{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10767/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10767","id":"gutenberg_10767","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10767","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","Courage"],"text":"THE RECTORIAL ADDRESS DELIVERED\n\nAT ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY\n\nMAY 3rd 1922\n\n\n\n\nCOURAGE\n\nBY\n\nJ. M. BARRIE\n\n\n\n\nHODDER AND STOUGHTON LIMITED\nTORONTO\n\n\nTo the Red Gowns of St. Andrews\n\n\n\nCanada, 1922\n\n\n\n\n\nYou have had many rectors here in St. Andrews who will continue\nin bloom long after the lowly ones such as I am are dead and rotten\nand forgotten.  They are the roses in December; you remember someone\nsaid that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.\nBut I do not envy the great ones.  In my experience--and you may find\nin the end it is yours also--the people I have cared for most and who\nhave seemed most worth caring for--my December roses--have been very\nsimple folk.  Yet I wish that for this hour I could swell into someone\nof importance, so as to do you credit.  I suppose you had a melting\nfor me because I was hewn out of one of your own quarries, walked\nsimilar academic groves, and have trudged the road on which you will\nsoon set forth.  I would that I could put into your hands a staff\nfor that somewhat bloody march, for though there is much about myself\nthat I conceal from other people, to help you I would expose every\ncranny of my mind.\n\nBut, alas, when the hour strikes for the Rector to answer to his\ncall he is unable to become the undergraduate he used to be, and so\nthe only door into you is closed.  We, your elders, are much more\ninterested in you than you are in us.  We are not really important to\nyou.  I have utterly forgotten the address of the Rector of my time,\nand even who he was, but I recall vividly climbing up a statue to tie\nhis colours round its neck and being hurled therefrom with contumely.\nWe remember the important things.  I cannot provide you with that\nstaff for your journey; but perhaps I can tell you a little about it,\nhow to use it and lose it and find it again, and cling to it more\nthan ever.  You shall cut it--so it is ordained--every one of you for\nhimself, and its name is Courage.  You must excuse me if I talk a\ngood deal about courage to you to-day.  There is nothing else much\nworth speaking about to undergraduates or graduates or white-haired\nmen and women.  It is the lovely virtue--the rib of Himself that God\nsent down to His children.\n\nMy special difficulty is that though you have had literary rectors\nhere before, they were the big guns, the historians, the philosophers;\nyou have had none, I think, who followed my more humble branch, which\nmay be described as playing hide and seek with angels.  My puppets\nseem more real to me than myself, and I could get on much more\nswingingly if I made one of them deliver this address.  It is\nM'Connachie who has brought me to this pass. M'Connachie, I should\nexplain, as I have undertaken to open the innermost doors, is the name\nI give to the unruly half of myself: the writing half.  We are\ncomplement and supplement.  I am the half that is dour and practical\nand canny, he is the fanciful half; my desire is to be the family\nsolicitor, standing firm on my hearthrug among the harsh realities of\nthe office furniture; while he prefers to fly around on one wing. I\nshould not mind him doing that, but he drags me with him.  I have\nsworn that M'Connachie shall not interfere with this address to-day;\nbut there is no telling.  I might have done things worth while if it\nhad not been for M'Connachie, and my first piece of advice to you at\nany rate shall be sound: don't copy me.  A good subject for a\nrectorial address would be the mess the Rector himself has made of\nlife.  I merely cast this forth as a suggestion, and leave the working\nof it out to my successor.  I do not think it has been used yet.\n\nMy own theme is Courage, as you should use it in the great fight that\nseems to me to be coming between youth and their betters; by youth,\nmeaning, of course, you, and by your betters us.  I want you to take\nup this position: That youth have for too long left exclusively in\nour hands the decisions in national matters that are more vital to\nthem than to us.  Things about the next war, for instance, and why\nthe last one ever had a beginning.  I use the word fight because it\nmust, I think, begin with a challenge; but the aim is the reverse of\nantagonism, it is partnership.  I want you to hold that the time has\narrived for youth to demand that partnership, and to demand it\ncourageously.  That to gain courage is what you came to St. Andrews\nfor.  With some alarums and excursions into college life.  That is\nwhat I propose, but, of course, the issue lies with M'Connachie.\n\nYour betters had no share in the immediate cause of the war; we know\nwhat nation has that blot to wipe out; but for fifty years or so we\nheeded not the rumblings of the distant drum, I do not mean by lack\nof military preparations; and when war did come we told youth, who\nhad to get us out of it, tall tales of what it really is and of the\nclover beds to which it leads.