It was only three days after when Prothero discovered exactly the
same phenomenon in the School House boothole and talked of cats and
cattle, that White's confidence in their friend was partially
restored. . . .



4


"Fear, the First Limitation"--his title indicated the spirit of
Benham's opening book very clearly. His struggle with fear was the
very beginning of his soul's history. It continued to the end. He
had hardly decided to lead the noble life before he came bump
against the fact that he was a physical coward. He felt fear
acutely. "Fear," he wrote, "is the foremost and most persistent of
the shepherding powers that keep us in the safe fold, that drive us
back to the beaten track and comfort and--futility. The beginning
of all aristocracy is the subjugation of fear."

At first the struggle was so great that he hated fear without any
qualification; he wanted to abolish it altogether.

"When I was a boy," he writes, "I thought I would conquer fear for
good and all, and never more be troubled by it. But it is not to be
done in that way. One might as well dream of having dinner for the
rest of one's life. Each time and always I have found that it has
to be conquered afresh. To this day I fear, little things as well
as big things. I have to grapple with some little dread every day--
urge myself. . . . Just as I have to wash and shave myself every