m, their hearts throb, the earth changes to beauty, the heavens break into song. And straightway deeds of valor become easy, heroism commonplace, and sacrifice the order of the day.
"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife, To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name."
Now heroism, which is performed under circumstances such as these, is heroism still. But I want to lay down the principle that such heroism is of a type inferior to that performed under the drab, uninspiring, familiar circumstances of daily life. The soldier who goes marching into battle with the flag before his eyes and wild music in his ears, is a brave man--but the sailor who leaps into the foaming sea, the miner who descends into the flaming pit, the locomotive engineer who dies at his post of duty, without so much as a single human voice, perhaps, to give him cheer, is a braver man. I always recall in this connection, as a type and symbol of what we may term the heroism