\n\nWe were not meaning to deceive, most of us were as honourable and as\nignorant as the youth themselves; but that does not acquit us of\nfailings such as stupidity and jealousy, the two black spots in\nhuman nature which, more than love of money, are at the root of all\nevil.  If you prefer to leave things as they are we shall probably\nfail you again.  Do not be too sure that we have learned our lesson,\nand are not at this very moment doddering down some brimstone path.\n\nI am far from implying that even worse things than war may not come\nto a State.  There are circumstances in which nothing can so well\nbecome a land, as I think this land proved when the late war did\nbreak out and there was but one thing to do.  There is a form of\nanaemia that is more rotting than even an unjust war.  The end will\nindeed have come to our courage and to us when we are afraid in dire\nmischance to refer the final appeal to the arbitrament of arms.\nI suppose all the lusty of our race, alive and dead, join hands on\nthat.\n\n   'And he is dead who will not fight;\n   And who dies fighting has increase.'\n\nBut if you must be in the struggle, the more reason you should know\nwhy, before it begins, and have a say in the decision whether it is\nto begin.  The youth who went to the war had no such knowledge, no\nsuch say; I am sure the survivors, of whom there must be a number\nhere to-day, want you to be wiser than they were, and are certainly\ndetermined to be wiser next time themselves.  If you are to get that\npartnership, which, once gained, is to be for mutual benefit, it will\nbe, I should say, by banding yourselves with these men, not defiantly\nbut firmly, not for selfish ends but for your country's good.  In the\nmeantime they have one bulwark; they have a General who is befriending\nthem as I think never, after the fighting was over, has a General\nbefriended his men before.  Perhaps the seemly thing would be for us,\ntheir betters, to elect one of these young survivors of the carnage\nto be our Rector.  He ought now to know a few things about war that\nare worth our hearing.  If his theme were the Rector's favourite,\ndiligence.  I should be afraid of his advising a great many of us\nto be diligent in sitting still and doing no more harm.\n\nOf course he would put it more suavely than that, though it is not,\nI think, by gentleness that you will get your rights; we are dogged\nones at sticking to what we have got, and so will you be at our age.\nBut avoid calling us ugly names; we may be stubborn and we may be\nblunderers, but we love you more than aught else in the world, and\nonce you have won your partnership we shall all be welcoming you.\nI urge you not to use ugly names about anyone.  In the war it was\nnot the fighting men who were distinguished for abuse; as has been\nwell said, 'Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant.'  Never ascribe\nto an opponent motives meaner than your own.  There may be students\nhere to-day who have decided this session to go in for immortality,\nand would like to know of an easy way of accomplishing it.  That is\na way, but not so easy as you think.  Go through life without ever\nascribing to your opponents motives meaner than your own.  Nothing\nso lowers the moral currency; give it up, and be great.\n\nAnother sure way to fame is to know what you mean.  It is a solemn\nthought that almost no one--if he is truly eminent--knows what he\nmeans.  Look at the great ones of the earth, the politicians.  We\ndo not discuss what they say, but what they may have meant when they\nsaid it.  In 1922 we are all wondering, and so are they, what they\nmeant in 1914 and afterwards.  They are publishing books trying to\nfind out; the men of action as well as the men of words.  There are\nexceptions.  It is not that our statesmen are 'sugared mouths with\nminds therefrae'; many of them are the best men we have got, upright\nand anxious, nothing cheaper than to miscall them.  The explanation\nseems just to be that it is so difficult to know what you mean,\nespecially when you have become a swell.  No longer apparently can\nyou deal in 'russet yeas and honest kersey noes'; gone for ever is\nsimplicity, which is as beautiful as the divine plain face of Lamb's\nMiss Kelly.  Doubts breed suspicions, a dangerous air.  Without\nsuspicion there might have been no war.  When you are called to\nDowning Street to discuss what you want of your betters with the\nPrime Minister he won't be suspicious, not as far as you can see;\nbut remember the atmosphere of generations you are in, and when he\npasses you the toast-rack say to yourselves, if you would be in the\nmode, 'Now, I wonder what he means by that.'\n\nEven without striking out in the way I suggest, you are already\ndisturbing your betters considerably.  I sometimes talk this over\nwith M'Connachie, with whom, as you may guess, circumstances compel\nme to pass a good deal of my time.  In our talks we agree that we,\nyour betters, constantly find you forgetting that we are your betters.