I.
We have now to examine the duel with swords from a different point of view. The ignorant and inexperienced fencer, trying at the last moment to find a desperate remedy for a desperate state of affairs, may be dismissed, and we have now to consider the case of combatants who are more or less evenly matched, and who are fighting in deadly earnest. For as I have already said, a duel generally equalises the forces on either side, except when a skilful and resolute swordsman meets a clumsy hesitating duffer, or when a cool head is opposed to that rash and furious bluster which more often than not leads a man to his destruction.
“First and foremost, your invariable rule must be:—Distrust your enemy; never be overconfident. I cannot too often repeat that the unexpected always turns up just when you are least prepared for it. It is this glorious uncertainty that to my mind makes fighting with swords the only sort of duelling that is fair and sportsmanlike, the only sort in which energy, courage, and resolution always give some chance to the weaker combatant.
“In a duel fought with pistols, what a wretched rôle is assigned to the combatants. Energy is of no use, courage of no value; you stand up like a target to be shot at, without any possibility of defence. Courage and cowardice meet on equal terms; the feeblest and most spiritless sneak may succeed in defeating the most determined courage and the manliest energy. A finger presses a trigger, and the thing is done. Duelling with pistols has always seemed to me a monstrous practice. I am delighted to see it disappearing from our manners, and going more and more out of fashion every day.