Heroic couplet

“ And as to awakening the heroic spirit—does it not, while stirring noble impulses in some, excite the base passions in others? And do not the young Cushings among us find opportunities for heroism in the life of peace too? ”

“ I must confess that I have both admiration and love for the men who march away to trench and battlefield, there to fling away their lives as little things for the sake of some great cause which they hold to be supremely dear. "Every heroic act," says Emerson again, in his essay on Heroism, "measures itself by its contempt of some external good"; and what man, I ask you, has more contempt for certain external goods, and therefore more heroism, than the loyal soldier? ”

“ The Hero’s Battlefield
There is a flourish of trumpets without. The hero rushes joyfully to arms. The enemy sends out his challenge. The battle rages. The typical heroic theme is brought into sharp contrast with that of the challenger, and the theme of the beloved one shines forth amid the din and the shock of the fight. The foe is slain. The themes lead into 330 a song of victory. And now what is there for the hero? The world does not rejoice in his triumph. ”

“ He possesses the vivid sympathy with action and suffering, without which a history of this kind would be no better than dry bones. The author is rightly touched by the heroism that surrounded those cots, where enemies lay side by side in an agony, which, for many, could only obtain surcease in the grave. Some incidental descriptions of battles are animated, and we are sure our readers will find themselves moved for the better by this narrative of heroic charity on the part of the nuns, and soldierly heroism on that of the men to whom they ministered.—The Catholic World Magazine, New York. ”

“ Let us remain together a little, we who have loved each other so sadly, and have fought so long. I seem to remember only centuries of heroic war, in which you were always heroes—epic on epic, iliad on iliad, and you always brothers in arms. Whether it was but recently (for Time is nothing) or at the beginning of the world, I sent you out to war. I sat in the darkness where there is not any created thing, and to you I was only a voice commanding valour and an unnatural virtue. You heard the voice in the dark and you never heard it again. ”

“ My breast can feel compassion's tenderness,
The warrior's warmth, the soothing joys of friendship.
When adverse bold battalions shook the earth,
And horror triumph'd on the hostile field,
I sought you with a glorious enmity,
And arm'd my brow with the stern frown of war.
But now the angry trumpet wakes no more
The youthful champion to the lust for blood.
Retiring rage gives place to softer passions,
And gen'rous warriors know no longer hate,
The name of foe is lost, and thus I ask
Your friendship.
Bethas.
Ah! why dost thou mock me thus?
Arsaces. ”

“ It was heroic!”
“Heroic, is it? Bedad, it's epic! Ye begin to perceive the breadth and depth of my genius.” ”

“ The Poet who could merely sit on a chair, and compose stanzas, would never make a stanza worth much. He could not sing the Heroic warrior, unless he himself were at least a Heroic warrior too. ”

“ It is a privilege to be shown, through the medium of an imaginative temperament, the fine comradeship of the trenches, the heroism that shines through the haunting fear of death, mostly conquered with a laugh, but sometimes frankly expressed in the pathetic desire for a "blighty" wound—a wound just serious enough to send the envied hero home. ”

“ H’m!—my friend Romashov, what a lot you have forgotten—your fatherland, the ashes of your sire, the altar of honour, the warrior’s oath and discipline. Who shall preserve the land of your sires when the foe rushes over its boundaries? Ah! when I am dead there will be no more fatherland, no enemy, no honour. They will disappear at the same time as my consciousness. But if all this be buried and brought to naught—country, enemies, honour, and all the other big words—what has all this to do with my Ego? I am more important than all these phrases about duty, honour, love, etc. ”

“ Who can she be?" And being merciful, he called to Hero, who stood below: "Listen, Hero. A woman is weeping at some distance. Go and learn why she weeps and who she is." And Hero said "Certainly," arranged his dagger, took his sword in his hand, and started. He did not even think of the pelting hail, the flashing lightning, or the rain and darkness. And when the king saw him setting out alone in a night like that, he was filled with pity and curiosity, and descending from the palace roof, took his sword and followed all alone, without being seen. ”

“ There is a power in love to divine another’s destiny better than that other can, and by heroic encouragements, hold him to his task. What has friendship so signaled as its sublime attraction to whatever virtue is in us? ”

“ That a Brother, and such a Brother, the most heroic now breathing, brave and true, and the soul of honor in all things, should have the whole world rise round him, like a delirious Sorcerer's-Sabbath, intent to hurl the mountains on him,—seems such a horror and a madness to Wilhelmina. Like the brood-hen flying in the face of wild dogs, and packs of hounds in full trail! Most Christian Pompadour Kings, enraged Czarinas, implacable Empress-Queens; a whole world in armed delirium rushes on, regardless of Wilhelmina. ”

“ It is the century of which we instinctively think when we would imagine a time when the rivalry of brave deeds gave birth to heroism, and the rivalry of military generosity invested even the cruelties of the battle-field with the halo of romance. ”

“ A duel to the death is always brief: the foes close in mortal conflict; the thrusts come fast and sharp; one or other falls. When Franceline lifted her head from her arms, the expression of the tear-stained face showed which way the battle had gone: the victor stood erect with his foot upon the victim’s neck, unscathed, serene, and pitiless. Love lay bleeding and maimed, but Conscience smiled in triumph. ”

“ ROBERT.
[With growing excitement.] A battle of both our souls, different as they are, against all that is false in them and in the world. A battle of your soul against the spectre of fidelity, of mine against the spectre of friendship. All life is a conquest, the victory of human passion over the commandments of cowardice. Will you, Richard? Have you the courage? Even if it shatters to atoms the friendship between us, even if it breaks up for ever the last illusion in your own life? There was an eternity before we were born: another will come after we are dead. ”

