"In the assault with its incessant alarms and perilous crises, in
encountering the wiles and avoiding the snares of the enemy, those who
use the sword find their 'crowded hour of glorious life,' the hour
crowded with illusions and disenchantments, the rubs of fortune, the
ups and downs of victory or defeat.
"What legions of cunning counsels and crafty wiles, from the deep-laid
stratagem down to the sudden surprise, one finds marshalled in the
text-books, and how unmanageable and superfluous they generally are.
All that the Spartan mother said to her son when he was setting out
for the wars was:--'Be bold, be resolute, be cautious.' Do not her
words contain the whole? For all fighting, whether at long range or at
close quarters, is very much alike, from schoolboys' games to the most
elaborate military operations; and all the advice of the world may be
summed up in the eternal law of attack and defence, which is stated in
these four words:--cunning, caution, energy, audacity.
"Deceive your enemy: seize the critical moment to attack him, that
is the secret of fighting. Cultivate the mistrust which suspects the
hidden snare, the caution which frustrates his plots, combined with the
energy and audacity which surmount difficulties; try to encourage in
your enemy a spirit of wanton confidence; turn a strong position which
you cannot carry by a direct attack; threaten one point when you mean
to concentrate your whole strength on another; draw your adversary by
a show of weakness to attack you in your strongest position; keep your
plans secret; mask your approaches; and then by the sudden impetuosity
of your attack take him unawares, and if you cannot secure a victory,
contrive a safe retreat. Such from the earliest times have been the
methods of the greatest commanders.
"The tactics of the field of battle and the tactics of hand-to-hand
fighting are identical, for the simple reason that skill, or strategy,
or science, call it what you will, are but different names to express
the same idea. These are the sage counsels; the rest belongs to
inspiration, the inward monitor which in moments of danger warns us
with tenfold insistence, and guides us right.
"Too much stress is laid on education, too little on individual
intelligence. The lessons are supposed to have trained and directed
this intelligence. But if your pupil is so wanting in intelligence
that he cannot enter into the spirit of the game, if he can never rise
to the occasion, and never strike out a line of his own, what can you
expect? You may advise for ever, but his mind will not respond, he will
only listen and forget.
"It is here that the two schools begin to part company. I have already
given you a general view of the points in which they differ, and we
need not now recur to the consideration of general principles, with
which you are already acquainted.