Summary | On Fear | Alfred George Gardiner

Summary | On Fear

        A.G. Gardiner in his essay "On Fear" talks about fear as an essential component of life. There is no person who is without it. Some experience it every moment, some know how to handle it and others just ignore it. It depends in which category one falls. Gardiner has beautifully discussed about fear with a number of examples from the life of a great men. People want to do risky things just to experience what fear is? Sometimes fear makes us act immediately without reasoning. This may be fatal at times. People with practical thinking feel less while people will imaginatively mind fear no more for the mind keeps thinking on it again and again till it become a seeded fear in the mind.

Is taking risk always advisable? Explain from Swinburne's experience.

   A.G. Gardiner, a British journalist and essayist, wrote a number of essays which are uniformly elegant, graceful and humorous. His uniqueness lay in his ability to portray the basic truths of life in an easy and amusing manner. In this essay, he has touched upon a basic human quality that is fear. Experiencing fear is the best way to overcome it. But it is not always safe. Sometimes in our over enthusiasm we might risk our own life. When a child is taught to dread the fire, he is made to experience it. But if precaution is not taken, it could become tragic. In the care for Swinburne's decision to climb Culver Cliff without telling even his parents was risky. If something untoward would have been clueless. It is not, therefore, advisable to take risks. If one wants to do so, it should be done with proper precaution.

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According to A.G. Gardiner, how can fear be mastered?

        A.G. Gardiner, a British journalist and essayist, wrote a number of essays which are uniformly elegant, graceful and humorous. His uniqueness lay in his ability to portray the basic truths of life in an easy and amusing manner. In this essay, he has touched upon a basic human quality that is fear. In his essay, Gardiner gives us to the cue to master fear. According to him, it is the imaginative people who suffer most from fear. Only a hint of peril is enough to make their mind explore the whole circumstances of disastrous consequences. He says it is better to be dull and unimaginative for it will make one's life more comfortable. He quotes the example Don Quixote who showed his wisdom. In the romantic theatre of his mind, perils rose like giants on every horizon; but there was always Sancho Panza on his donkey, ready to prick the bubbles of his master with broad word of his incomparable stupidity.

Wisdom of Don Quixote.

Don Quixote is a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in Central Spain. Sancho Panza his companion helps Don Quixote to distinguish between reality and the pictures in his head.

     Don Quixote lives in a dream world and has weird ideas cropping up in the romantic theatre of his mind's peril. These rose like giants on every horizon. But fortunately, Sancho was always there on his donkey to prick the bubbles of his master with the broad word of his incomparable stupidity. Don Quixote would been a lost character without the constant support of his so-called squire Sancho Panza. The support of another person when we have not learnt the art to discipline the mind will help us get out of difficult situations in life.