Chapter IV: Part II: The Tests of Manliness

“Obvius in palatio Julius Atticus speculator, cruentum
gladium ostentans, occisum a se Othonem, exclamavit; et
Galba, ‘Commilito,’ inquit, ‘quis jussit?’ insigni animo ad
coercendam militarem licentiam, minantibus intrepidus,
adversus blandientes incorruptus.”—Tacit. Hist., lib. i.
cap. xxxv.

ONE other precaution we must take at the outset of our inquiry, and that is, to settle for ourselves, without diverging into useless metaphysics—what we mean by “manliness, manfulness, courage.” My friends of “The Christian Guild” seemed to assume that these words all have the same meaning, and denote the same qualities. Now, is this so? I think not, if we take the common use of the words. “Manliness and manfulness” are synonymous, but they embrace more than we ordinarily mean by the word “courage”; for instance, tenderness, and thoughtfulness for others. They include that courage, which lies at the root of all manliness, but is, in fact, only its lowest or rudest form. Indeed, we must admit that it is not exclusively a human quality at all, but one which we share with other animals, and which some of them—for instance, the bull-dog and weasel—exhibit with a certainty and a thoroughness which is very rare amongst mankind.

In what, then, does courage, in this ordinary sense of the word, consist? First, in persistency, or the determination to have one’s own way, coupled with contempt for safety and ease, and readiness to risk pain or death in getting one’s own way. This is, let us readily admit, a valuable, even a noble quality, but an animal quality rather than a human or manly one, and obviously not that quality of which the promoters of the Christian Guild were in search. For I fear we cannot deny that this kind of courage is by no means incompatible with those savage or brutal habits of violence which the Guild was specially designed to put down and root out amongst our people. What they desired to cultivate was obviously, not animal, but manly courage; and the fact that we are driven to use these epithets “animal” and “manly” to make our meaning clear, shows, I think, the necessity of insisting on this distinction and keeping it well in mind.

We should note, also, that the tests of the Guild were, with one exception, not really adapted as tests even of animal courage, much less of manliness. For they proposed that the possession of the Royal Humane Society’s medal, or the badge of excellence in athletic games, should be the qualification for the first members. Now the possession of the medal does amount to _primâ facie_ evidence, not only of animal courage but of manliness; for it can only be won by an act involving not only persistency and contempt of pain and danger, but self-sacrifice for the welfare of another. But proficiency in athletic games has no such meaning, and is not necessarily a test even of animal courage, but only of muscular power and physical training. Even in those games which, to some extent, do afford a test of the persistency, and contempt for discomfort or pain, which constitute animal courage—such as rowing, boxing, and wrestling—it is of necessity a most unsatisfactory one. For instance, Nelson—as courageous an Englishman as ever lived, who attacked a Polar bear with a handspike when he was a boy of fourteen, and told his captain, when he was scolded for it, that he did not know Mr. Fear—with his slight frame and weak constitution, could never have won a boat race, and in a match would have been hopelessly astern of any one of the crew of his own barge; and the highest courage which ever animated a human body would not enable the owner of it, if he were himself untrained, to stand for five minutes against a trained wrestler or boxer.

Athleticism is a good thing if kept in its place, but it has come to be very much over-praised and over-valued amongst us, as I think these proposals of the Christian Guild for the attainment of their most admirable and needful aim tend to show clearly enough, if proof were needed. We may say, then, I think, without doubt, that its promoters were not on the right scent, or likely to get what they were in search of by the methods they proposed to use. For after getting their Society of Athletes it might quite possibly turn out to be composed of persons deficient in real manliness.

While, however, keeping this conclusion well in mind, we need not at all depreciate athleticism, which has in it much that is useful to society, and is indeed admirable enough in its own way. But as the next step in our inquiry, let us bear well in mind that athleticism is not what we mean here. True manliness is as likely to be found in a weak as in a strong body. Other things being equal, we may perhaps admit (though I should hesitate to do so), that a man with a highly trained and developed body will be more courageous than a weak man. But we must take this caution with us, that a great athlete may be a brute or a coward, while a truly manly man can be neither.

Having got thus far, and satisfied ourselves what is not of the essence of manliness, though often assumed to be so (as by the promoters of the Christian Guild), let us see if we cannot get on another step, and ascertain what is of that essence. And here it may be useful to take a few well-known instances of courageous deeds, and examine them; because if we can find out any common quality in them we shall have lighted on something which is of the essence of, or inseparable from, that manliness which includes courage—that manliness of which we are in search.

