The Plains of Patagonia. 239 
because the traditional pride and other feelings of a 
gentleman made it possible for him to do so, but 
because that more ancient and nobler pride, the 
stern instinct of endurance of the savage, came to 
his aid and sustained him. 
These things do not, or at all events should not, 
surprise us. ‘They can only surprise those who are 
without the virile instinct, or who have never be- 
come conscious of it on account of the circumstances 
of their lives. The only wonder is that the stern 
indomitable spirit in us should ever in any circum- 
stances fail a man, that even on the scaffold or 
with the world against him he should be overcome 
by despair, and burst into weak tears and lamenta- 
tions, and faint in the presence of his fellows. In 
one of the most eloquent passages of his finest work 
Herman Melville describes as follows that manly 
spirit or instinct in us, and the effect produced on 
us by the sight of its failure: ‘‘Men may seem 
detestable as joint-stock companies and nations ; 
knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men 
may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in 
the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand 
and glowing creature, that over any ignominious 
blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw 
their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness 
we feel in ourselves—so far within us that it 
remains intact though all the outer character seems 
gone—bleeds with keenest anguish at the spectacle 
of a valour-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at 
such a shameful sight, completely stifle her up- 
