The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 13, November, 1858

He had not waited a quarter of an hour when a voice said,—"This way, Herr Burgomaster!—this way!"

The sailor and his prisoner both started to their feet; and the burgomaster, coming to the open window, lost the last faint hopes he had had that this said French officer might not, after all, be the French officer at whose escape he, the respected burgomaster and butcher, had assisted.

"Mr. Burgomaster, here is a French prisoner,—and I hand him to you as the fit personage to place him in the hands of the commander."

Thus spoke Daniel, and, as he spoke, Bertha appeared at the door of her room, and with her Doome, who hearing this little speech, all her liking for the sailor vanished on the instant. She was ready to utterly exterminate him, and more than ready to cry, which she did, straightway.

As this is only a little comedy, and by no means tragical, we pass over the next scene, and simply state, that Bertha, before all those neighbors, forgot everybody but her husband,—if he may be called so, —and the church had said so; that Daniel felt great remorse at what he had done; that he told Doome again that he wished the shark had finished him; that Doome didn't or wouldn't hear, for her idol was broken,—and so was Doome's heart, nearly.

The authorities took away the prisoner, and left Bertha and Doome wretched and alone. As for Daniel, he went out wandering by himself, —for he rather felt ashamed to look upon anybody.

At this time, a little boat with a white flag at its prow put off from the French fleet, and bravely approached the bristling fort of Rügen. Nearer and nearer it comes,—nearer and nearer; and in half an hour there is great cheering over the island of Rügen, for peace between Prussia and France is declared.

'Tis true, the peace did not last very long; but it lasted long enough to save the French officer. He was set at liberty at once, and an hour afterwards Daniel could look people in the face again, —all except Doome, who would not cease to be incensed.

"But then," said Daniel, "you know I'd been waiting six years."

"How?" exclaimed Bertha.

"Yes, Bertha,—I'm the real Daniel. Look here!"—and half a little silver cross came forward.

"And you didn't say it when you came!—and you actually gave her to him!—and you saved his life!—and oh! you, you CAPTAIN of a man!"

Thus Doome spoke and was comforted.

And Bertha went up to her old sweetheart and kissed him, saying, she thought she knew of a better wife for him than she could ever have made,—for, now that Ernest (the French officer) had suffered so much for her sake, she had no right to leave him. And, indeed, they were re-married that day.

It was after Bertha had said she knew of a better wife for him, that Daniel looked at Doome, who, picking up that pipe of his, handed it to him.

"Will you take care of it, Doome?"

"Save when you want it."

"Oh! I mean to come with it."

"'Tis the handsomest pipe in all Germany,—and—and I won't part with it till I part with you."

Hence, you see, there were two marriages that morning. Doome parted with the pipe a good deal,—for Daniel loved the sea as heartily as he had loved Bertha and grew to love Doome, who assured him many times that she was a far better wife for him than Bertha would have made. Whereupon Daniel would kiss her,—so you can draw your own conclusion as to his motive. For my part, I say first love is only heart-love,—and you see the heart is not so wise as the head.

By the time the long war was over,—with Waterloo for the last act, —Ernest had made not a little money; so he and Bertha—now a grand lady—came to Rügen. Ernest learned German, perfectly, from his own children and Doome's, and turned his sword into a ploughshare.

As for Daniel,—he gave up the sea and took a wine-shop.

Those four people are now still alive; and if Bertha and Daniel did not marry, their children have,—though it was rather lowering to those grand young ladies and gentlemen, Bertha's children.

Those four, when they meet and clapper their friendly old tongues, can hardly believe that once upon a time they were all at sixes and sevens,—and that Ernest himself was once in that very place a Prisoner of War.

THE "WASHING OF THE FEET," ON HOLY THURSDAY, IN ST. PETER'S

Once more the temple-gates lie open wide:
Onward, once more,
Advance the Faithful, mounting like a tide
That climbs the shore.

What seek they? Blank the altars stand today,
As tombstones bare:
Christ of his raiment was despoiled; and they
His livery wear.

Today the puissant and the proud have heard
The "mandate new":[29 - Mandatum Novum:—hence the name of "Maundy Thursday."]
That which He did, their Master and their Lord,
They also do.

Today the mitred foreheads, and the crowned,
In meekness bend:
New tasks today the sceptred hands have found;
The poor they tend.

Today those feet which tread in lowliest ways,
Yet follow Christ,
Are by the secular lords of power and praise
Both washed and kissed.

Hail, ordinance sage of hoar antiquity,
Which She retains,
That Church who teaches man how meek should be
The head that reigns!

* * * * *

PHYSICAL COURAGE

The Romans had a military machine, called a balista, a sort of vast crossbow, which discharged huge stones. It is said, that, when the first one was exhibited, an athlete exclaimed, "Farewell henceforth to all courage!" Montaigne relates, that the old knights, in his youth, were accustomed to deplore the introduction of fencing-schools, from a similar apprehension. Pacific King James predicted, but with rejoicing, the same result from iron armor. "It was an excellent thing," he said,—"one could get no harm in it, nor do any." And, similarly, there exists an opinion now, that the combined powers of gunpowder and peace are banishing physical courage, and the need of it, from the world.

Peace is good, but this result of it would be sad indeed. Life is sweet, but it would not be sweet enough without the occasional relish of peril and the luxury of daring deeds. Amid the changes of time, the monotony of events, and the injustice of mankind, there is always accessible to the poorest this one draught of enjoyment,—danger. "In boyhood," said the Norwegian enthusiast, Ole Bull, "I loved to be far out on the ocean in my little boat, for it was dangerous, and in danger one draws near to God." Perhaps every man sometimes feels this longing, has his moment of ardor, when he would fain leave politics and personalities, even endearments and successes, behind, and would exchange the best year of his life for one hour at Balaklava with the "Six Hundred." It is the bounding of the Berserker blood in us, —the murmuring echo of the old death-song of Regnar Lodbrog, as he lay amid vipers in his dungeon:—"What is the fate of a brave man, but to fall amid the foremost? He who is never wounded has a weary lot."

