Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

1 66 ^s Triplex
courage to be not at all abashed before the
fact. A frank and somewhat headlong car-
riage, not looking too anxiously before, not
dallying in maudlin regret over the past,
stamps the man who is well armoured for
this world.
And not only well armoured for himself,
but a good friend and a good citizen to boot.
We do not go to cowards for tender dealing ;
there is nothing so cruel as panic ; the man
who has least fear for his own carcase, has
most time to consider others. That eminent
chemist who took his walks abroad in tin
shoes, and subsisted wholly upon tepid milk,
had all his work cut out for him in con-
siderate dealings with his own digestion.
So soon as prudence has begun to grow up
in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its
first expression in a paralysis of generous
acts. The victim begins to shrink spiritually ;
he develops a fancy for parlours with a regu-
lated temperature, and takes his morality on
the principle of tin shoes and tepid milk.
The care of one important body or soul