Brave men are they who set their faces toward the polar bergs and
floes, who roam the wild, unpeopled places, perchance to find among the
snows a resting-place remote and lonely; a winding-sheet of deathless
white, where elemental voices only disturb the brooding year-long night.
Brave souls are they whose man-made pinions have borne them over plains
and seas, who conquered wide and new dominions, and strapped a saddle
on the breeze. Their engine-driven wings are wearing new pathways
through the realm of clouds; they play with death, with dauntless
daring, to please the breathless, fickle crowds.
Brave men go forth to distant regions, forsaking luxury and ease;
through all the years they've gone in legions, to unknown lands, o'er
stormy seas; and when, by sword or fever smitten, they blithely
journeyed to the grave, full well they knew their names were written
down in the annals of the brave.
I am as brave as any rover described in gay, romantic screeds, but,
when my fitful life is over, no epic will narrate my deeds. Condemned
to silent heroism, I go my unmarked way alone, and no one hands me
prune or prism, as token that my deeds are known. But yesterday my
teeth were aching, and to the painless dentist's lair I took my way,
unawed, unquaking, and sat down in the fatal chair. He dug around my
rumbling molars with drawing-knives and burglars' tools, and cross-cut
saws and patent rollers, and marlinspikes and two-foot rules. He
climbed upon my lap and prodded with crowbar and with garden spade, to
see that I was not defrauded of all the agony that's made. He pulled
and yanked and pried and twisted, and uttered oft his battle shout, and
now and then his wife assisted--till finally the teeth came out. And
never once while thus he pottered around my torn and mangled jowl--not
once, while I was being slaughtered, did I let out a single howl! No
brass-bands played, none sang a ditty of triumph as I took my way; no
signs of "Welcome to Our City" were hung across the street that day!
Thus you and I and plain, plug mortals may show a courage high and
fine, and be obscure, while some jay chortles in triumph where the
limelights shine.