Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/226

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218
""BONES AND I."

and deceit; above all, he knows nothing of his inmost heart, nothing of the fierce, war-like joy in which a hold spirit crushes and tramples out its own rebellion—nothing of that worshipper's lofty courage who


'Gives the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars,'


who feels a stern and dogged pride in the consciousness that he


'Knows how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.'


No: in the moral as in the physical battle, though you be pinned to the earth, yet writhe yourself up against the spear, like the 'grim Lord of Colonsay,' who, in his very death-pang, swung his claymore, set his teeth, and drove his last blow home.

"Besides, if you are to avoid the struggle entirely, how are you ever to learn the skill of self-defence, by which a thrust may be parried