here portraying a hero of
romance in whom is united the enthusiasm of the boy with the calm
courage of the man. We crave attention, more particularly that of boys,
to the following observations:--

In the highly safe and civilised times in which we live, many thousands
of us never have a chance, from personal experience, of forming a just
estimate of the powers of an average man or boy, and we are too apt to
ascribe that to heroism which is simply due to knowledge. A man _knows_
that he can do a certain thing that seems extremely dangerous, therefore
he does it boldly, not because he is superlatively bold by any means,
but because he knows there is no risk--at least none to him. The
proverb that "Familiarity breeds contempt" applies as truly to danger as
to anything else; and well is it for the world that the majority of
human beings are prone to familiarise themselves with danger in spite of
those well-meaning but weak ones who have been born with a tendency to
say perpetually, "Take care," "Don't run such risk", etcetera.
"Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;" and man has
echoed the sentiment in the proverb, "Whatever is worth doing is worth
doing well". Do you climb?--then do it well--do it in such
circumstances that your spirit will get used to seeing profound depths
below you without your heart melting into hot water and your nerves
quaking. Do you leap?--then do it well--do it so that you may be able
to turn it to some good account in the day of trial; do it so that you
may know _how_ to leap off a runaway carriage, for instance, without
being killed. Learn to jump off high cliffs into deep water, so that,
should the opportunity ever offer, you may be able to plunge off the
high bulwarks of a vessel to save a sister, or mother, or child, with as
little thought about yourself as if you were jumping off a sofa.
Observe, we do not advocate recklessness. To leap off a cliff so high
that you will be sure to be killed is not leaping "well"; but neither is
it well to content yourself with a jump of three or four feet as your
utmost attainment, because that is far short of many a leap which may
have to be taken in this world to save even your own life, not to
mention the lives of others. But enough of this disquisition, which,
the reader will observe, has been entered upon chiefly in order to prove
that we do not ascribe heroic courage to Alric when we say that, having
been familiar with danger f