"Je Suis Charlie"

A nice headline for a Free Press editorial, drawing the entirely coincidental verbal connection to the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders.

It also reminds me of a passage I mentioned after those murders, from Rebecca West, writing about the English in 1940 as they anticipated the German attack on England after the fall of France:

Let nobody belittle them by pretending they were fearless. Not being as the ox and the ass, they were horribly afraid. But their pale lips did not part to say the words that would have given them security and dishonour.

Perhaps this wasn't so with Hebdo, and the Charlie Hebdo editors really were fearless (see, e.g., this quote from Stephane Charbonnier). Perhaps Kirk hadn't really foreseen the risk to him (though it sounds like had faced serious threats before). But whenever I have occasion to think about true courage, it is West's words that come to my mind.