“Well, my case is on all fours with that. My pupil is in imminent peril of his life. My business is to give him the spar or the plank, which may serve to keep him afloat. I don’t bother about teaching him to swim.
X.
“Of course there is nothing to prevent one from showing one or two parries to the novice who has to fight a duel at short notice. But the only parries that would be of any use to him are the comprehensive and rather complicated parries, which sweep through all the lines. What would be the result?
“His parries would be weak, undecided, and slow. Instead of tripping neatly round the blade, they would labour painfully after it in wide circles. To deceive them would be the merest child’s play, and the poor novice, encountering nothing but empty air, would let his blade fly into space, and send his arm after it, leaving himself completely exposed.
“Even supposing that his opponent does not take advantage of his opportunity, the novice realises how helpless he is, and racks his brains for some device to avoid the danger when he is again attacked. Then he does not know what to do, what not to do; he loses his head and is seized with panic; he strikes wildly at his opponent’s blade, as a drowning man strikes wildly at the water, and nothing remains to be done but to wait for the finishing thrust, or to rush blindly at his opponent, with the probability that he will run upon his point. Those are my reasons for not attempting to teach an untutored novice things which he cannot possibly perform.
“Now, on the other hand, consider in detail the measures that I do put at his disposal. By retiring he evades the point. Evading the point, by drawing the body back or by springing to the rear, may not be the same thing as parrying, but it amounts to much the same in the end, since you retire out of range and are not hit. Or if you are hit, at the worst you can be only lightly touched, because by retiring you make your opponent lose the ground which he reckoned on gaining by his attack.
“Moreover when he sees that you straighten your arm every time on the chance of reaching him, he dare not lunge out recklessly. If he does, you have at least a chance of hitting him,—by a fluke no doubt, but I suppose you do not much mind that.