DOI article:
Grahame, Kenneth: Long odds
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27805#0090
86
Long Odds
you with my uninteresting story. And even yet there’s the
whole evening to come ! Oh, I had lots of leeway to make up
when I came over here ; but I think I shall manage it yet—in
V enice ! ”
I could not help thinking,‘as I parted from him at the Piazzetta
steps, that (despite a certain incident in the Underground Rail-
way) here was one of the sanest creatures I had ever yet happened
upon.
But examples such as this (as I said) are rare ; the happy-starred
ones who know when to cut their losses. The most of us prefer
to fight on—mainly, perhaps, from cowardice, and the dread of a
plunge into a new element, new conditions, new surroundings—a
fiery trial for any humble, mistrustful creature of use-and-wont.
And yet it is not all merely a matter of funk. For a grim love
grows up for the sword-play itself, for the push and the hurtle of
battle, for the grips and the give-and-take—in fine,'for the fight itself,
whatever the cause. In this exaltation, far from ignoble, we push
and worry along until a certain day of a mist and a choke, and we
are ticked off and done with.
This is the better way ; and the history of our race is ready to
justify us. With the tooth-and-claw business we began, and
we mastered it thoroughly ere we learnt any other trade. Since
that time we may have achieved a thing or two besides—evolved
an art, even, here and there, though the most of us bungled it.
But from first to last fighting was the art we were always
handiest at ; and we are generally safe if we stick to it, what-
ever the foe, whatever the weapons—most of all, whatever the
cause.
Long Odds
you with my uninteresting story. And even yet there’s the
whole evening to come ! Oh, I had lots of leeway to make up
when I came over here ; but I think I shall manage it yet—in
V enice ! ”
I could not help thinking,‘as I parted from him at the Piazzetta
steps, that (despite a certain incident in the Underground Rail-
way) here was one of the sanest creatures I had ever yet happened
upon.
But examples such as this (as I said) are rare ; the happy-starred
ones who know when to cut their losses. The most of us prefer
to fight on—mainly, perhaps, from cowardice, and the dread of a
plunge into a new element, new conditions, new surroundings—a
fiery trial for any humble, mistrustful creature of use-and-wont.
And yet it is not all merely a matter of funk. For a grim love
grows up for the sword-play itself, for the push and the hurtle of
battle, for the grips and the give-and-take—in fine,'for the fight itself,
whatever the cause. In this exaltation, far from ignoble, we push
and worry along until a certain day of a mist and a choke, and we
are ticked off and done with.
This is the better way ; and the history of our race is ready to
justify us. With the tooth-and-claw business we began, and
we mastered it thoroughly ere we learnt any other trade. Since
that time we may have achieved a thing or two besides—evolved
an art, even, here and there, though the most of us bungled it.
But from first to last fighting was the art we were always
handiest at ; and we are generally safe if we stick to it, what-
ever the foe, whatever the weapons—most of all, whatever the
cause.