thersite

Updated: June 23, 2025

1. Page 6. The annals of the southwestern settlements commemorate many instances of daring hearts in delicate frames, and the pioneer woman who perhaps under softer and safer circumstances would have screamed at a mouse often shouldered a rifle and bravely joined the frontiersmen in the defense of the stockade against the most cruel, most wily, most warlike savage foe that ever a civilized force encountered. Courage, of all the qualities of the moral panoply, is the least to be reckoned with by logic. Perhaps after all it is not inherent, even in the nobler organisms, but evolved by a conscientious sense of responsibility and the dynamic potencies of emergency. La Bruyère says: "Jetez-moi dans les troupes comme un simple soldat, je suis Thersite: mettezmoi

Mary Noailles Murfree - The Frontiersmen