From Lord Foul's Bane

I think I posted this once before, and lost it. So, once more, because I wish it to be remembered:

A real man - real in all the ways we recognize as real - finds himself suddenly abstracted from the world and deposited in a physical location which could not possibly exist: sounds have aroma, smells have color and depth, sights have texture, touches have pitch and timbre. He is informed by a disembodied voice that he has been brought to that place as a champion for his world. He must fight to the death in single combat against a champion from another world. If he is defeated, he will die, and his world, the real world, will be destroyed because it lacks the inner strength to survive.
The man refuses to believe that what he is told is true. He asserts that he is either dreaming or hallucinating, and declines to be put in the false position of fighting to the death where no "real" danger exists. He is implacable in his determination to disbelieve his apparent situation, and does not defend himself when he is attacked by the champion of the other world.
Question: Is the man's behavior courageous, or cowardly? This is the fundamental question of ethics.

Think about it.

And this, too:

Something there is in beauty
which grows in the soul of the beholder
like a flower:
fragile --
for many are the blights
which may waste
the beauty
or the beholder --
and imperishable --
for the beauty may die,
or the beholder may die,
or the world may die,
but the soul in which the flower grows
survives.