glare, each rocky ridge he clambered became more dreadful than the
last, each new valley into which he looked more hateful and
desolate, the cramped thorn bushes threatened him gauntly, the rocks
had a sinister lustre, and in every blue shadow about him the night
and death lurked and waited. There was no hurry for them, presently
they would spread out again and join and submerge him, presently in
the confederated darkness he could be stalked and seized and slain.
Yes, this he admitted was real fear. He had cracked his voice,
yelling as a child yells. And then he had become afraid of his own
voice. . . .

"Now this excess of fear in isolation, this comfort in a crowd, in
support and in a refuge, even when support or refuge is quite
illusory, is just exactly what one would expect of fear if one
believed it to be an instinct which has become a misfit. In the
ease of the soldier fear is so much a misfit that instead of saving
him for the most part it destroys him. Raw soldiers under fire
bunch together and armies fight in masses, men are mowed down in
swathes, because only so is the courage of the common men sustained,
only so can they be brave, albeit spread out and handling their
weapons as men of unqualified daring would handle them they would be
infinitely safer and more effective. . . .

"And all of us, it may be, are restrained by this misfit fear from a
thousand bold successful gestures of mind and body, we are held back
from the attainment of mighty securities in pitiful temporary
shelters that are perhaps in the end no better than traps. . . ."

From such considerations Benham went on to speculate how far the
crowd can be replaced in a man's imagination, how far some