Publication information
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Source: If the Germans Conquered England and Other Essays
Source type: book
Document type: essay
Document title: “On Courage”
Author(s): Lynd, Robert
Publisher: Maunsel and Company Ltd.
Place of publication: Dublin, Ireland
Year of publication: 1917
Pagination: 68-73 (excerpt below includes only page 72)

 
Citation
Lynd, Robert. “On Courage.” If the Germans Conquered England and Other Essays. Dublin: Maunsel and Company, 1917: pp. 68-73.
 
Transcription
excerpt of essay
 
Keywords
McKinley assassination (international response); Leon Czolgosz.
 
Named persons
Leon Czolgosz [misspelled below]; William McKinley; Bernard Shaw.
 
Notes
On page [iii] the title of the book is given as If the Germans Conquered England, and Other Essays.
 
Document

 

On Courage [excerpt]

Mr. Shaw once shocked the readers of a paper called V.C. by contributing to a symposium on “The Bravest Deed I Ever Knew” the opinion that Czogolz, who had just assassinated President McKinley, had shown the qualities that go to the winning of the Victoria Cross in a more conspicuous manner than anyone else he could think of. Indifference to death, the courage to face the fury of a mob alone, absolute self-sacrifice—one dismisses these as callousness in a fearless man of whose action one does not approve. One might as well, however, deny beauty to a woman whose morals one dislikes as courage to a man whose morals one dislikes. Every woman is the better for being beautiful, and every man is the better for being brave. But there are other gifts of wisdom, affection, and truthfulness, without which beauty and courage are the mere graces of animals.

 

 


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