life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the
mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his
behavior.

5. Toward all this external evil, the man within the breast assumes a
warlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with
the infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we
give the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety
and ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust
which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its
energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind
of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but
pleasantly, and, as it were, merrily, he advances to his own music,
alike in frightful alarms, and in the tipsy mirth of universal
dissoluteness. There is somewhat not philosophical in heroism; there
is somewhat not holy in it; it seems not to know that other souls are
of one texture with it; it has pride; it is the extreme of individual
nature. Nevertheless, we must profoundly revere it. There is somewhat
in great actions, which does not allow us to go behind them. Heroism
feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right; and although a
different breeding, different religion, and greater intellectual
activity, would have modified or even reversed the particular action,
yet for the hero, that thing he does is the highest deed, and is not
open to the censure of philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of
the unschooled man, that he finds a quality in him that is negligent
of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and
knows that his will is higher and more excellent than all actual and
all possible antagonists.

6. Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind, and in