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Norah has been reading what I've just written, and she tells me that there's a great deal about Jimmy's "joy" and his "adventure" and all that; and not one word about his duty and devotion and self-sacrifice. She says I don't give a serious impression of him. He might have gone out to the war just for fun, and that it isn't fair to him. I don't know whether it's fair or not.
What could be the devotion which men so often affect to feel if it did not tend to self-sacrifice on behalf of the beloved one? A man would incur any danger for a woman, would subject himself to any toil, would even die for her! But if this were done simply with the object of winning her, where was that real love of which sacrifice of self on behalf of another is the truest proof?
There was a certain amount of unnatural excitement which kept up her courage and enabled her to face it. It was no more than what she had expected. The glow of her love and her impulse of self-sacrifice were still upon her; her nerves had been strung to the uttermost, and she felt strong in the knowledge of the justice and the right of her own conduct. But by-and-by all this died away.
On the other hand, however, it must be remembered that there are stories that tell a very different tale, a tale of self-sacrifice and devotion in face of grievous trial, as, for instance, that of Eric and Enide, sung by Chrétien of Troyes, and made familiar to us by Tennyson’s poem of “Geraint and Enid.” It is impossible that such a conception should have been the mere outcome of the poet’s imagination, since a poet, whilst he may transform, focuses and reflects the ideas of his time.
A sense of the power of right rose within me, backed up by a strong curiosity; and I said to myself that if I went home, with nothing more than that to tell you, I should not have at all an easy time of it. Therefore I resolved to face the question again, and ascertain, if possible, without self-sacrifice, what was going on among the ruins.
She could not understand that look. And that was not so strange, for on the face of the old flute-player the expression was like few this selfish old world ever sees the expression of complete self-abnegation, of absolute self-sacrifice for pure and holy love. "The ring, Herr Kreutzer!" Mrs. Vanderlyn exclaimed, in relief, sure, now, for the first time, of the recovery of the precious trinket.
He spoke of Miss Myrover's kindly spirit, and, as an illustration of her love and self-sacrifice for others, referred to her labors as a teacher of the poor ignorant negroes who had been placed in their midst by an all-wise Providence, and whom it was their duty to guide and direct in the station in which God had put them.
That quest which has written in its history as many tales of heroism, self-sacrifice, and patient resignation to adversity, as the poets have woven about the story of chivalry and the search for the Holy Grail was begun only in the middle of the last century, and by an American.
Severinus's labours through some five-and-twenty years of perpetual self-sacrifice and, as far as this world was concerned, perpetual disaster. Eugippius's chapters are little save a catalogue of towns sacked one after the other, from Passau to Vienna, till the miserable survivors of the war seemed to have concentrated themselves under St. Severinus's guardianship in the latter city.
Faith sees something of the Divine fitness and beauty of this scheme of salvation through intercession, wakens the soul to a consciousness of its wondrous destiny, and girds it with strength for the blessed self-sacrifice it calls to. God seeks intercessors.
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