What a new face courage puts on everything! A determined man, by his
very attitude and the tone of his voice, puts a stop to defeat, and
begins to conquer. "For they can conquer who believe they can." Every
one hears gladly that cheerful voice. He reveals to us the enormous
power of one man over masses of men; that one man whose eye commands the
end in view, and the means by which it can be attained, is not only
better than ten men or a hundred men, but victor over all mankind who do
not see the issue and the means. "When a man is once possessed with
fear," said the old French Marshal Montluc, "and loses his judgment, as
all men in a fright do, he knows not what he does. And it is the
principal thing you are to beg at the hands of Almighty God, to preserve
your understanding entire; for what danger soever there may be, there is
still one way or other to get off, and perhaps to your honor. But when
fear has once possessed you, God ye good even! You think you are flying
towards the poop when you are running towards the prow, and for one
enemy think you have ten before your eyes, as drunkards who see a
thousand candles at once."
Against the terrors of the mob, which, intoxicated with passion, and
once suffered to gain the ascendant, is diabolic and chaos come again,
good sense has many arts of prevention and of relief. Disorganization it
confronts with organization, with police, with military force. But in
earlier stages of the disorder it applies milder and nobler remedies.
The natural offset of terror is ridicule. And we have noted examples
among our orators, who have on conspicuous occasions handled and
controlled, and, best of all, converted a malignant mob, by superior
manhood, and by a wit which disconcerted, and at last delighted the
ringleaders. What can a poor truckman who is hired to groan and to hiss
do, when the orator shakes him into convulsions of laughter so that he
cannot throw his egg? If a good story will not answer, still milder
remedies sometimes serve to disperse a mob. Try sending round the
contribution-box. Mr. Marshall, the eminent manufacturer at Leeds, was
to preside at a Free-Trade festival in that city; it was threatened that
the operatives, who were in bad humor, would break up the meeting by a
mob. Mr. Marshall was a man of peace; he had the pipes laid from the
waterworks of his mill, with a stopcock by his chair from which he could
discharge a stream that would knock down an ox, and sat down very
peacefully to his dinner, which was not disturbed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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