\nYour answer is that the war and other happenings have shown you that\nage is not necessarily another name for sapience; that our avoidance\nof frankness in life and in the arts is often, but not so often as\nyou think, a cowardly way of shirking unpalatable truths, and that\nyou have taken us off our pedestals because we look more natural on\nthe ground.  You who are at the rash age even accuse your elders,\nsometimes not without justification, of being more rash than\nyourselves.  'If Youth but only knew,' we used to teach you to sing;\nbut now, just because Youth has been to the war, it wants to change\nthe next line into 'If Age had only to do.'\n\nIn so far as this attitude of yours is merely passive, sullen,\nnegative, as it mainly is, despairing of our capacity and\nanticipating a future of gloom, it is no game for man or woman.\nIt is certainly the opposite of that for which I plead.  Do not\nstand aloof, despising, disbelieving, but come in and help--insist\non coming in and helping.  After all, we have shown a good deal\nof courage; and your part is to add a greater courage to it.\nThere are glorious years lying ahead of you if you choose to make\nthem glorious.  God's in His Heaven still.  So forward, brave\nhearts.  To what adventures I cannot tell, but I know that your\nGod is watching to see whether you are adventurous.  I know that the\ngreat partnership is only a first step, but I do not know what are\nto be the next and the next.  The partnership is but a tool; what\nare you to do with it?  Very little, I warn you, if you are merely\nthinking of yourselves; much if what is at the marrow of your\nthoughts is a future that even you can scarcely hope to see.\n\nLearn as a beginning how world-shaking situations arise and how they\nmay be countered.  Doubt all your betters who would deny you that\nright of partnership.  Begin by doubting all such in high places--\nexcept, of course, your professors.  But doubt all other professors--\nyet not conceitedly, as some do, with their noses in the air; avoid\nall such physical risks.  If it necessitates your pushing some of us\nout of our places, still push; you will find it needs some shoving.\nBut the things courage can do!  The things that even incompetence\ncan do if it works with singleness of purpose.  The war has done at\nleast one big thing: it has taken spring out of the year.  And, this\naccomplished, our leading people are amazed to find that the other\nseasons are not conducting themselves as usual.  The spring of the\nyear lies buried in the fields of France and elsewhere.  By the time\nthe next eruption comes it may be you who are responsible for it and\nyour sons who are in the lava.  All, perhaps, because this year you\nlet things slide.\n\nWe are a nice and kindly people, but it is already evident that we\nare stealing back into the old grooves, seeking cushions for our old\nbones, rather than attempting to build up a fairer future.  That is\nwhat we mean when we say that the country is settling down.  Make\nhaste, or you will become like us, with only the thing we proudly\ncall experience to add to your stock, a poor exchange for the\ngenerous feelings that time will take away.  We have no intention\nof giving you your share.  Look around and see how much share Youth\nhas now that the war is over.  You got a handsome share while it\nlasted.\n\nI expect we shall beat you; unless your fortitude be doubly girded\nby a desire to send a message of cheer to your brothers who fell,\nthe only message, I believe, for which they crave; they are not\nworrying about their Aunt Jane.  They want to know if you have\nlearned wisely from what befell them; if you have, they will be\nbraced in the feeling that they did not die in vain.  Some of them\nthink they did.  They will not take our word for it that they did not.\nYou are their living image; they know you could not lie to them, but\nthey distrust our flattery and our cunning faces.  To us they have\npassed away; but are you who stepped into their heritage only\nyesterday, whose books are scarcely cold to their hands, you who\nstill hear their cries being blown across the links--are you\nalready relegating them to the shades?  The gaps they have left\nin this University are among the most honourable of her wounds.\nBut we are not here to acclaim them.  Where they are now, hero is,\nI think, a very little word.  They call to you to find out in time\nthe truth about this great game, which your elders play for stakes\nand Youth plays for its life.\n\nI do not know whether you are grown a little tired of that word hero,\nbut I am sure the heroes are.  That is the subject of one of our\nunfinished plays; M'Connachie is the one who writes the plays.\nIf any one of you here proposes to be a playwright you can take this\nfor your own and finish it.  The scene is a school, schoolmasters\npresent, but if you like you could make it a university, professors\npresent.  They are discussing an illuminated scroll about a student\nfallen in the war, which they have kindly presented to his parents;\nand unexpectedly the parents enter.  They are an old pair, backbent,\nthey have been stalwarts in their day but have now gone small;\nthey are poor, but not so poor that they could not send their boy\nto college.  They are in black, not such a rusty black either,\nand you may be sure she is the one who knows what to do with his hat.