TO THE READER.
This book is written for Boys. The majority of the articles were expressly prepared for the “Boys’ Own Magazine,” and the interest which their appearance excited, coupled with the favourable notices they won, encouraged the Editor to publish them in a connected form.
Boys—worthy to be called Boys—are naturally brave. There is not, so far as we are aware, any etymological connexion between the wordsboyandbrave; but thereisan association of ideas, which if it does not make the terms interchangeable, is still strongly suggestive of their being one and the same. The expressionbraveman is easily understood, but to us,braveBoylooks like a pleonasm. A man has experience. He has tested—if there be any good thing in him—his courage in the rough exploits of the world’s campaign. He has tilted, mayhap, with Quixotic chivalry against windmills, and in the encounter has been discomfited; he has awakened from his bright dream to a sad reality; he has been tempted to turn prosaic—inclined sometimes to beat his sword into a sickle, to gather in for his own special use the golden wheat fromanybody’scornfield, and to make those late foes of his—the windmills—grind up the corn to makehisbread. Now he is no longer brave. His views of life are taken from a new point of sight. He smiles at theboy’senthusiasm, and counts himself wise in hisman’sselfishness. But a man who has done battle, who has been thrown in the lists, who has been ready to mount and splinter lance again, who in the gaining of experience has lost nothing of the Boy’s boldness—such a man isbrave.
The drift of these remarks is that experience may ruin a Boy’s “pluck”—may give him the vulpine sagacity of Reynard in place of the courage of Leo Africanus.
But a Boy is brave. Youth is the season of confidence. “Youryoungmen shallsee visions” while our “oldmen shall dream dreams.” What visions are those which rise up before the young—what brave words to speak, what brave actions to do—how bravely—if need be—to suffer! “The young fellows,” said an old soldier to the writer, “are always pushing forward in a battle charge—they are in a mighty hurry to smell powder—the veterans fall into the rear!” Do they?—ah, well, ’tis the lesson, perhaps of experience! But is it better than the Boy’s eagerness to be foremost?—is it not—answer brave hearts—better to die planting the colours on the wall, than to share the spoil which others have won?
This is the leading thought in this book about Soldiers—it is meant to keep alive the bravery of youth in the experience of manhood. The editor of the book is very sensible of the incompleteness of the work. He knows that it is defective in many places, but it is honest. A good many of the papers were written by one who was then far away on a foreign station doing brave service; some of the papers are the work of dead hands. The articles have been put together as carefully as circumstances would allow, but there has been an anxious care on the Editor’s part to retouch as little as possible the work of absent contributors. He offers the book to the Boys of England—not as the best piece of work that can be done—but as a volume they will read with delight and keep as asouvenirof pleasant hours. He is of opinion that anything which helps to make Boys more in love with true courage is good work done—he believes that bravery excites bravery, just as iron sharpeneth iron; and so he has confidence in this book being useful—a record of brave deeds that shall make its readers echo the words of King Harry—
“If it be a sin to covet honourI am the most offending soul alive.”
“If it be a sin to covet honourI am the most offending soul alive.”
“If it be a sin to covet honourI am the most offending soul alive.”
“If it be a sin to covet honour
I am the most offending soul alive.”