of the Bisse was nothing, it was like walking along a kerbstone, it
was an exercise for young ladies. . . .



7


In his younger days Benham had regarded Fear as a shameful secret
and as a thing to be got rid of altogether. It seemed to him that
to feel fear was to fall short of aristocracy, and in spite of the
deep dreads and disgusts that haunted his mind, he set about the
business of its subjugation as if it were a spiritual amputation.
But as he emerged from the egotism of adolescence he came to realize
that this was too comprehensive an operation; every one feels fear,
and your true aristocrat is not one who has eliminated, but one who
controls or ignores it. Brave men are men who do things when they
are afraid to do them, just as Nelson, even when he was seasick, and
he was frequently seasick, was still master of the sea. Benham
developed two leading ideas about fear; one that it is worse at the
first onset, and far worse than any real experience, and the other
that fear is essentially a social instinct. He set himself upon
these lines to study--what can we call it?--the taming of fear, the
nature, care, and management of fear. . . .

"Fear is very like pain in this, that it is a deterrent thing. It
is superficial. Just as a man's skin is infinitely more sensitive
than anything inside. . . . Once you have forced yourself or have
been forced through the outward fear into vivid action or
experience, you feel very little. The worst moment is before things