"To what do Caesar and Alexander owe the infinite grandeur of their renown, but to fortune? How many men has she extinguished in the beginning of their progress, of whom we have no knowledge; who brought as much courage to the work as they, if their adverse hap had not cut them off in the first sally of their arms? Amongst so many and so great dangers, I do not remember to have anywhere read that Caesar was ever wounded; a thousand have fallen in less dangers than the least of these he went through.A great many brave actions must be expected to be performed without witness, for one that comes to some notice.A man is not always at the top of a breach, or at the head of an army in the sight of his general, as upon a platform.He is often surprised between the hedge and the ditch; he must run the hazard of his life against a henroost; he must dislodge four rascally musketeers out of a barn; he must prick out single from his party, as necessity arises, and meet adventures alone."Thus far Montaigne, in a characteristic essay on GLORY.
Where death is certain, as in the cases of Douglas or Greenville, it seems all one from a personal point of view.
The man who lost his life against a henroost, is in the same pickle with him who lost his life against a fortified place of the first order.Whether he has missed a peerage or only the corporal's stripes, it is all one if he has missed them and is quietly in the grave.It was by a hazard that we learned the conduct of the four marines of the WAGER.There was no room for these brave fellows in the boat, and they were left behind upon the island to a certain death.They were soldiers, they said, and knew well enough it was their business to die; and as their comrades pulled away, they stood upon the beach, gave three cheers, and cried "God bless the king!" Now, one or two of those who were in the boat escaped, against all likelihood, to tell the story.That was a great thing for us; but surely it cannot, by any possible twisting of human speech, be construed into anything great for the marines.You may suppose, if you like, that they died hoping their behaviour would not be forgotten; or you may suppose they thought nothing on the subject, which is much more likely.What can be the signification of the word "fame" to a private of marines, who cannot read and knows nothing of past history beyond the reminiscences of his grandmother? But whichever supposition you make, the fact is unchanged.They died while the question still hung in the balance; and I suppose their bones were already white, before the winds and the waves and the humour of Indian chiefs and Spanish governors had decided whether they were to be unknown and useless martyrs or honoured heroes.Indeed, I believe this is the lesson: if it is for fame that men do brave actions, they are only silly fellows after all.
It is at best but a pettifogging, pickthank business to decompose actions into little personal motives, and explain heroism away.The Abstract Bagman will grow like an Admiral at heart, not by ungrateful carping, but in a heat of admiration.But there is another theory of the personal motive in these fine sayings and doings, which I believe to be true and wholesome.People usually do things, and suffer martyrdoms, because they have an inclination that way.The best artist is not the man who fixes his eye on posterity, but the one who loves the practice of his art.And instead of having a taste for being successful merchants and retiring at thirty, some people have a taste for high and what we call heroic forms of excitement.If the Admirals courted war like a mistress; if, as the drum beat to quarters, the sailors came gaily out of the forecastle, - it is because a fight is a period of multiplied and intense experiences, and, by Nelson's computation, worth "thousands" to any one who has a heart under his jacket.If the marines of the WAGER gave three cheers and cried "God bless the king," it was because they liked to do things nobly for their own satisfaction.They were giving their lives, there was no help for that; and they made it a point of self-respect to give them handsomely.And there were never four happier marines in God's world than these four at that moment.If it was worth thousands to be at the Baltic, I wish a Benthamite arithmetician would calculate how much it was worth to be one of these four marines; or how much their story is worth to each of us who read it.And mark you, undemonstrative men would have spoiled the situation.
The finest action is the better for a piece of purple.If the soldiers of the BIRKENHEAD had not gone down in line, or these marines of the WAGER had walked away simply into the island, like plenty of other brave fellows in the like circumstances, my Benthamite arithmetician would assign a far lower value to the two stories.We have to desire a grand air in our heroes;and such a knowledge of the human stage as shall make them put the dots on their own i's, and leave us in no suspense as to when they mean to be heroic.And hence, we should congratulate ourselves upon the fact that our Admirals were not only great-hearted but big-spoken.
The heroes themselves say, as often as not, that fame is their object; but I do not think that is much to the purpose.
People generally say what they have been taught to say; that was the catchword they were given in youth to express the aims of their way of life; and men who are gaining great battles are not likely to take much trouble in reviewing their sentiments and the words in which they were told to express them.Almost every person, if you will believe himself, holds a quite different theory of life from the one on which he is patently acting.And the fact is, fame may be a forethought and an afterthought, but it is too abstract an idea to move people greatly in moments of swift and momentous decision.It is from something more immediate, some determination of blood to the head, some trick of the fancy, that the breach is stormed or the bold word spoken.I am sure a fellow shooting an ugly weir in a canoe has exactly as much thought about fame as most commanders going into battle; and yet the action, fall out how it will, is not one of those the muse delights to celebrate.Indeed it is difficult to see why the fellow does a thing so nameless and yet so formidable to look at, unless on the theory that he likes it.I suspect that is why; and Isuspect it is at least ten per cent of why Lord Beaconsfield and Mr.Gladstone have debated so much in the House of Commons, and why Burnaby rode to Khiva the other day, and why the Admirals courted war like a mistress.