Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/263

an eye of a hawk and a brain of a general, a brain which can adapt itself to things as they come, be they rough or smooth. If the wicket pops and hangs, he has got the power of self-restraint; the bat will be in the right place, but held limply and with the left shoulder well up and forward, and his eye will never be off the ball from the second it leaves the bowler's hand; he has observed its hang, its turn, and its pace, and finally he has mastered it; he has either stopped it or else used his wrists at the right second, and, without hesitation, hit it hard. There is no playing at the ball, as so many do in these days, entirely in the hope that the ball will take a certain line and pace; there is no expectation or hope in the mind of our hero; he takes nothing for granted; he knows the wicket is difficult, and he trusts nothing except his own eye, but the eye of a real hero does not fail him in the moment of danger and difficulty. If the difference between a hero and the common herd may be defined, it is that one possesses real genius and the rest do not. When, however, we are asked to define genius, all we have to say is that to do so is impossible; but,