You are the wrong sort of breed for common shirking cowards.
Why, man, you might get the Victoria Cross ten times over with ease, as far as that goes.

Only you wouldn't, for you are something much more subtle and recondite than a coward." It was Lewis's turn for the request.

"I am prepared to hear," he said.
"A fool! An arrant, extraordinary fool! A fool of quality and parts, a fool who is the best fellow in the world and who has every virtue a man can wish, but at the same time a conspicuous monument of folly.

And it is this that I have come to speak about." Lewis sat back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the glowing coal.
"I want you to make it all plain," he said slowly.

"I know it all already; I have got the dull, dead consciousness of it in my heart, but I want to hear it put into words." And he set his lips like a man in pain.
"It is hard," said Wratislaw, "devilish hard, but I've got to try." He knocked out the ashes from his pipe and leaned forward.
"What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie ?" he asked.
"The sense of competence," was the answer, given without hesitation.
"Right.