\nTheir faces are gnarled, I suppose--but I do not need to describe\nthat pair to Scottish students.  They have come to thank the\nSenatus for their lovely scroll and to ask them to tear it up.\nAt first they had been enamoured to read of what a scholar their\nson was, how noble and adored by all.  But soon a fog settled\nover them, for this grand person was not the boy they knew.\nHe had many a fault well known to them; he was not always so\nnoble; as a scholar he did no more than scrape through; and he\nsometimes made his father rage and his mother grieve.  They had\nliked to talk such memories as these together, and smile over them,\nas if they were bits of him he had left lying about the house.\nSo thank you kindly, and would you please give them back their boy\nby tearing up the scroll?  I see nothing else for our dramatist to do.\nI think he should ask an alumna of St. Andrews to play the old lady\n(indicating Miss Ellen Terry).  The loveliest of all young actresses,\nthe dearest of all old ones; it seems only yesterday that all the men\nof imagination proposed to their beloveds in some such frenzied\nwords as these, 'As I can't get Miss Terry, may I have you?'\n\nThis play might become historical as the opening of your propaganda\nin the proposed campaign.  How to make a practical advance?\nThe League of Nations is a very fine thing, but it cannot save you,\nbecause it will be run by us.  Beware your betters bringing presents.\nWhat is wanted is something run by yourselves.  You have more in\ncommon with the Youth of other lands than Youth and Age can ever\nhave with each other; even the hostile countries sent out many a\nson very like ours, from the same sort of homes, the same sort of\nuniversities, who had as little to do as our youth had with the\norigin of the great adventure.  Can we doubt that many of these\non both sides who have gone over and were once opponents are now\nfriends?  You ought to have a League of Youth of all countries\nas your beginning, ready to say to all Governments, 'We will fight\neach other but only when we are sure of the necessity.'  Are you\nequal to your job, you young men?  If not, I call upon the\nred-gowned women to lead the way.  I sound to myself as if I were\nadvocating a rebellion, though I am really asking for a larger\nfriendship.  Perhaps I may be arrested on leaving the hall.  In such\na cause I should think that I had at last proved myself worthy to be\nyour Rector.\n\nYou will have to work harder than ever, but possibly not so much\nat the same things; more at modern languages certainly if you are\nto discuss that League of Youth with the students of other nations\nwhen they come over to St. Andrews for the Conference.  I am far from\ntaking a side against the classics.  I should as soon argue against\nyour having tops to your heads; that way lie the best tops.\nScience, too, has at last come to its own in St. Andrews.  It is\nthe surest means of teaching you how to know what you mean when\nyou say.  So you will have to work harder.  Isaak Walton quotes the\nsaying that doubtless the Almighty could have created a finer fruit\nthan the strawberry, but that doubtless also He never did.  Doubtless\nalso He could have provided us with better fun than hard work, but\nI don't know what it is.  To be born poor is probably the next best\nthing.  The greatest glory that has ever come to me was to be\nswallowed up in London, not knowing a soul, with no means of\nsubsistence, and the fun of working till the stars went out.\nTo have known any one would have spoilt it.  I did not even quite\nknow the language.  I rang for my boots, and they thought I said\na glass of water, so I drank the water and worked on.  There was\nno food in the cupboard, so I did not need to waste time in eating.\nThe pangs and agonies when no proof came.  How courteously tolerant\nwas I of the postman without a proof for us; how M'Connachie,\non the other hand, wanted to punch his head.  The magic days when\nour article appeared in an evening paper.  The promptitude with\nwhich I counted the lines to see how much we should get for it.\nThen M'Connachie's superb air of dropping it into the gutter.\nOh, to be a free lance of journalism again--that darling jade!\nThose were days.  Too good to last.  Let us be grave.  Here comes\na Rector.\n\nBut now, on reflection, a dreadful sinking assails me, that this was\nnot really work.  The artistic callings--you remember how Stevenson\nthumped them--are merely doing what you are clamorous to be at;\nit is not real work unless you would rather be doing something else.\nMy so-called labours were just M'Connachie running away with me again.\nStill, I have sometimes worked; for instance, I feel that I am\nworking at this moment.  And the big guns are in the same plight\nas the little ones.  Carlyle, the king of all rectors, has always\nbeen accepted as the arch-apostle of toil, and has registered his\nmany woes.  But it will not do.  Despite sickness, poortith, want\nand all, he was grinding all his life at the one job he revelled in.\nAn extraordinarily happy man, though there is no direct proof that\nhe thought so.