"We have only done our duty, as a man is bound to do."
They sought no palms or crowns of martyrdom. "They also
serve who only stand and wait," and their first action was
merely to step aside and give places in the boats to women
and children, some of whom were too young to comprehend
or to remember.
There was no debate as to whether the life of a financier,
a master of business, was rated higher in the scale of values
than that of an ignorant peasant mother. A woman was a
woman, whether she wore rags or pearls. A life was given for
a life, with no assertion that one was priceless and the other
comparatively valueless.
Many of those who elected to remain might have escaped.
"Chivalry" is a mild appellation for their conduct. Some
of the vaunted knights of old were desperate cowards by comparison.
A fight in the open field, or jousting in the tournament,
did not call out the manhood in a man as did the waiting
till the great ship took the final plunge, in the knowledge that
the seas round about were covered with loving and yearning
witnesses whose own salvation was not assured.
When the roll is called hereafter of those who are "purged
of pride because they died, who know the worth of their days,"
let the names of the men who went down with the Titanic
be found written there in the sight of God and men.
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