In a ball-room a girl was overheard asking an officer, who has shown himself brave above the average, what he felt when he went into his first engagement. "My dear young lady," he replied, "I felt like making for the nearest hedge that would hide me comfortably." The South African soldier and statesman, Louis Botha, was asked what it was like to be on a field of battle, and whether men rise to the occasion. "That depends," he said "on the spirit of the man." Speaking of the science of slaughter, of which the present war has been an exhibition, a soldier remarked: "I don't believe there is a man living who, when first interviewing an 11in. howitzer shell, is not pink with funk. After the first ten, one gets quite used to them, but really, they are terrible!" When Lord Clive was an ensign, in his first battle he felt almost unable to stand up from fear. Seeing this the captain of his company told him that he used to be that way himself, and then took him by the hand and walked with him where the firing was heaviest. This reassured him, and the great general used to say that no man ever performed a better service for another than this captain did for him. The bravest soldiers are often the most nervous when they first face an enemy, just as the most eloquent orators are when they begin to speak. This is because men fight and are eloquent by means of nerve power. Each must warm to the work before he gets his nerves under control, and then he astonishes the world, but no one so much as himself. There is no man so brave as the man who is afraid of being afraid. An officer had a confidential talk a day or two before a battle that was imminent with a subaltern that had just come out. He was delicate looking and nervous. He said that he was a born coward and that he would disgrace himself in his first battle. "I saw him just before the next fight began, looking pitifully white and haggard, and I never saw him again; but I heard that he had fought like a hero, and that he had lost his life in an effort to save one of his men." "If one did not know you, Colonel," said a subaltern, "one would say you were afraid." "Boy," was the answer, "if you were half as much afraid as I am you would run away." Shakespeare represents a hero thus speaking to his body before a battle begins: "Thou tremblest, my poor body, but if thou didst know Where I will bring you before the day is over Thou wouldst tremble much more."