"If we could return to the past, and witness an exhibition of
sword-play as it was understood by the professors of only fifty years
ago, what a contrast we should find with the style of our own day, even
with our most severely classical style. Our methods would certainly be
called revolutionary.
"It was usual not so very long since to display upon the bosom a fair
red heart, stitched to the fencing jacket, to show plainly for all
eyes to see the spot where hits should be placed. Attacks, parries and
ripostes were restricted by convention to a very narrow circle. Any hit
that went wide of the mark was accounted execrable and received with
the most profound contempt. Modern fencing is inclined to be somewhat
less fastidious. Hits in the low line are generally acknowledged. But a
hit below the belt! 'You really do not expect me to follow your point
down there!' is still the attitude of most fencers. 'Call it a hit if
you like, but really it is not fencing. A school of arms, you know,
is not a school of surgery, you might leave those base regions to the
medical students.'
"You smile, but I assure you that they mean it seriously, without
the least sarcasm. It is quite true that any wound in that despised
region would be mortal almost to a certainty. That is a detail; and
they forget that a sword, though it may be a civil and gentlemanly
implement, is still a lethal weapon. It really is very strange to admit
that it is wrong to disregard the deadly character of the point when
aimed in one direction, but to claim that it is right to disregard it
when aimed in another. Yet most men cling to this error with the utmost
pertinacity.
"That you should despise a hit in the leg or fore-arm I can well
understand. By all means concentrate your whole attention on the
protection of the parts of the body which contain the vital organs. But
not to use your utmost care, your surest parries, your most anxious
precautions to defend the trunk,--high lines and low,--always has been
and is still a delusion, a delusion which those who attempt to draw
an impossible distinction between the assaults of foil-play and real
fighting with sharp swords, vainly ask us to accept as an unassailable
article of faith.
"There is a real distinction, for after all foil-play can only be an
imperfect representation of real fighting. Our object should be to make
the resemblance as perfect as possible, and so minimise the chances on
which the ignorant and brutal too confidently rely.
"Let them see that you both know the correct answer to a correct
combination, and that you are equally prepared to deal with the wild
and disorderly antics of an untutored point.