The poets have celebrated the perfection of the Oriental steel;
and it is recognized as the finest by Moore, Byron, Scott,
Southey and many others. I have even heard a young advocate of
the lost arts find an argument in Byron’s “Sennacherib,” from
the fact that the mail of the warriors in that one short night
had rusted before the trembling Jews stole out in the morning
to behold the terrible work of the Lord. Scott, in his “Tales
of the Crusaders,”--for Sir Walter was curious in his love of
the lost arts--describes a meeting between Richard Coeur de Lion
and Saladin. Saladin asks Richard to show him the wonderful
strength for which he is famous, and the Norman monarch responds
by severing a bar of iron which lies on the floor of his tent.
Saladin says, “I can not do that”; but he takes an eider-down
pillow from the sofa, and, drawing his keen blade across it, it
falls in two pieces. Richard says, “This is the black art; it
is magic; it is the devil; you can not cut that which has no
resistance”; and Saladin, to show him that such is not the case,
takes a scarf from his shoulders, which is so light that it
almost floats in the air, and, tossing it up, severs it before
it can descend. George Thompson told me he saw a man in Calcutta
throw a handful of floss-silk into the air, and a Hindu sever it
into pieces with his saber.--WENDELL PHILLIPS.
(1713)
=Keenness from Use=--See PRACTISE.