“Manliness and manfulness” are synonymous, but they embrace more than
we ordinarily mean by the word “courage;” for instance, tenderness and
thoughtfulness for others. They include that courage which lies at
the root of all manliness, but is, in fact, only its lowest or rudest
form. Indeed, we must admit that it is not exclusively a human quality
at all, but one which we share with other animals, and which some of
them—for instance the bulldog and weasel—exhibit with a certainty and a
thoroughness, which is very rare amongst mankind.
In what, then, does courage, in this ordinary sense of the word,
consist? First, in persistency, or the determination to have one’s own
way, coupled with contempt for safety and ease, and readiness to risk
pain or death in getting one’s own way. This is, let us readily admit,
a valuable, even a noble quality, but an animal quality rather than a
human or manly one. Proficiency in athletic games is not necessarily
a test even of animal courage, but only of muscular power and physical
training. Even in those games which, to some extent, do afford a
test of the persistency, and contempt for discomfort or pain, which
constitute animal courage—such as rowing, boxing, and wrestling—it
is of necessity a most unsatisfactory one. For instance, Nelson—as
courageous an Englishman as ever lived, who attacked a Polar bear with
a handspike when he was a boy of fourteen, and told his captain, when
he was scolded for it, that he did not know Mr. Fear—with his slight
frame and weak constitution, could never have won a boat-race, and in a
match would have been hopelessly astern of any one of the crew of his
own barge; and the highest courage which ever animated a human body
would not enable the owner of it, if he were himself untrained, to
stand for five minutes against a trained wrestler or boxer.
Athleticism is a good thing if kept in its place, but it has come to be
very much over-praised and over-valued amongst us.
True manliness is as likely to be found in a weak as in a strong
body. Other things being equal, we may perhaps admit (though I should
hesitate to do so) that a man with a highly-trained and developed body
will be more courageous than a weak man. But we must take this caution
with us, that a great athlete may be a brute or a coward, while a truly
manly man can be neither.