attle he remains cool; in the
midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake
him, he laughs at storms. We admire him as truly great, who, in the
menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession; who,
for instance, can compose a poem under impending peril or hum a strain
in the face of death. Such indulgence betraying no tremor in the writing
or in the voice, is taken as an infallible index of a large nature--of
what we call a capacious mind (_yoy[=u]_), which, for from being pressed
or crowded, has always room for something more.

It passes current among us as a piece of authentic history, that as
[=O]ta Dokan, the great builder of the castle of Tokyo, was pierced
through with a spear, his assassin, knowing the poetical predilection of
his victim, accompanied his thrust with this couplet--

"Ah! how in moments like these
Our heart doth grudge the light of life;"

whereupon the expiring hero, not one whit daunted by the mortal wound in
his side, added the lines--

"Had not in hours of peace,
It learned to lightly look on life."

There is even a sportive element in a courageous nature. Things which
are serious to ordinary people, may be but play to the valiant. Hence in
old warfare it was not at all rare for the parties to a conflict to
exchange repartee or to begin a rhetorical contest. Combat was not
solely a matter of brute force; it was, as, well, an intellectual
engagement.

Of such character was the battle fought on the bank of the Koromo River,
late in the eleventh century. The eastern army routed, its leader,
Sadato, took to flight. When the pursuing general pressed him hard and
called aloud--"It is a disgrace for a warrior to show his back to the
enemy," Sadato reined his horse; upon this the conquering chief shouted
an impromptu verse--

"Torn into shreds is the warp of the cloth" (_koromo_).

Scarcely had the words escaped his lips when the defeated warrior,
undismayed, completed the couplet--

"Since age has worn its threads by use."

Yoshiie, whose bow had all the while been bent, suddenly unstrung it and
turned away, leaving his prospective victim to do as he pleased. When
asked the reason of his strange behavior, he replied that he could not
bear to put to shame one who had kept his presence of mind while hotly
pursued by his enemy.

The sorrow which overtook Antony and Octavius at the death of Brutus,
has been the general ex