty. ”

“ But in history, almost contemporaneous with the age of the poet, every circumstance is recorded, every character well known and estimated. If an act of bravery is exaggerated into one of superhuman heroism, or one who is known to have been a man, although a great man, recast in the heroic mould, we are struck at once with the falsehood: and therefore the poet cannot venture on such efforts of genius. ”

“ The truly brave, When they behold the brave oppress'd with odds, Are touch'd with a desire to shield and save;— A mixture of wild beasts and demigods Are they—now furious as the sweeping wave, Now moved with pity: even as sometimes nods The rugged tree unto the summer wind, Compassion breathes along the savage mind. But he would not be taken, and replied To all the propositions of surrender By mowing Christians down on every side, As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender. ”

“ To speak of a brave man—of a battle—or the scene of a battle, or of the hovering of birds of prey above it, appears sufficient to bring up to the warrior’s mind, all the details consequent on personal bravery or heroic achievement. It would naturally be expected, that they should delight to dwell on scenes of carnage and blood: but however this may be, all such details are omitted or suppressed in their war songs, which only excite ideas of noble daring. ”

“ It is a question, however, of the tendency, perceptive as well as reflective too, of the braver imagination—which faculty, in our future, strikes me as likely to be appealed to much less by the fact, by the pity and the misery and the greater or less grotesqueness, of the courageous, or even of the timid, missing their lives beyond certain stiff barriers, than by the picture of their more and more steadily making out their opportunities and their possible communications. ”

“ Those were not tired, not acquiescent, not indifferent to slings-and-arrows, but firey-blooded quick-pulsed breathless brave young Damns.
There is splendor in being brave in a fighting attitude, but in being brave through indifference there is no splendor. ”

“ Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.
ENVOY
Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway
⁠Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds' crying?—
Or does love still shudder and steel still slay,
⁠Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying? ”

“ Never a braver man have I seen, Never, I feel, hath a braver been. CUCHULLIN. Thou art the cause of what has been done, O son of Dáman, Daré's son, Of all that has happened thou art the cause, Whom hither a woman's counsel draws-- Whom hither a wily woman doth send To measure swords with thy earliest friend. FERDIAH. If I forsook the field, O Hound, If I had turned from the battleground-- This battleground without fight with thee, Hard, oh, hard had it gone with me; Bad should my name and fame have been With King Ailill and with Mave the queen. ”

“ Animated by the loftiest bravery, they go on to storm and conquer the sacred citadel, and then they bathe themselves in blood, revel in endless cruelties, and rage with a brutal ferocity. From this they again pass on to contrition and penance; then they get up from their knees reconciled and sanctified, and once more they give themselves up to all the littleness of miserable passions, of selfishness and envy, of avarice and cupidity: their energies are directed to the satisfaction of their lusts, and they bring to nought the fair possession that their bravery had won. ”

“ I suppose you think that personal bravery is a mere matter of habit.'
'Not entirely.'
'Scarcely at all, Brenda. A brave man is a brave man on shore, at sea, and in a balloon. A fox-hunter may be nervous in a boat. If so, I say he is at heart a coward, despite his fox-hunting. When a sailor is uncomfortable in a dogcart he is not naturally a brave man, though at sea he borrow a false confidence from familiarity with what landsmen take to be danger.'
'What suggested the idea to me,' said the girl after a pause, 'was that flash of lightning just now—when we first came on deck. ”