human
It is as if, in merely showing themselves, with their wounds and their bloodstains, with their appearance of exhaustion and their masques of suffering, they had said to our men: See! It is a battle that is being waged! See what it has brought us.... Don't go on! And the men who were going forward looked upon them with faces anxious and troubled with dread, with eyes wide and fevered, in the grip of a moral tempest.
gpt
willing not to die. When Henry IV. was on the point of charging in battle his emotions so overcame him that he was compelled to dismount from his horse. But for a moment only. And then he charged! The enemy found it incredible that this man who hurled himself into the fight as recklessly as any mere carabineer could conceivably be the king of France himself. And Turenne, trembling in the face of peril, reprimanded his body, saying:
human
Thou tremblest, carcass!
gpt
They are marching; each step they take brings them nearer that zone where Death reigns to-day, and still they march onwards. They go to enter that region of death, each with his living body; that body which, in the clutch of terror, performs involuntarily the motions of men fighting, eyes straight levelled, finger resting on rifle trigger; and that must continue as long as may be necessary notwithstanding the whistling bullets flying by unceasingly, bullets which often times embed themselves with a horrible, dread little noise, which makes one swiftly turn one's head as though to say: 'Hallo! Look!' And looking, they see a comrade crumple up and say to themselves: 'Soon perhaps it will be I; maybe in an hour or in a minute or even in this passing second, it will be my turn.' Then fear makes its kingdom of the living flesh. They are afraid; unquestionably they fear. But being afraid, they remain at their posts. And they fight the flesh, compel their bodies to obedience, because that is as it should be, and because, indeed, they are men!