But I’ll not believe you hate me—and when you receive this fresh number, and open upon this page for the morceau I have for you, I know ye’ll give me a pleasant smile, and, with the honest Scotchman, say, ‘Deil! but I winna gie ither than thanks to a daft callan like ye.’
But—to business.
Talking with my friend one day on the subject of dueling, he gave me the following story.
THE DUEL.[[2]]
‘Men should wear softer hearts,
And tremble at these licens’d butcheries,
Even as other murders.’
Bryant.
If there is one damning custom among the sons of men, ’tis dueling. Call it not murder—willful killing is murder; but this cool, calculating, exulting killing—killing not in madness, not in despair, when the heart tossed on a surge of passion, strikes, and repents next moment; but the coolly looking at the spot where the heart lies; the putting the dagger there calculatingly; and then, instead of pressing it home fiercely, thrusting it into the warm flesh, inch by inch, till the hot blood spurts over the fingers, and clots on the garments—this, what is this? Oh! call it not murder—murder is a thing of earth—earthly passions do it. But this—go to the pit where the damned shriek, and howl—select the most fiendish scheme of the prince of fiends—then, and then only, shall you have a parallel.