I will take two or three at hazard from a book in which they abound, and which was a great favourite here some years ago, as I hope it is still, I mean Napier’s _Peninsular War_. At the end of the storming of Badajoz, after speaking of the officers, Napier goes on, “Who shall describe the springing valour of that Portuguese grenadier who was killed the foremost man at Santa Maria? or the martial fury of that desperate rifleman, who, in his resolution to win, thrust himself beneath the chained sword blades, and then suffered the enemy to dash his head in pieces with the ends of their muskets?” Again, at the Coa, “a north of Ireland man named Stewart, but jocularly called ‘the Boy’ because of his youth, nineteen, and of his gigantic stature and strength, who had fought bravely and displayed great intelligence beyond the river, was one of the last men who came down to the bridge, but he would not pass. Turning round, he regarded the French with a grim look, and spoke aloud as follows: ‘So this is the end of our brag. This is our first battle, and we retreat! The boy Stewart will not live to hear that said.’ Then striding forward in his giant might he fell furiously on the nearest enemies with the bayonet, refused the quarter they seemed desirous of granting, and died fighting in the midst of them.”

“Still more touching, more noble, more heroic, was the death of Sergeant Robert McQuade. During McLeod’s rush, this man, also from the north of Ireland, saw two men level their muskets on rests against a high gap in a bank, awaiting the uprise of an enemy. The present Adjutant-General Brown, then a lad of sixteen, attempted to ascend at the fatal spot. McQuade, himself only twenty-four years of age, pulled him back, saying, in a calm decided tone, ‘You are too young, sir, to be killed,’ and then offering his own person to the fire, fell dead pierced with both balls.” And, speaking of the British soldier generally, he says in his preface, “What they were their successors now are. Witness the wreck of the _Birkenhead_, where four hundred men, at the call of their heroic officers, Captains Wright and Girardot, calmly and without a murmur accepted death in a horrible form rather than endanger the women and children saved in the boats. The records of the world furnish no parallel to this self-devotion.” Let us add to these, two very recent examples of which we have all been reading in the last few months: the poor colliers who worked day and night at Pont-y-pridd, with their lives in their hands, to rescue their buried comrades; and the gambler in St. Louis who went straight from the gaming-table into the fire, to the rescue of women and children, and died of the hurts after his third return from the flames.

Looking, then, at these several cases, we find in each that resolution in the actors to have their way, contempt for ease, and readiness to risk pain or death, which we noted as the special characteristics of animal courage, which we share with the bull-dog and weasel.

So far all of them are alike. Can we get any further? Not much, if we take the case of the rifleman who thrust his head under the sword-blades and allowed his brains to be knocked out sooner than draw it back, or that of “the boy Stewart.” These are intense assertions of individual will and force—avowals of the rough hard-handed man that he has that in him which enables him to defy pain and danger and death—this and little or nothing more; and no doubt a very valuable and admirable thing as it stands.

But we feel, I think, at once that there _is_ something more in the act of Sergeant McQuade, and of the miners in Pont-y-pridd—something higher and more admirable. And it is not a mere question of degree, of more or less, in the quality of animal courage. The rifleman and “the boy Stewart” were each of them persistent to death, and no man can be more. The acts were, then, equally courageous, so far as persistency and scorn of danger and death are concerned. We must look elsewhere for the difference, for that which touches us more deeply in the case of Sergeant McQuade than in that of “the boy Stewart,” and can only find it in the motive. At least it seems to me that the worth of the last lies mainly in the sublimity of self-assertion, of the other in the sublimity of self-sacrifice.

And this holds good again in the case of the _Birkenhead_. Captain Wright gave the word for the men to fall in on deck by companies, knowing that the sea below them was full of sharks, and that the ship could not possibly float till the boats came back; and the men fell in, knowing this also, and stood at attention without uttering a word, till she heeled over and went down under them. And Napier, with all his delight in physical force and prowess, and his intense appreciation of the qualities which shine most brightly in the fiery action of battle, gives the palm to these when he writes, “The records of the world furnish no parallel to this self-devotion.” He was no mean judge in such a case; and, if he is right, as I think he is, do we not get another side-light on our inquiry, and find that the highest temper of physical courage is not to be found, or perfected, in action but in repose? All physical effort relieves the strain, and makes it easier to persist unto death, under the stimulus and excitement of the shock of battle, or of violent exertion of any kind, than when the effort has to be made with grounded arms. In other words, may we not say that in the face of danger self-restraint is after all the highest form of self-assertion, and a characteristic of manliness as distinguished from courage?

