"Situations requiring nerve and self-control undoubtedly occur in
a duel with pistols, but similar situations, more trying and more
critical, occur in a duel with swords. You are willing to admit them in
the one case, yet you refuse to admit them in the other."
"But, after all," persisted my critic, "you can hardly strike a man,
who is so utterly done that he can hardly keep his point up."
"Quite true; but do you feel that hesitation, when you raise your
pistol to fire on a man who has emptied his barrels? Do you not say,
and with perfect justice, 'I have stood his fire, it is his turn now to
stand mine'? Yet the cases are strictly parallel. In each case you have
taken the risk and have escaped unhurt, and the empty pistol in your
opponent's hand is more completely spent than a sword in a hand that is
nerveless from fatigue. For no power can recharge the pistol with the
ball that has sped, but on the contrary a man with a sword in his hand
may possibly by a supreme effort pull himself together, and dangerous
to the last strike you before you can strike him.
"But here, as usual, fashion refuses to be logical, and the sentiment
of chivalry, which we look for in all right-minded men, does not
nowadays allow us to make use of an advantage, which some day or other,
perhaps in precisely identical circumstances, may very likely be
claimed without scruple.