IV.
“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.”