The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-03-03
NUMBER 9
PERSONAL couRAeE
Inc Relative Possession OF the Yirtue
by Men and Women.

London Spectator
Courage, undoubtedly, implies alac-
rIty, and even pleasure, in facing peril
from which many shrink, a spirit that
rises TO the encounter with danger; but
| whether or not courage properly implies
night and sufficient Justification for
such an encounter, is another question.
II 1t does, then We should say that wo-
| men are often more courageous than
men, since the existence of n sufficient
motive for encountering peril makes a
vast deal more difference, on the whole,
10 their nerve than it makes to the
nerve Of men. There is hardly mother
who will not encounter pain and shame
and peril with tirmer heart to save
her child than even a brave man would
show for the same end. But then COM
pare the two IN moments Of peril when
there Is no such noble motive to string
the nerve of either, and the chances
are that the man will be the Drawer of
the two, not, perhaps. that his heart is
the holder, but that his mind passes
much less easily into the collapse which
fear brings, and is less dependent on an
exalted emotion for the resistance it
opposes to anything like moral paraly-
SIS. If Miss Cobbe is right, and cour-
age implies the existence of some mo-
tive of absolute obligation on behalf of
which peril is to be faced, then women,
so far rs they really enter into such mo-
tive, are, We believe, Drawer than men.
because they live more singly and heart
lily in the purer emotions to which they
surrender themselves. If, on the con
trary, courage is to cover all the cases
OF selt-possession and GOODNESS in peril
whether there is or is not high and
disinterested motive in confronting the
perll-then men are the more courag-
eous, for their temperament is more
combative; there is more in it which
rises to AN emergency only because there
in an emergency to rise to- more of
immediate reaction against anything
that has an aggressive look, than there
is in women. We should say that the
minds of women do not rebel as instinct
lively against mere collapse as do the
minds of men. Where there is any
profound affection which steels them
against such collapse, they are more
wholly impervious to it than men. But
where there is no such antidote to col |
lapse, the collapse of horror sets in
much more easily in their minds than /
it does in The sturdier and less mobile
natures of the male sex. Men are less
prone to be unnerved by their fears than |
women. Women are more prone to be |
nerved by their affections to great ac-
tions than men.
But it is not only by their affections
that women are made notably courage
Gus. Often they are made so by very
inferior interests, especially by the in
tense conservatism of their proprietary
Instincts. We believe that women
much oftener--oftener, at least, in pro-
defense of their property than men.
Women who would faint away in the
face of shipwreck, or even at the APP
Droach of an angry bull, will constantly
90 alone about house at night when
hey believe burglars to be attempting
he house, without any panic at all.
This is, no doubt, in part because they
'ealize less clearly the brutality of the
ort of men who rob houses than men
10, and are in fact, rendered fearless by
heir comparative ignorance Of the
world. So, likewise, men are exceed
ngly fearless at sea, or in danger from
ailway catastrophes, till their nerves
AVE received a serious shock from either
,ause, after which they become as liable
o collapse of nerve as woman. Charles
Dickens, who behaved like hero in the
terrible Southeastern Railway accident,
that his nerve received
iuch shock in that he could not after
ward drive in an ordinary hanson cab
without spasms of extreme terror. The
fearlessness either of ignor
ince, has hardly the right of name of
courage. 1t is only insensibility to a
particular class of paralyzing fears.