But we have only been looking hitherto at one small side of a great subject, at the courage which is tested in times of terror, on the battle-field, in the sinking ship, the poisoned mine, the blazing house. Such testing times come to few, and to these not often in their lives. But, on the other hand, the daily life of every one of us teems with occasions which will try the temper of our courage as searchingly, though not as terribly, as battle-field, or fire, or wreck. For we are born into a state of war; with falsehood, and disease, and wrong, and misery in a thousand forms, lying all around us, and the voice within calling on us to take our stand as men in the eternal battle against these.

And in this life-long fight, to be waged by every one of us single-handed against a host of foes, the last requisite for a good fight, the last proof and test of our courage and manfulness, must be loyalty to truth—the most rare and difficult of all human qualities. For such loyalty, as it grows in perfection, asks ever more and more of us, and sets before us a standard of manliness always rising higher and higher.

And this is the great lesson which we shall learn from Christ’s life, the more earnestly and faithfully we study it. “For this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” To bear this witness against avowed and open enemies is comparatively easy. But to bear it against those we love, against those whose judgment and opinions we respect, in defence or furtherance of that which approves itself as true to our own inmost conscience, this is the last and abiding test of courage and of manliness. How natural, nay, how inevitable it is that we should fall into the habit of appreciating and judging things mainly by the standards in common use amongst those we respect and love. But these very standards are apt to break down with us when we are brought face to face with some question which takes us ever so little out of ourselves and our usual moods. At such times we are driven to admit in our hearts that we, and those we respect and love, have been looking at and judging things, not truthfully, and therefore not courageously and manfully, but conventionally. And then comes one of the most searching of all trials of courage and manliness, when a man or woman is called to stand by what approves itself to their consciences as true, and to protest for it through evil report and good report, against all discouragement and opposition from those they love or respect. The sense of antagonism instead of rest, of distrust and alienation instead of approval and sympathy, which such times bring, is a test which tries the very heart and reins, and it is one which meets us at all ages, and in all conditions of life. Emerson’s hero is the man who, “taking both reputation and life in his hand, will with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob, by the absolute truth of his speech and rectitude of his behaviour.” And, even in our peaceful and prosperous England, absolute truth of speech and rectitude of behaviour will not fail to bring their fiery trials, if also in the end their exceeding great rewards.

We may note too that in testing manliness as distinguished from courage, we shall have to reckon sooner or later with the idea of duty. Nelson’s column stands in the most conspicuous site in all London, and stands there with all men’s approval, not because of his daring courage. Lord Peterborough in a former generation, Lord Dundonald in the last, were at least as eminent for reckless and successful daring. But it is because the idea of devotion to duty is inseparably connected with Nelson’s name in the minds of Englishmen, that he has been lifted high above all his compeers in England’s capital.

In the throes of one of the terrible revolutions of the worst days of imperial Rome,—when probably the cruellest mob, and most licentious soldiery, of all time were raging round the palace of the Cæsars, and the chances of an hour would decide whether Galba or Otho should rule the world, the alternative being a violent death,—an officer of the guard, one Julius Atticus, rushed into Galba’s presence with a bloody sword, boasting that he had slain his rival, Otho. “My comrade, by whose order?” was his only greeting from the old Pagan chief. And the story has come down through eighteen centuries, in the terse strong sentences of the great historian prefixed to this chapter, a test for all times.

Comrade, who ordered thee? whose will art thou doing? It is the question which has to be asked of every fighting man, in whatever part of the great battle-field he comes to the front, and determines the manliness of soldier, statesman, parson, of every strong man, and suffering woman.

“Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will,—
These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third,—
Obedience,—’tis the great tap-root that still,
Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred,
Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend their utmost skill.”[1]

I think that the more thoroughly we sift and search out this question, the more surely we shall come to this as the conclusion of the whole matter. Tenacity of will, or wilfulness, lies at the root of all courage, but courage can only rise into true manliness when the will is surrendered; and the more absolute the surrender of the will, the more perfect will be the temper of our courage and the strength of our manliness.

“Strong Son of God, immortal Love,”

our laureate has pleaded, in the moment of his highest inspiration,

“Our wills are ours, to make them thine.”

And that strong Son of God to whom this cry has gone up in our day, and in all days, has left us the secret of His strength in the words, “I am come to do the will of my Father and your Father.”

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Footnote 1:

“The Washers of the Shroud.”—J. R. LOWELL.

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