have wished thus to die!' and preserved the chair among the relics of
the bravest of his own fellow countrymen.

Such obedience at all costs and all risks is, however, the very essence
of a soldier's life. An army could not exist without it, a ship could
not sail without it, and millions upon millions of those whose 'bones
are dust and good swords are rust' have shown such resolution. It is the
solid material, but it has hardly the exceptional brightness, of a
Golden Deed.

And yet perhaps it is one of the most remarkable characteristics of a
Golden Deed that the doer of it is certain to feel it merely a duty; 'I
have done that which it was my duty to do' is the natural answer of
those capable of such actions. They have been constrained to them by
duty, or by pity; have never even deemed it possible to act otherwise,
and did not once think of themselves in the matter at all.

For the true metal of a Golden Deed is self-devotion. Selfishness is the
dross and alloy that gives the unsound ring to many an act that has been
called glorious. And, on the other hand, it is not only the valor, which
meets a thousand enemies upon the battlefield, or scales the walls in a
forlorn hope, that is of true gold. It may be, but often it is a mere
greed of fame, fear of shame, or lust of plunder. No, it is the spirit
that gives itself for others--the temper that for the sake of religion,
of country, of duty, of kindred, nay, of pity even to a stranger, will
dare all things, risk all things, endure all things, meet death in one
moment, or wear life away in slow, persevering tendance and suffering.

Such a spirit was shown by Leaena, the Athenian woman at whose house the
overthrow of the tyranny of the Pisistratids was concerted, and who,