This feeling some of them graphically described as similar to that which a bather experiences before plunging into the water; _ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte_; after the first dip Richard is himself again. But our readers are not to suppose that the soldier shows the same hesitation in advancing to charge as the bather on the brink of the stream. If he did he would be a coward, and be scorned by all his comrades. To make the two cases parallel, we must suppose a thousand bathers rushing forward to the stream at once. Now, though an individual bather standing alone might stop short on reaching the water, and pause before taking a header, a thousand bathers rushing forward at once, would plunge into the water without hesitation. The dread of shame, of exposure, of ridicule, would nerve the least courageous for the final leap. There is, moreover, such a strong feeling of sympathy diffused among large bodies of men acting in concert that the strength of the stronger is imparted to the weaker. Now, it is the same with soldiers advancing to the charge. All of them feel the cold shiver like that of the bather approaching the water, but they march shoulder to shoulder, and with them are some old soldiers who have been under fire before. The younger ones are encouraged by their example, and many a lad who has trembled on first smelling powder has proved himself a hero in the fight. We have read in books that soldiers sometimes weep while fighting hand to hand and sorely pressed—not tears of cowardly terror by any means, but such tears as the strongest of men will shed in hours of fierce excitement. Wellington wept as he embraced Blucher after the Battle of Waterloo. This, indeed, has been denied, but it is not difficult to believe it true. There are moments in the lives of all men, even the most reserved and self-contained, when the hidden fountains of feeling well over and find an outlet through the eyes, and we should not think a whit less highly of our soldiers did they shed a few tears of valiant rage while victory was still doubtful. But these tears, we suspect, are purely imaginary. For ourselves, we never met with a single soldier who confessed that he had shed tears himself, or seen others weep. We are sure that they would not have denied it if they had yielded to any such weakness, for, as a class, soldiers are the most truthful of men. All with whom we conversed agreed in affirming that our men were very quiet while fighting hand to hand with the enemy. There would be occasionally a shrill cry of pain from the wounded, or a short cry of triumph from the man who struck down his opponent, but generally, all the dread work of the battle-field was done in silence. All admitted that the most fearful sound during a battle was the cry of a wounded horse; it was so like that of a human being in his death agony—shrill, piercing, heartrending. The horses seem to become almost human in the hour of battle, to share in all