If You Ain't Afraid, Go Do It Then - Stephen Crane

"I SAW A MAN PURSUING THE HORIZON;
ROUND AND ROUND THEY SPED.
I WAS DISTURBED AT THIS;
I ACCOSTED THE MAN.
"IT IS FUTILE," I SAID,
"YOU CAN NEVER" — "YOU LIE," HE CRIED,
AND RAN ON."

"A wound gives strange dignity to him who bears it. Well men shy from his new and terrible majesty. It is as if the wounded man's hand is upon the curtain which hangs before the revelations of all existence - the meaning of ants, potentates, wars, cities, sunshine, snow, a feather dropped from a bird's wing; and the power of it sheds radiance upon a bloody form, and makes the other men understand sometimes that they are little. His comrades look at him with large eyes thoughtfully. Moreover, they fear vaguely that the weight of a finger upon him might send him headlong, precipitate the tragedy, hurl him at once into the dim, gray unknown.

("An Episode Of War")"

But he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.