his look. It is not mere
"pluck"; for pluck also comes by fits and starts, and can be
disconnected from the other elements of character. A tradesman once had
the pluck to demand of Talleyrand, at the time that trickster-statesman
was at the height of his power, when he intended to pay his bill; but he
was instantly extinguished by the impassive insolence of Talleyrand's
answer,--"My faith, how curious you are!" Considered as an efficient
force, it is sometimes below heroism, sometimes above it: below heroism,
when heroism is the permanent condition of the soul; above heroism, when
heroism is simply the soul's transient mood. Thus, Demosthenes had
flashes of splendid heroism, but his valor depended on his genius being
kindled,--his brave actions naming out from mental ecstasy rather than
intrepid character. The moment his will dropped from its eminence of
impassioned thought, he was scared by dangers which common soldiers
faced with gay indifference. Erskine, the great advocate, was a hero at
the bar; but when he entered the House of Commons, there was something
in the fixed imperiousness and scorn of Pitt which made him feel
inwardly weak and fluttered. Erskine had flashes of heroism; Pitt had
consistent and persistent grit. If we may take the judgment of Sir
Sidney Smith, Wellington had more grit than Napoleon had heroism. Just
before the Battle of Waterloo, Sir Sidney, at Paris, was told that the
Duke had decided to keep his position at all events. "Oh!" he
exclaimed, "if the Duke has said that, of course t' other fellow must
give way."

And this is essentially the sign of grit, that, when it appears, t'
other fellow or t' other opinion must give way. Its power comes from its
tough hold on the real, and the surly boldness with which it utters and
acts it out. Thus, in social life, it puts itself in rude opposition to
all those substitutes for reality which the weakness and hypocrisy and
courtesy of men find necessary for their mutual defence. It denies that
it has ever surrendered its original rights and aboriginal force, or
that it has assented to the social compact. When it goes into any
company of civilized persons, its pugnacity is roused by seeing that
social life does not rest on the vigor of the persons who compose it,
but on the authority of certain rules and manners to which all are
required to conform. These appear to grit as external defences, thrown
up to protect elegant feebleness against any direct coll