\n\nThere must be many men in other callings besides the arts lauded\nas hard workers who are merely out for enjoyment.  Our Chancellor?\n(indicating Lord Haig).  If our Chancellor has always a passion\nto be a soldier, we must reconsider him as a worker.  Even our\nPrincipal?  How about the light that burns in our Principal's\nroom after decent people have gone to bed?  If we could climb up\nand look in--I should like to do something of that kind for the\nlast time--should we find him engaged in honest toil, or guiltily\nengrossed in chemistry?\n\nYou will all fall into one of those two callings, the joyous or the\nuncongenial; and one wishes you into the first, though our sympathy,\nour esteem, must go rather to the less fortunate, the braver ones\nwho 'turn their necessity to glorious gain' after they have put away\ntheir dreams.  To the others will go the easy prizes of life,\nsuccess, which has become a somewhat odious onion nowadays, chiefly\nbecause we so often give the name to the wrong thing.  When you\nreach the evening of your days you will, I think, see--with, I hope,\nbecoming cheerfulness--that we are all failures, at least all the\nbest of us.  The greatest Scotsman that ever lived wrote himself\ndown a failure:\n\n   'The poor inhabitant below\n   Was quick to learn and wise to know\n   And keenly felt the friendly glow\n      And softer flame.\n   But thoughtless follies laid him low,\n      And stained his name.'\n\nPerhaps the saddest lines in poetry, written by a man who could make\nthings new for the gods themselves.\n\nIf you want to avoid being like Burns there are several possible ways.\nThus you might copy us, as we shine forth in our published memoirs,\npractically without a flaw.  No one so obscure nowadays but that he\ncan have a book about him.  Happy the land that can produce such\nsubjects for the pen.\n\nBut do not put your photograph at all ages into your autobiography.\nThat may bring you to the ground.  'My Life; and what I have done\nwith it'; that is the sort of title, but it is the photographs that\ngive away what you have done with it.  Grim things, those portraits;\nif you could read the language of them you would often find it\nunnecessary to read the book.  The face itself, of course,\nis still more tell-tale, for it is the record of all one's past\nlife.  There the man stands in the dock, page by page; we ought\nto be able to see each chapter of him melting into the next\nlike the figures in the cinematograph.  Even the youngest of you\nhas got through some chapters already.  When you go home for the\nnext vacation someone is sure to say 'John has changed a little;\nI don't quite see in what way, but he has changed.'  You remember\nthey said that last vacation.  Perhaps it means that you look less\nlike your father.  Think that out.  I could say some nice things\nof your betters if I chose.\n\nIn youth you tend to look rather frequently into a mirror, not at\nall necessarily from vanity.  You say to yourself, 'What an\ninteresting face; I wonder what he is to be up to?'  Your elders\ndo not look into the mirror so often.  We know what he has been\nup to.  As yet there is unfortunately no science of reading other\npeople's faces; I think a chair for this should be founded\nin St. Andrews.\n\nThe new professor will need to be a sublime philosopher, and for\nobvious reasons he ought to wear spectacles before his senior class.\nIt will be a gloriously optimistic chair, for he can tell his\nstudents the glowing truth, that what their faces are to be like\npresently depends mainly on themselves.  Mainly, not altogether--\n\n   'I am the master of my fate,\n   I am the captain of my soul.'\n\nI found the other day an old letter from Henley that told me of the\ncircumstances in which he wrote that poem.  'I was a patient,'\nhe writes, 'in the old infirmary of Edinburgh.  I had heard vaguely\nof Lister, and went there as a sort of forlorn hope on the chance of\nsaving my foot.  The great surgeon received me, as he did and does\neverybody, with the greatest kindness, and for twenty months I lay\nin one or other ward of the old place under his care.  It was a\ndesperate business, but he saved my foot, and here I am.'  There he\nwas, ladies and gentlemen, and what he was doing during that\n'desperate business' was singing that he was master of his fate.\n\nIf you want an example of courage try Henley.  Or Stevenson.\nI could tell you some stories abut these two, but they would not\nbe dull enough for a rectorial address.  For courage, again,\ntake Meredith, whose laugh was 'as broad as a thousand beeves at\npasture.'  Take, as I think, the greatest figure literature has\nstill left us, to be added to-day to the roll of St. Andrews'\nalumni, though it must be in absence.  The pomp and circumstance\nof war will pass, and all others now alive may fade from the scene,\nbut I think the quiet figure of Hardy will live on.\n\nI seem to be taking all my examples from the calling I was lately\npretending to despise.  I should like to read you some passages of a\nletter from a man of another calling, which I think will hearten you.\nI have the little filmy sheets here.  I thought you might like to see\nthe actual letter; it has been a long journey; it has been to the\nSouth Pole.  