Father Michael in spite of his years, and in spite of his
asceticism (or because of it, for all I know), was a very healthy
and happy old gentleman. And as he swung on a bar above the
sickening emptiness of air, he realized, with that sort of dead
detachment which belongs to the brains of those in peril, the
deathless and hopeless contradiction which is involved in the
mere idea of courage. He was a happy and healthy old gentleman
and therefore he was quite careless about it. And he felt as
every man feels in the taut moment of such terror that his chief
danger was terror itself; his only possible strength would be a
coolness amounting to carelessness, a carelessness amounting
almost to a suicidal swagger. His one wild chance of coming out
safely would be in not too desperately desiring to be safe. There
might be footholds down that awful facade, if only he could not
care whether they were footholds or no. If he were foolhardy he
might escape; if he were wise he would stop where he was till he
dropped from the cross like a stone. And this antinomy kept on
repeating itself in his mind, a contradiction as large and
staring as the immense contradiction of the Cross; he remembered
having often heard the words, "Whosoever shall lose his life the
same shall save it." He remembered with a sort of strange pity
that this had always been made to mean that whoever lost his
physical life should save his spiritual life. Now he knew the
truth that is known to all fighters, and hunters, and climbers of
cliffs. He knew that even his animal life could only be saved by
a considerable readiness to lose it.

Some will think it improbable that a human soul swinging
desperately in mid-air should think about philosophical