Page:The Fight at Dame Europa's School.djvu/37

 less severe. For I have hopes of Johnnie even yet, that he will rise to a sense of his high position in the school; and learn that duties cannot be cooly ignored because they are disagreeable; that he who shirks the responsibility of doing right does in very deed and truth do wrong; that the true test of greatness is the ability to grapple with great difficulties; that it is but a sorry thing to boast of bravery and skill and power, if, just at the very instant you are called upon to act, your resources fail you, and you whine out the miserable excuse that 'you don't exactly see how you can interfere.' If, indeed, such an excuse be allowed to stand—if it be really true that