This makes the fascination of war, which is in itself, of course, brutal and disgusting. Dr. Johnson says, truly, that the naval and military professions have the dignity of danger, since mankind reverence those who have overcome fear, which is so general a weakness. The error usually lies in exaggerating the difference, in this respect, between war and peace. Madame de Sévigné writes to her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, after a campaign, "I cannot understand how one can expose himself a thousand times, as you have done, and not be killed a thousand times also." To which the Count answers, that she overrates the danger; a soldier may often make several campaigns without drawing a sword, and be in a battle without seeing an enemy, —as, for example, where one is in the second line, or rear guard, and the first line decides the contest. He finally quotes Turenne, and Maurice, Prince of Orange, to the same effect, that a military life is less perilous than civilians suppose.

It is, therefore, a foolish delusion to suppose, that, as the world grows more pacific, the demand for physical courage passes away. It is only that its applications become nobler. In barbarous ages, men fight against men and animals, and need, like Achilles, to be fed on the marrow of wild beasts. As time elapses, the savage animals are extirpated, the savage men are civilized; but Nature, acting through science, commerce, society, is still creating new exigencies of peril, and evoking new types of courage to meet them. Grace Darling at her oars, Kane in his open boat, Stephenson testing his safety-lamp in the terrible pit,—what were the trophies of Miltiades to these? The ancient Agamemnon faced no danger so memorable as that ocean-storm which beset his modern namesake, bearing across the waters a more priceless treasure than Helen, pride of Greece. And, indeed, setting aside these sublimities of purpose, and looking simply at the quantity and quality of peril, it is doubtful whether any tale of the sea-kings thrills the blood more worthily than the plain newspaper narrative of Captain Thomas Bailey, in the Newburyport schooner, "Atlas," beating out of the Gut of Canso, in a gale of wind, with his crew of two men and a boy, up to their waists in the water.

It is easy to test the matter. Let any one, who believes that the day of daring is past, beg or buy a ride on the locomotive of the earliest express-train, some cold winter-morning. One wave of the conductor's hand, and the live engine springs snorting beneath you, as no Arab steed ever rushed over the desert. It is not like being bound to an arrow, for that motion would be smoother; it is not like being hurled upon an ocean crest, for that would be slower. You are rushing onward, and you are powerless; that is all. The frosty air gives such a brittle and slippery look to the two iron lines which lie between you and destruction, that you appreciate the Mohammedan fable of the Bridge Herat, thinner than a hair, sharper than a scimitar, which stretches over hell and leads to paradise. Nothing has passed over that perilous track for many hours; the cliffs may have fallen and buried it, the frail bridges may have sunk beneath it, or diabolical malice put obstructions on it, no matter how trivial, equally fatal to you; each curving embankment may hide unknown horrors, from which, though all others escape, you, on the engine, cannot; and yet, still the surging locomotive bounds onward, beneath your mad career. You draw a long breath, as you dismount at last, a hundred miles away, as if you had been riding with Mazeppa or Brunechilde, and yet escaped alive. And there, by your side, stands the quiet, grimy engineer, turning already to his tobacco and his newspaper, and unconscious, while he reads of the charge at Balaklava, that his life is Balaklava every day.

Physical courage is not, therefore, a thing to be so easily set aside. Nor is it, as our reformers appear sometimes to assume, a mere corollary from moral courage, and, ultimately, to be merged in that. Moral courage is rare enough, no doubt,—probably the rarer quality of the two, as it is the nobler; but they are things diverse, and not necessarily united. There have been men, and still are such, leaders of their age in moral courage, and yet physically timid. This is not as it should be. God placed man at the head of the visible universe, and if he is to be thrown from his control, daunted by a bullet, or a wild horse, or a flash of lightning, or a lee shore, then man is dishonored, and the order of the universe deranged. No matter what the occasion of the terror is, a mouse or a martyrdom, fear dethrones us. "He that lives in fear of death," said Cæsar, "at every moment feels its tortures. I will die but once."

Having claimed thus much, we can still readily admit that we cannot yet estimate the precise effect upon physical courage of a state of permanent national peace, since indeed we are not yet within sight of that desirable consummation. Meanwhile, let us attempt some slight sketch and classification of the different types of physical courage, as already existing, among which are to be enumerated the spontaneous courage of the blood,—the courage of habit,—magnetic or transmitted courage,—and the courage inspired by self-devotion.

There is a certain innate fire of the blood, which does not dare perils for the sake of principle, nor grow indifferent to them from familiarity, nor confront them under support of a stronger will,—but loves them for their own sake, without reference to any ulterior object. There is no special merit in it, for it is a matter of temperament. Yet it often conceals itself under the finer names of self-devotion and high purpose,—as George Borrow convinced himself that he was actuated by evangelical zeal to spread the Bible in Spain, though one sees, through every line of his narrative, that it was chiefly the adventure which allured him, and that he would as willingly have distributed the Koran in London, had it been equally contraband. No surplices, no libraries, no counting-house desks can eradicate this natural instinct. Achilles, disguised among the maidens, was detected by the wily Ulysses, because he chose arms, not jewels, from the travelling merchant's stores. In the most placid life, a man may pant for danger; and we know quiet, unobtrusive men who have confessed to us that they never step into a railroad-car without the secret hope of a collision.