Hence it is that, inspired by energy of purpose, men of comparatively mediocre powers have often been enabled to accomplish such extraordinary results. For the men who have most powerfully influenced the world have not been so much men of genius as men of strong convictions and enduring capacity for work, impelled by irresistible energy and invincible determination: such men, for example, as were Mahomet, Luther, Knox, Calvin, Loyola, and Wesley.
Courage, combined with energy and perseverance, will overcome difficulties apparently insurmountable. It gives force and impulse to effort, and does not permit it to retreat. Tyndall said of Faraday, that "in his warm moments he formed a resolution, and in his cool ones he made that resolution good." Perseverance, working in the right direction, grows with time, and when steadily practised, even by the most humble, will rarely fail of its reward. Trusting in the help of others is of comparatively little use. When one of Michael Angelo's principal patrons died, he said: "I begin to understand that the promises of the world are for the most part vain phantoms, and that to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value, is the best and safest course."Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness. On the contrary, gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterise the men, not less than the women, who have done the most courageous deeds. Sir Charles Napier gave up sporting, because he could not bear to hurt dumb creatures. The same gentleness and tenderness characterised his brother, Sir William, the historian of the Peninsular War. (10) Such also was the character of Sir James Outram, pronounced by Sir Charles Napier to be "the Bayard of India, SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE"--one of the bravest and yet gentlest of men; respectful and reverent to women, tender to children, helpful of the weak, stern to the corrupt, but kindly as summer to the honest and deserving. Moreover, he was himself as honest as day, and as pure as virtue. Of him it might be said with truth, what Fulke Greville said of Sidney: "He was a true model of worth--a man fit for conquest, reformation, plantation, or what action soever is the greatest and hardest among men; his chief ends withal being above all things the good of his fellows, and the service of his sovereign and country."When Edward the Black Prince won the Battle of Poictiers, in which he took prisoner the French king and his son, he entertained them in the evening at a banquet, when he insisted on waiting upon and serving them at table. The gallant prince's knightly courtesy and demeanour won the hearts of his captives as completely as his valour had won their persons; for, notwithstanding his youth, Edward was a true knight, the first and bravest of his time--a noble pattern and example of chivalry; his two mottoes, 'Hochmuth'
and 'Ich dien' (high spirit and reverent service) not inaptly expressing his prominent and pervading qualities.
It is the courageous man who can best afford to be generous; or rather, it is his nature to be so. When Fairfax, at the Battle of Naseby, seized the colours from an ensign whom he had struck down in the fight, he handed them to a common soldier to take care of.
The soldier, unable to resist the temptation, boasted to his comrades that he had himself seized the colours, and the boast was repeated to Fairfax. "Let him retain the honour," said the commander; "I have enough beside."So when Douglas, at the Battle of Bannockburn, saw Randolph, his rival, outnumbered and apparently overpowered by the enemy, he prepared to hasten to his assistance; but, seeing that Randolph was already driving them back, he cried out, "Hold and halt! We are come too late to aid them; let us not lessen the victory they have won by affecting to claim a share in it."Quite as chivalrous, though in a very different field of action, was the conduct of Laplace to the young philosopher Biot, when the latter had read to the French Academy his paper, "SUR LESEQUATIONS AUX DIFFERENCE MELEES." The assembled SAVANS, at its close, felicitated the reader of the paper on his originality.
Monge was delighted at his success. Laplace also praised him for the clearness of his demonstrations, and invited Biot to accompany him home. Arrived there, Laplace took from a closet in his study a paper, yellow with age, and handed it to the young philosopher.
To Biot's surprise, he found that it contained the solutions, all worked out, for which he had just gained so much applause. With rare magnanimity, Laplace withheld all knowledge of the circumstance from Biot until the latter had initiated his reputation before the Academy; moreover, he enjoined him to silence; and the incident would have remained a secret had not Biot himself published it, some fifty years afterwards.
An incident is related of a French artisan, exhibiting the same characteristic of self-sacrifice in another form. In front of a lofty house in course of erection at Paris was the usual scaffold, loaded with men and materials. The scaffold, being too weak, suddenly broke down, and the men upon it were precipitated to the ground--all except two, a young man and a middle-aged one, who hung on to a narrow ledge, which trembled under their weight, and was evidently on the point of giving way. "Pierre," cried the elder of the two, "let go; I am the father of a family." "C'ESTJUSTE!" said Pierre; and, instantly letting go his hold, he fell and was killed on the spot. The father of the family was saved.