“ And they have bruited far this hero-might when thou, O Strong One, in thy joy helpest thy suppliants, who sought to win thee for their Friend. Their battle-cry thou madest sound victorious in the shocks of war. One stream after another have they gained from thee, eager for glory have they gained. ”

“ When two friends are liable to kill each other reciprocally, and see a poisoned dagger in each other’s hand, they present a touching spectacle of harmony, which is never troubled, unless, by chance, one of them is careless enough to drop her weapon. ”

“ Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield.
Yet Winnepurkit came not,—on the mat
Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat;
And he, the while, in Western woods afar,
Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war.
Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief!
Waste not on him the sacredness of grief;
Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own,
His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone.
What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights,
The storm-worn watcher through long hunting nights,
Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress,
Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness? ”

“ I think not, for thousands of the breathless spectators. On the contrary, that which moves these people is one of the strongest and most stirring stimuli known to us, sympathy with the courage and persistence of fighters to the death. For the best and probably the most of the spectators the satisfaction is not in mere witnessing cruel horrors, but first in the invincible courage which is undaunted in their presence, or in case of the hero’s defeat it consists in a victory over their own sympathetic terror. ”

“ The hero is told to keep a golden ball overnight, and the same adventure is repeated. The hero is then told to bring what the princess is thinking of. The companion rides again with the princess and beats her with his sword, gets the troll's head for his master, and so enables him to win the lady. On the wedding night the hero flogs his wife at the advice of the companion, only just in time to save himself, indeed, as she is about to kill him with a butcher-knife. ”

“ Ah! the groans of the dying are lost in the shouts of the victor; and, forgetting the evil because of this good, a woman's heart cried, Laus Deo!
After the battle, hardly fought and dearly purchased, my hero came home on furlough. War had developed him faster than the daily kisses of love had done; for my little boy—crowned with immortal youth for me—for all the world came from this rude embrace a man in stature and wisdom, a hero in valor and endurance, a leader beloved and revered. ”

“ O, could we feel the breaking hearts of wife, mother, father, sister, brother, and affianced, when the shouting was over, when the headlines of the great victory had become familiar, when the congratulatory orders and proclamations had been issued and read, and the cold, sad news had been conveyed to each home that claimed a loved one lost in that great victory—then, and only then, could we know and feel the real horrors of war. Then, I am sure, all those that love war and delight in the clash of arms would lift their voices for peace—lasting peace. ”

“ The warrior still held his head high, but gradually the fierce gleam in his eye changed to a look of gentleness, of unspeakable sadness, and his winning smile came to have so much sorrow in it that men said to each other after they left him, "His heart is breaking." ”

“ I have seen men in the mad excitement of a charge perform reckless deeds of bravery, facing death with apparent nonchalance, and admired them for their soldierly bearing and courage; but this was something different. It will be difficult to find an instance in either ancient or modern history, of greater fidelity, love, confidence, courage, and fearless patriotism than was displayed by these two wounded heroes. ”

“ If one imagined that a man killed in a duel on account of a quarrel over a woman sacrificed his life because he believed he would be happy in a future life,—if he died in that fashion, every one else would laugh at him. ”

“ Often he gives us the impression of the picturesque, of the beautiful, of the heroic, of the nobly disdainful—but never (when writing, at least, entirely from his own mind) of that infinite and nameless grandeur which the imaginative soul feels shed on it from the multitudinous waves of ocean—from the cataract leaping from his rock, as if to consummate an act of prayer to God—from the hum of great assemblies of men—from the sight of far-extended wastes and wildernesses—and from the awful silence, and the still more mysterious sparkle of the midnight stars. ”

“ The two gladiators fell upon each other's necks, with floods of proud and happy tears; that other second embraced me; the surgeons, the orators, the undertakers, the police, everybody embraced, everybody congratulated, everybody cried, and the whole atmosphere was filled with praise and with joy unspeakable.
It seemed to me then that I would rather be the hero of a French duel than a crowned and sceptred monarch. ”

“ Seems to me it isn't the sensational exploits that show the hero best, but some great sacrifice quietly made by a common sort of man who is noble without knowing it. I saw a good many such during the war, and often wish I could write them down, for it is surprising how much courage, goodness and real piety is stowed away in common folks ready to show when the right time comes. ”

“ I loathe duels and bloodshed—and besides, you can have recourse, you know, to the Justice of the Peace, in the event of your feeling yourself wronged.’ And then, for the whole of your life, you must carry the delightful recollection of an unavenged box on the ears from a civilian. ”

“ Calm and collected in the presence of the enemy, he was withal tender of human life; in the hour of battle more sparing of the blood of the soldier than his own. In the hour of victory the vanquished enemy found in him a humane and compassionate friend. Not one drop of blood shed in wantonness or cruelty sullies the purity of his fame. ”

“ As I sat upon the brow of that eminence I could think of the many groans that were now uttered on the field of strife, where friend and foe lay as an equal in the gore of their own blood, while many more lay with the ghastliness of death upon their features, that but a few hours before beamed with life and animation, and whose hearts melted with love and hopes in the future. ”

“ I can understand the feeling of the duellist when really fierce and bitter—there are injuries only to be washed out in blood; but I have always thought, that the seconds must, or ought, to feel very uncomfortable. They stand by in cold blood to watch the glittering steel, whose shimmer may every moment be quenched in blood. ”

“ How many a soldier did I see that night, blackened with powder, his clothes torn and ragged with shot, sitting beside a wounded comrade—now wetting his lips with a cool draught, now cheering his heart with words of comfort! Many, though wounded, were tending others less able to assist themselves. Acts of kindness and self-devotion—not less in number than those of heroism and courage—were met with at every step; while among the sufferers there lived a spirit of enthusiasm that seemed to lighten the worst pang of their agony. ”