"I am speaking now from the scientific standpoint. Perhaps I can put
my point more clearly. If my opponent says:--'I don't profess to be
scientific; I simply defend myself by the light of nature,' he may do
what he likes, I shall not complain of his mistakes; he is perfectly
within his rights and knows no better. But the expert fencer has no
business to make mistakes, or at least he should try to avoid them as
far as he can.
"Even at the risk of being lynched for my unorthodox opinions, I
should venture to say to the would-be fencer:--'Above all things
make yourself dangerous. Be 'a difficult fencer,' since that is the
stereotyped phrase. Without it there is no salvation; your guns are not
shotted, your performance is mere fire-works.'
"But be careful not to give these words a wider application than they
are meant to carry. All that I would say is this:--that you are to
follow your natural instinct, to trust your impulse, to be yourself and
not your master's puppet. I do not mean to propound an acrobatic theory
of fencing, or to recommend a meaningless, objectless, indiscriminate
charging about, like the convulsive struggles of a wild beast, that has
received its death wound. It would be as wrong to take such extravagant
exceptions for your model, as it would be unfair to argue from them in
order to demonstrate the futility of the new school.
"No doubt fencers of this kind,--they call themselves fencers,--may
score an occasional hit, for, as I have had occasion to remark already,
there is always a certain amount of luck in fencing; but this sort of
thing is not fencing; it is much more like mere brutal fisticuffs. Such
eccentric methods are of no importance, they are not based on any sort
of principle, but are the mere outcome of ignorance; they belong to no
school and have no permanent value. But it does not do to despise an
unbeaten enemy. Therefore confront these methods and defeat them first;
you can afford to despise them afterwards."
"Quite so," exclaimed Monsieur de C., "that is exactly my opinion."
"One moment," I said, "I have not quite done. I was going to say, that
I have very little faith in the stories one hears of the regimental
fencing master being run through by the recruit. Such an event may
happen, just as a chimney-pot may fall on your head when you are
walking in the street, but I fancy that if you were to apply the rule
of three to all the cases the result would not exactly support the
paradox.
"There is a class of fencers who are thoroughly--in fact too
thoroughly--convinced that they are very dangerous fellows, and that
they are never hit. You repeatedly come across this sort of thing in
the fencing room:--Your opponent delivers an attack which you parry;
he stays on the lunge doubled up, with his body dropped forward;
your riposte lands perhaps in his mask, perhaps in his back, or arm.
Thereupon he recovers and remarks with a negligent air: 'hit in the
mask,' 'hit in the back,' 'arm only,' as the case may be.
"Oh, only in the mask! But, Sir, the point would have run you through
the head and traversed your brain. In fact it would have been quite
as effective as a hit in the chest, which penetrated your lungs. The
other would have gone six inches into your back; while the third would
have pierced your arm and run you through the chest afterwards. You
offer your head, back, or arm instead of your chest, I hit the part
exposed and am quite satisfied. You cannot evade or parry a thrust by
substituting for the part that would otherwise be hit some other part,
which you do not attempt to cover; all that you do is to offer an
exchange.