The ship was motionless; there was not a breath of wind; the sky was clear; the sea like a mill-pond--the general "atmosphere" was peaceful, and all on board responded unconsciously to it. But what controlled the situation principally was the quality of obedience and respect for authority which is a dominant characteristic of the Teutonic race. Passengers did as they were told by the officers in charge: women went to the decks below, men remained where they were told and waited in silence for the next order, knowing instinctively that this was the only way to bring about the best result for all on board. The officers, in their turn, carried out the work assigned to them by their superior officers as quickly and orderly as circumstances permitted, the senior ones being in control of the manning, filling and lowering of the lifeboats, while the junior officers were lowered in individual boats to take command of the fleet adrift on the sea. Similarly, the engineers below, the band, the gymnasium instructor, were all performing their tasks as they came along: orderly, quietly, without question or stopping to consider what was their chance of safety. This correlation on the part of passengers, officers and crew was simply obedience to duty, and it was innate rather than the product of reasoned judgment. I hope it will not seem to detract in any way from the heroism of those who faced the last plunge of the Titanic so courageously when all the boats had gone,--if it does, it is the difficulty of expressing an idea in adequate words,--to say that their quiet heroism was largely unconscious, temperamental, not a definite choice between two ways of acting. All that was visible on deck before the boats left tended to this conclusion and the testimony of those who went down with the ship and were afterwards rescued is of the same kind. Certainly it seems to express much more general nobility of character in a race of people--consisting of different nationalities--to find heroism an unconscious quality of the race than to have it arising as an effort of will, to have to bring it out consciously.