"We realise at once how far we have got from the harmless diversion
of the assault, the sham fight conducted under the master's eye on
strictly correct principles and with inoffensive weapons. The assault
and the duel are even further apart than the assault and the formal
lesson. In short this newspaper paragraph has brought us face to face
with the real duel, and what we have to do is to discuss it in all its
bearings,--so we had better begin at the beginning.
"Unfortunately, one always finds that it is impossible to discuss
the art of fence without coming to the duel; for say what you will,
cases must sometimes occur when an affront for which the law offers no
redress compels you to go out. 'The duel,' as someone puts it, 'cannot
be suppressed. It is like a bad neighbour with whom we have to live on
the best terms we can.'
"Some years ago I happened to read a great deal of fencing literature.
The various authors, though not one of them could find a good word to
say for duelling, contrived between them to fill in a sketch of its
rise and progress from the earliest times down to the present day.
"This is evidently one of the points where the civilised man and the
savage meet on common ground, and is an instance of the law that
civilisation modifies, refines, perhaps transforms our instincts,
dresses or disguises them in the latest fashion, but never gets rid of
them.
"At one time the duel was called Trial by Battle or simply The Judicial
Combat. Then it was pronounced illegal, and those who fought in a
private quarrel were sentenced either to death or to long and cruel
periods of imprisonment.
"At a later period, growing insolent with impunity, the duel like a
strayed reveller swaggered in the streets and public places; we find it
haunting the taverns, we see the flicker of the blades under a street
lamp,--drawn for a word, for a ribbon, for a bet, for anything, or for
nothing. Even the seconds who parted good friends over-night did their
best to spit each other next morning.
"Well, what better evidence could we require to prove that this last
resort of wounded honour is somehow deeply rooted in human nature,
than the fact that the ancient and honourable practice of duelling has
remained the final court of appeal, in spite of changed surroundings,
in spite of hostile opinion, and in spite of the extravagant follies
that have sometimes disgraced it?