"I have endeavoured to state as clearly as possible the advantages that
a weak fencer may derive from this system, when he is opposed to a
combatant more experienced and more skilful than himself; but further
than that, I believe that the skilful and experienced fencer has also
something to gain by adopting this much despised method. I have myself
never been able to discover that it is incompatible with perfect
'form,' or that it tends to wild play. It opens a wider field, it shows
the fallacy of certain ideas, which have been wrongly supposed to be
unassailable, and it furnishes a whole range of new situations, another
world to conquer.
"What ground is there, I would ask my critic, for your assertion that
I must be fencing blindly, because my sword does not happen to be
in constant touch with yours? Why do you say that mutual hits must
occur more frequently? If you are talking of a pair of duffers, who
charge each other blindly, you may trust them to commit every possible
blunder, whether they join blades or not.
"But why should you exalt so highly what you call the faculty of
touch, the power of judging the blade by touch, and be so ready to
degrade that other sovereign principle, which may be called the faculty
of sight, the power of judging the sword by eye? Can you deny the
controlling influence of the eye, the authority that belongs to it? Do
you believe that the eye cannot be trained to the same degree of nicety
as the hand? Why, when you have these two forces at your disposal, are
you content to let one of them do duty for both?
"You may keep your opponent at his distance by the menace of your
nimble point, which flashes in his sight incessantly; while your
watchful eye follows the movements of his sword and reads his thought,
as well as if the blades were crossed and questioned each other by the
language of the steel. Then, when it suits your convenience, when you
see a favourable opportunity, when you have by a rapid calculation
reckoned up the situation, weighed the chances, taken everything into
account, then is the time to offer your sword, then is the time to
engage your adversary, or by bold decided movements to get control of
his blade."