It is a letter to me from Captain Scott of the\nAntarctic, and was written in the tent you know of, where it was\nfound long afterwards with his body and those of some other very\ngallant gentlemen, his comrades.  The writing is in pencil, still\nquite clear, though toward the end some of the words trail away\nas into the great silence that was waiting for them.  It begins:\n\n  'We are pegging out in a very comfortless spot.\n  Hoping this letter may be found and sent to you, I write\n  you a word of farewell.  I want you to think well of me\n  and my end.' (After aome private instructions too\n  intimate to read, he goes on): 'Goodbye--I am not at\n  all afraid of the end, but sad to miss many a simple\n  pleasure which I had planned for the future in our long\n  marches. . . . We are in a desperate state--feet\n  frozen, etc., no fuel, and a long way from food, but it\n  would do your heart good to be in our tent, to hear our\n  songs and our cheery conversation. . . . Later--(it\n  is here that the words become difficult)--We are very\n  near the end. . . . We did intend to finish ourselves\n  when things proved like this, but we have decided to die\n  naturally without.'\n\nI think it may uplift you all to stand for a moment by that tent and\nlisten, as he says, to their songs and cheery conversation.  When I\nthink of Scott I remember the strange Alpine story of the youth who\nfell down a glacier and was lost, and of how a scientific companion,\none of several who accompanied him, all young, computed that the\nbody would again appear at a certain date and place many years\nafterwards.  When that time came round some of the survivors returned\nto the glacier to see if the prediction would be fulfilled; all old\nmen now; and the body reappeared as young as on the day he left them.\nSo Scott and his comrades emerge out of the white immensities always\nyoung.\n\nHow comely a thing is affliction borne cheerfully, which is not\nbeyond the reach of the humblest of us.  What is beauty?  It is\nthese hard-bitten men singing courage to you from their tent;\nit is the waves of their island home crooning of their deeds to you\nwho are to follow them.  Sometimes beauty boils over and them spirits\nare abroad.  Ages may pass as we look or listen, for time is\nannihilated.  There is a very old legend told to me by Nansen the\nexplorer--I like well to be in the company of explorers--the legend\nof a monk who had wandered into the fields and a lark began to sing.\nHe had never heard a lark before, and he stood there entranced until\nthe bird and its song had become part of the heavens.  Then he went\nback to the monastery and found there a doorkeeper whom he did not\nknow and who did not know him.  Other monks came, and they were all\nstrangers to him.  He told them he was Father Anselm, but that was\nno help.  Finally they looked through the books of the monastery,\nand these revealed that there had been a Father Anselm there a\nhundred or more years before.  Time had been blotted out while\nhe listened to the lark.\n\nThat, I suppose, was a case of beauty boiling over, or a soul boiling\nover; perhaps the same thing.  Then spirits walk.\n\nThey must sometimes walk St. Andrews.  I do not mean the ghosts\nof queens or prelates, but one that keeps step, as soft as snow,\nwith some poor student.  He sometimes catches sight of it.\nThat is why his fellows can never quite touch him, their best\nbeloved; he half knows something of which they know nothing--the\nsecret that is hidden in the face of the Monna Lisa.  As I see him,\nlife is so beautiful to him that its proportions are monstrous.\nPerhaps his childhood may have been overfull of gladness;\nthey don't like that.  If the seekers were kind he is the one for\nwhom the flags of his college would fly one day.  But the seeker\nI am thinking of is unfriendly, and so our student is 'the lad\nthat will never be told.'  He often gaily forgets, and thinks\nhe has slain his foe by daring him, like him who, dreading water,\nwas always the first to leap into it.  One can see him serene,\nastride a Scotch cliff, singing to the sun the farewell thanks\nof a boy:\n\n   'Throned on a cliff serene Man saw the sun\n   hold a red torch above the farthest seas,\n   and the fierce island pinnacles put on\n   in his defence their sombre panoplies;\n   Foremost the white mists eddied, trailed and spun\n   like seekers, emulous to clasp his knees,\n   till all the beauty of the scene seemed one,\n   led by the secret whispers of the breeze.\n\n   'The sun's torch suddenly flashed upon his face\n   and died; and he sat content in subject night\n   and dreamed of an old dead foe that had sought\n     and found him;\n   a beast stirred bodly in his resting-place;\n   And the cold came; Man rose to his master-height,\n   shivered, and turned away; but the mists were\n     round him.'\n\nIf there is any of you here so rare that the seekers have taken an\nill-will to him, as to the boy who wrote those lines, I ask you to\nbe careful.  Henley says in that poem we were speaking of:\n\n   'Under the bludgeonings of Chance\n   My head is bloody but unbowed.'\n\nA fine mouthful, but perhaps 'My head is bloody and bowed' is better.