A Book of Golden Deeds

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Yonge Charlotte Mary. A Book of Golden Deeds

PREFACE

WHAT IS A GOLDEN DEED?

THE STORIES OF ALCESTIS AND ANTIGONE

THE CUP OF WATER

HOW ONE MAN HAS SAVED A HOST. B.C. 507

THE PASS OF THERMOPYLAE. B.C. 430

THE ROCK OF THE CAPITOL. B.C. 389

THE TWO FRIENDS OF SYRACUSE. B.C. 380 (CIRCA)

THE DEVOTION OF THE DECII. B.C. 339

REGULUS. B.C. 249

THE BRAVE BRETHREN OF JUDAH. B.C. 180

THE CHIEF OF THE ARVERNI. B.C. 52

WITHSTANDING THE MONARCH IN HIS WRATH. A.D. 389

THE LAST FIGHT IN THE COLISEUM. A.D. 404

THE SHEPHERD GIRL OF NANTERRE. A.D. 438

LEO THE SLAVE. A.D. 533

THE BATTLE OF THE BLACKWATER. 991

GUZMAN EL BUENO. 1293

FAITHFUL TILL DEATH. 1308

WHAT IS BETTER THAN SLAYING A DRAGON. 1332

THE KEYS OF CALAIS. 1347

THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH. 1397

THE CONSTANT PRINCE. 1433

THE CARNIVAL OF PERTH. 1435

THE CROWN OF ST. STEPHEN. 1440

GEORGE THE TRILLER. 1455

SIR THOMAS MORE'S DAUGHTER. 1535

UNDER IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 1564

FORT ST. ELMO. 1565

THE VOLUNTARY CONVICT. 1622

THE HOUSEWIVES OF LOWENBURG. 1631

FATHERS AND SONS. 219—1642—1798

THE SOLDIERS IN THE SNOW. 1672

GUNPOWDER PERILS. 1700

HEROES OF THE PLAGUE. 1576—1665—1721

THE SECOND OF SEPTEMBER. 1792

THE VENDEANS. 1793

Отрывок из книги

We all of us enjoy a story of battle and adventure. Some of us delight in the anxiety and excitement with which we watch the various strange predicaments, hairbreadth escapes, and ingenious contrivances that are presented to us; and the mere imaginary dread of the dangers thus depicted, stirs our feelings and makes us feel eager and full of suspense.

This taste, though it is the first step above the dullness that cannot be interested in anything beyond its own immediate world, nor care for what it neither sees, touches, tastes, nor puts to any present use, is still the lowest form that such a liking can take. It may be no better than a love of reading about murders in the newspaper, just for the sake of a sort of startled sensation; and it is a taste that becomes unwholesome when it absolutely delights in dwelling on horrors and cruelties for their own sake; or upon shifty, cunning, dishonest stratagems and devices. To learn to take interest in what is evil is always mischievous.

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And yet perhaps it is one of the most remarkable characteristics of a Golden Deed that the doer of it is certain to feel it merely a duty; 'I have done that which it was my duty to do' is the natural answer of those capable of such actions. They have been constrained to them by duty, or by pity; have never even deemed it possible to act otherwise, and did not once think of themselves in the matter at all.

For the true metal of a Golden Deed is self-devotion. Selfishness is the dross and alloy that gives the unsound ring to many an act that has been called glorious. And, on the other hand, it is not only the valor, which meets a thousand enemies upon the battlefield, or scales the walls in a forlorn hope, that is of true gold. It may be, but often it is a mere greed of fame, fear of shame, or lust of plunder. No, it is the spirit that gives itself for others—the temper that for the sake of religion, of country, of duty, of kindred, nay, of pity even to a stranger, will dare all things, risk all things, endure all things, meet death in one moment, or wear life away in slow, persevering tendance and suffering.

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