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First Shots.
"Cowards fear to die; but courage stout, Rather than live in snuff, will be put out." -- Sir Walter Raleigh, on "The Snuff of a Candle." All military courage of any value is the offspring of pride and will.
The existence of what is called "natural courage" may well be doubted.
What is frequently mistaken for it is either perfect self-command, or a stolid indifference, arising from dull-brained inability to comprehend what really is danger.
The first instincts of man teach him to shun all sources of harm, and if his senses are sufficiently acute to perceive danger, his natural disposition is to avoid encountering it.

This disposition can only be overcome by the exercise of the power of pride and will--pride to aspire to the accomplishment of certain things, even though risk attend, and will to carry out those aspirations.
Harry Glen was apparently not deficient in either pride or will.

The close observer, however, seemed to see as his mastering sentiment a certain starile selfishness, not uncommon among the youths of his training and position in the slow-living, hum-drum country towns of Ohio.

The only son of a weakly-fondling mother and a father too earnestly treading the narrow path of early diligences and small savings by which a man becomes the richest in his village, to pay any attention to him, Harry grew up a self-indulgent, self-sufficient boy.