\n\nLet us get back to that tent with its songs and cheery conversation.\nCourage.  I do not think it is to be got by your becoming solemn-sides\nbefore your time.  You must have been warned against letting the\ngolden hours slip by.  Yes, but some of them are golden only because\nwe let them slip.  Diligence--ambition; noble words, but only if\n'touched to fine issues.'  Prizes may be dross, learning lumber,\nunless they bring you into the arena with increased understanding.\nHanker not too much after worldly prosperity--that corpulent cigar; if\nyou became a millionaire you would probably go swimming around for\nmore like a diseased goldfish.  Look to it that what you are doing is\nnot merely toddling to a competency. Perhaps that must be your fate,\nbut fight it and then, though you fail, you may still be among the\nelect of whom we have spoken. Many a brave man has had to come to it\nat last.  But there are the complacent toddlers from the start.\nFavour them not, ladies, especially now that every one of you carries\na possible marechal's baton under her gown.  'Happy,' it has been said\nby a distinguished man, 'is he who can leave college with an\nunreproaching conscience and an unsullied heart.'  I don't know; he\nsounds to me like a sloppy, watery sort of fellow; happy, perhaps, but\nif there be red blood in him impossible.  Be not disheartened by\nideals of perfection which can be achieved only by those who run away.\nNature, that 'thrifty goddess,' never gave you 'the smallest scruple\nof her excellence' for that.  Whatever bludgeonings may be gathering\nfor you, I think one feels more poignantly at your age than ever again\nin life.  You have not our December roses to help you; but you have\nJune coming, whose roses do not wonder, as do ours even while they\ngive us their fragrance--wondering most when they give us most--that\nwe should linger on an empty scene.  It may indeed be monstrous but\npossibly courageous.\n\nCourage is the thing.  All goes if courage goes.  What says our\nglorious Johnson of courage: 'Unless a man has that virtue he has\nno security for preserving any other.'  We should thank our Creator\nthree times daily for courage instead of for our bread, which,\nif we work, is surely the one thing we have a right to claim of Him.\nThis courage is a proof of our immortality, greater even than\ngardens 'when the eve is cool.'  Pray for it.  'Who rises from\nprayer a better man, his prayer is answered.'  Be not merely\ncourageous, but light-hearted and gay.  There is an officer\nwho was the first of our Army to land at Gallipoli.  He was\ndropped overboard to light decoys on the shore, so as to deceive\nthe Turks as to where the landing was to be.  He pushed a raft\ncontaining these in front of him.  It was a frosty night,\nand he was naked and painted black.  Firing from the ships was\ngoing on all around.  It was a two-hours' swim in pitch darkness.\nHe did it, crawled through the scrub to listen to the talk of the\nenemy, who were so near that he could have shaken hands with them,\nlit his decoys and swam back.  He seems to look on this as a gay\naffair.  He is a V.C. now, and you would not think to look at him\nthat he could ever have presented such a disreputable appearance.\nWould you?  (indicating Colonel Freyberg).\n\nThose men of whom I have been speaking as the kind to fill the fife\ncould all be light-hearted on occasion.  I remember Scott by\nHighland streams trying to rouse me by maintaining that haggis\nis boiled bagpipes; Henley in dispute as to whether, say, Turgenieff\nor Tolstoi could hang the other on his watch-chain; he sometimes\nclenched the argument by casting his crutch at you; Stevenson\nresponded in the same gay spirit by giving that crutch to\nJohn Silver; you remember with what adequate results.  You must\ncultivate this light-heartedness if you are to hang your\nbetters on your watch-chains.  Dr. Johnson--let us have him again--\ndoes not seem to have discovered in his travels that the Scots\nare a light-hearted nation.  Boswell took him to task for saying\nthat the death of Garrick had eclipsed the gaiety of nations.\n'Well, sir,' Johnson said, 'there may be occasions when it is\npermissible to,' etc.  But Boswell would not let go.  'I cannot\nsee, sir, how it could in any case have eclipsed the gaiety of\nnations, as England was the only nation before whom he had ever\nplayed.'  Johnson was really stymied, but you would never have\nknown it.  'Well, sir,' he said, holing out, 'I understand\nthat Garrick once played in Scotland, and if Scotland has any\ngaiety to eclipse, which, sir, I deny----'\n\nProve Johnson wrong for once at the Students' Union and in your\nother societies.  I much regret that there was no Students' Union\nat Edinburgh in my time.  I hope you are fairly noisy and that\nmembers are sometimes let out.  Do you keep to the old topics?\nKing Charles's head; and Bacon wrote Shakespeare, or if he did\nnot he missed the opportunity of his life.  Don't forget to speak\nscornfully of the Victorian age; there will be time for meekness\nwhen you try to better it.  Very soon you will be Victorian or that\nsort of thing yourselves; next session probably, when the freshmen\ncome up.  