Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/94

Rh Was there no value in this lesson for Englishmen?

They learned here that beating and bruising and even blinding a man, do not defeat him, if his heart be true and strong.

Under every contest, whether of men or game animals, this is the fascinating secret, this is the line to look for,—this unbroken golden thread of pluck, of manly fortitude, of secret, heart-whispering confidence.

We must regret and deplore the bruises and the scars and the blood; but they are the price of a precious and beautiful thing,—the sight of manly qualities under the severest strain.

Where else in one compressed hour can be witnessed the supreme test and tension of such precious living qualities as courage, temper, endurance, bodily strength, clear-mindedness in excited action, and, above all, that heroic spirit that puts aside the cloak of defeat though it fall anew a hundred and a thousand times, and in the end reaches out and grasps the silvered mantle of success?

This is not meant to encourage prize-fighting. Detestable and abhorrent is a brutal bare-handed fight, for the brutality is as unnecessary as it is repulsive; but you cannot have a prevalent manly exercise interesting to the majority of healthy