Richard Francis Burton

“ For it contains the matured opinions upon the art and methods of offence and defence in England and on the Continent of one who was throughout his life an ardent student of the theory, and an acknowledged master of the practice, of the art of swordsmanship. ”

“ The one chosen in its place, " The Sentiment of the Sword," perhaps suggests even better to non-fencers Burton's intimate sympathy with and affection for the weapon and its correspondence with his own nature, while to swordsmen and fencers it brings home le sentiment flu fer invented by our "sweet enemy France" for that inner feeling of the foil, that magnetism of the blade, that sense of touch or " tact " which no other expression in any language so happily conveys. ”