Afterwards, if you go in for my sort of calling, don't\nbegin by thinking you are the last word in art; quite possibly you\nare not; steady yourself by remembering that there were great men\nbefore William K. Smith.  Make merry while you may.  Yet\nlight-heartedness is not for ever and a day.  At its best it is\nthe gay companion of innocence; and when innocence goes--\nas it must go--they soon trip off together, looking for something\nyounger.  But courage comes all the way:\n\n   'Fight on, my men, says Sir Andrew Barton,\n   I am hurt, but I am not slaine;\n   I'll lie me down and bleed a-while,\n   And then I'll rise and fight againe.'\n\nAnother piece of advice; almost my last.  For reasons you may guess\nI must give this in a low voice.  Beware of M'Connachie.  When I\nlook in a mirror now it is his face I see.  I speak with his voice.\nI once had a voice of my own, but nowadays I hear it from far away\nonly, a melancholy, lonely, lost little pipe.  I wanted to be an\nexplorer, but he willed otherwise.  You will all have your\nM'Connachies luring you off the high road.  Unless you are\nconstantly on the watch, you will find that he has slowly pushed\nyou out of yourself and taken your place.  He has rather done\nfor me.  I think in his youth he must somehow have guessed the\nfuture and been fleggit by it, flichtered from the nest like a\nbird, and so our eggs were left, cold.  He has clung to me, less\nfrom mischief than for companionship; I half like him and his penny\nwhistle; with all his faults he is as Scotch as peat; he whispered\nto me just now that you elected him, not me, as your Rector.\n\nA final passing thought.  Were an old student given an hour in\nwhich to revisit the St. Andrews of his day, would he spend more\nthan half of it at lectures?  He is more likely to be heard\nclattering up bare stairs in search of old companions.  But if you\ncould choose your hour from all the five hundred years of this seat\nof learning, wandering at your will from one age to another, how\nwould you spend it?  A fascinating theme; so many notable shades\nat once astir that St. Leonard's and St. Mary's grow murky with them.\nHamilton, Melville, Sharpe, Chalmers, down to Herkless, that\ndistinguished Principal, ripe scholar and warm friend,\nthe loss of whom I deeply deplore with you.  I think if that hour\nwere mine, and though at St. Andrews he was but a passer-by,\nI would give a handsome part of it to a walk with Doctor Johnson.\nI should like to have the time of day passed to me in twelve\nlanguages by the Admirable Crichton.  A wave of the hand to\nAndrew Lang; and then for the archery butts with the gay Montrose,\nall a-ruffled and ringed, and in the gallant St. Andrews student\nmanner, continued as I understand to this present day, scattering\nlargess as he rides along,\n\n   'But where is now the courtly troupe\n     That once went riding by?\n   I miss the curls of Canteloupe,\n     The laugh of Lady Di.'\n\nWe have still left time for a visit to a house in South Street,\nhard by St. Leonard's.  I do not mean the house you mean.  I am\na Knox man.  But little will that avail, for M'Connachie is a\nQueen Mary man.  So, after all, it is at her door we chap, a last\nfutile effort to bring that woman to heel.  One more house of call,\na student's room, also in South Street.  I have chosen my student,\nyou see, and I have chosen well; him that sang--\n\n   'Life has not since been wholly vain,\n     And now I bear\n   Of wisdom plucked from joy and pain\n     Some slender share.\n\n   'But howsoever rich the store,\n     I'd lay it down\n   To feel upon my back once more\n     The old red gown.'\n\nWell, we have at last come to an end.  Some of you may remember\nwhen I began this address; we are all older now.  I thank you for\nyour patience.  This is my first and last public appearance,\nand I never could or would have made it except to a gathering\nof Scottish students.  If I have concealed my emotions in addressing\nyou it is only the thrawn national way that deceives everybody\nexcept Scotsmen.  I have not been as dull as I could have wished\nto be; but looking at your glowing faces cheerfulness and hope would\nkeep breaking through.  Despite the imperfections of your betters we\nleave you a great inheritance, for which others will one day call\nyou to account.  You come of a race of men the very wind of whose\nname has swept to the ultimate seas.  Remember--\n\n   'Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,\n   Not light them for themselves. . . .'\n\nMighty are the Universities of Scotland, and they will prevail.\nBut even in your highest exultations never forget that they are\nnot four, but five.  The greatest of them is the poor, proud\nhomes you come out of, which said so long ago: 'There shall be\neducation in this land.'  She, not St. Andrews, is the oldest\nUniversity in Scotland, and all the others are her whelps.\n\nIn bidding you good-bye, my last words must be of the lovely\nvirtue.  Courage, my children and 'greet the unseen with a cheer.'\n'Fight on, my men,' said Sir Andrew Barton.  Fight on--you--\nfor the old red gown till the whistle blows.","title":"Courage","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":7622}