But for my part I think not so; almost as if the party spirit of my
Christian name, Attila, had passed into me more strongly than was
proper, I feel myself impelled still further to prove my
courageousness; which, dearest Friends! I shall here in a few lines
again do. This proof I could manage by mere inferences and learned
citations. For example, if Galen remarks that animals with large
hind-quarters are timid, I have nothing to do but turn round, and show
the enemy my back and what is under it, in order to convince him that I
am not deficient in valor, but in flesh. Again, if by well-known
experiences it has been found that flesh-eating produces courage, I can
evince that in this particular I yield to no officer of the service;
though it is the habit of these gentlemen not only to run up long
scores of roast-meat with their landlords, but also to leave them
unpaid, that so at every hour they may have an open document in the
hands of the enemy himself (the landlord), testifying that they have
eaten their own share (with some of other people's too), and so put
common butcher-meat on a War-footing, living not like others _by_
bravery, but _for_ bravery. As little have I ever, in my character of
chaplain, shrunk from comparison with any officer in the regiment, who
may be a true lion, and so snatch every sort of plunder, but yet, like
this King of the Beasts, is afraid of _fire_; or who,--like King James
of England,[72] that scampered off at sight of drawn swords, yet so
much the more gallantly, before all Europe, went out against the
storming Luther with book and pen,--does, from a similar idiosyncrasy,
attack all warlike armaments, both by word and writing. And here I
recollect, with satisfaction, a brave sub-lieutenant, whose confessor I
was (he still owes me the confession-money), and who, in respect of
stout-heartedness, had in him perhaps something of that Indian dog
which Alexander had presented to him as a sort of Dog-Alexander. By way
of trying this crack dog, the Macedonian made various heroic or
heraldic beasts be let loose against him; first a stag; but the dog lay
still; then a sow; he lay still; then a bear; he lay still. Alexander
was on the point of condemning him; when a lion was let forth; the dog
rose, and tore the lion in pieces. So likewise the sub-lieutenant. A
challenger, a foreign enemy, a Frenchman, are to him only stag, and
sow, and bear, and he lies still in his place; but let his oldest
enemy, his creditor, come and knock at his gate, and demand of him
actual smart-money for long bygone pleasures, thus presuming to rob him
both of past and present; the sub-lieutenant rises, and throws his
creditor down-stairs. I, alas! am still standing by the sow; and thus,
naturally enough, misunderstood.
------------------------
128. In Love there are Summer Holidays; but in Marriage also there are
Winter Holidays, I hope.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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