courage

   

                           my daughter a year ago on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich

COURAGE, n. [L., the heart.] Bravery; intrepidity; that quality of mind which enables men to encounter danger and difficulties with firmness, or without fear or depression of spirits; valor; boldness; resolution. It is a constituent part of fortitude; but fortitude implies patience to bear continued suffering.

Courage that grows from constitution, often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty, acts in a uniform manner.

Be strong and of good courage. Deuteronomy 31.

( 1828 Dictionary)

This daughter , the one at the bottom of 4 older brothers, has much courage these days as a Senior. She is writing essays for Honors Colleges at state universities, applying for a full scholarship to a school in NYC, and presenting this speech next week at the school. My stomach turns.

I am praying it does not come down to bottom line but she is called to a place. I pray she knows. 

Charlotte Mason wrote: We all have Courage.––The word courage comes to us from the time when Norman French was the language of the court and when chivalry was the law of noble living. The Normans perceived that Courage was of the heart, as the word shows; Courage was the whole of character to a man...

She lists these areas: 

Courage of Attack, Endurance,  Serenity, of Our Affairs, of our Opinions, of Reprove, Confession,  of Frankness and of Capacity. 

Then there is what we may call the Courage of our Capacity––the courage which assures us that we can do the particular work which comes in our way, and will not lend an ear to the craven fear which reminds us of failures in the past and unfitness in the present.

       September in Plymouth , Mass. wearing heart sunglasses from my nephew's wedding