In a campaign, when the infantry march forth, he bids his comrades stand by him and look sharp, urging the importance of finding out whether yonder object be the foe or not. When he hears the sound of battle, and sees men fall, he says to those about him that, in his haste, he has forgotten to take his sword; then he runs back to his tent, sends his servant out and bids him see where the enemy are; meanwhile he hides his weapon[10] under his pillow, and then wastes a long time hunting for it. While in his tent, seeing one of his companions brought wounded from the field, he runs out, bids the fellow “Cheer up!” and lends a hand to carry the stretcher. And then he stays to tend the sufferer, washes his wounds, and sits by his side driving away the flies,—anything but fight the enemy.
When the trumpeter sounds the signal for a fresh onset, he exclaims as he sits in his tent: “Plague take him! He won’t let the poor fellow get to sleep with his eternal bugling.” Then, staining himself with blood from the other’s wound, he meets the troops as they return from battle, and pretending to have been in the thick of the fight, he exclaims, “I’ve saved a comrade!” And then he takes his demesmen and tribesmen into the tent, and assures each one of them that he himself brought the wounded man to the tent with his own hands.
[9] Apparently the reference is to the Samothracian mysteries, initiation in which was thought to ensure protection at sea in time of danger.
[10] “The sight of a sword wounds him more sensibly than the stroke, for before that comes hee is dead already.” Earle’s Micro-cosmographie, “The Coward.”
IV The Over-zealous Man
(Περιεργία)
Over-zealousness is an excess in saying or doing,—with good intentions, of course. The over-zealous man is one who gets up in public and engages to do things which he cannot perform. In cases where no doubt exists in the mind of anyone else, he raises some objection—only to be refuted.