Richard Francis Burton

“ Yet professors still lose themselves in a dsedalus of attacks, parries, and riposts, through which nothing but the Ariadne's clue of lifelong labour can guide the unhappy wanderer. Go to any continental fencing school of the old style, and you will find the more advanced pupile passing through a half-hour's course of combinations, mere trials of ingenuity, simple multiplications for the purposes of multiplication, of which a tithe is never used in the assault, nor a fifth in actual combat. The master will tell you that they have their merits, and this is true to a limited extent. ”

“ Far from me to deny that the plastron takes an important part in forming a fencer. It gives all the mechanism of material execution. But our friend Plastron claims to be so high and puissant a seigneur that his flag must precede all others, that his rights are universal, and that he may trespass with impunity upon the estates of his neighbours.
What we reply to him is once for all. You are base, being mechanical; your very intelligence is that of a calculating machine. ”

“ We never turn the hand in the style of our fathers, except when we would master and force through the enemy's guard by a kind of dagger thrust. You will bear this in mind, I especially when fencing with a left-handed man. If you attack him in carte, you run your head against his wall; always attempt him by his feeble side tierce.
" I dislike the change very much," cried Seaton, who appeared this evening a trifle more excited than usual. " You take away one of the beauties of the guards. ”

“ They look back through the mist of years at the long life journey which it has been theirs to make. They see in the dim and fading vista the boy with bis little foil, the lad, the youth, the adolescent, and the man always, ever, foil in hand. They exaggerate the difficulties of beginning an art whose end they have reached. It eeems monstrous to them that a pupil of yesterday should venture, as it were, to attack them. ”

“ The dreariness of the leqon reminds me of that one road in some Brazilian town which the necessity of walking exercise compelled me conscien- tiously to tread day after day, and it requires no little perseverance to persist in the constitutional when you know the face of every rut and the form of every pebble upon your beat. And why should I expect the average man to do what is irksome even to the old practised hand? ”

“ And yet out of deference to my friends I say this much for the plastron. Most fencing masters neglect one of its most important uses. Ag soon as the pupils have made a modicum of progress towards the necessary regularity, let each in his turn put on the leather jacket and give the lesson to his fellows. It will teach them tolerance for those who are feebler than themselves. I presume the fencing schools neglect this useful practice because it is wasting time, and because the parents who have paid the master expect all the teaching to come from him. ”

“ If, for instance, he inclines, as many do, towards the irre- gular practice of suddenly dropping the hand or of drawing back the arm, as for a stab, I should make him attack and ripost in the high lines, even in the heights of the classicists, until his wrist is forced to acquire a certain amount of eleva- tion, and vice versa. The perfect swordsman may, it is true,^ take such liberties with his art as the poet introduces a hiatus, the musician a discord. These blemishes in places become beauties, but the greater the artist the more prudently he will use them. ”

“ In ail the fine arts, as in literature, a man leaves, or may leave, traces behind him; the pictures and statues survive the painter and statuary; the poet bequeaths to posterity his poem; the musician his music. But it is not so in the personal, corporeal exercises, such as equita- tion, dancing, singing, acting, and fencing. ”

“ Hardly a fencing school in a great European city but presents the edifying spectacle of several advanced scholars still working at the plastron. It is a pleasure to see these gracile youths courting the warlike goddess; they are universally pronounced to be superbcs. They have balance of body, elasticity of limb, accuracy of hand; all is in the highest state of training. ”

“ What you have never done, cannot do, never will do, is to nerve heavy heart and brain against that King of Terrors, the Unknown, that spectre which, omnipresent and Protean in form, often melts away with its cold breath the most beautiful theories and the wisest combinations of mankind. ”

“ During the very next seance I would put a foil in, his hand always supposing that his intelligence equalled that of the average Church militant and teach him the thrusts and the simple parries. Every day's work would be divided into three sections, each of eight to ten and even fifteen minutes, and later on I should even allow the patient to sit down before this term has elapsed. In the fencing schools you see men who think they are " blown " after a third of the time. The best fencers always save themselves during the assault before they become thoroughly tired, and the play becomes wild ”

“ One of the most successful sportsmen with big and dangerous game ever known to me used to work with steel- tipped bullets at fifty paces, never farther, and for good reason, till he was certain of a shilling. And you will know who wins at billiards not the man who now and then makes a brilliant stroke that delights the gallery, but he who never misses an ordinary pocket and cannon. ”

“ Their superiority in the lesson degenerates in the assault. Their mechanical dexterity, no longer having the same base, the accustomed point de depart, is paralysed. They know too much and they do not know enough.
For the assault is no longer the lesson. The adverse blade no more presents itself with the precision to which the scholar is accustomed; the contact of the swords has not that delicacy which was reflected in the pupil. Consequently he is in popular parlance " all abroad." He vainly seeks the regular graduation of passes and parries so long familiar to him ”

“ Moreover, a very limited number of movements greatly facilitates their execution to the beginner and sinks deep in the matter of his mind. When he has passed into the advanced stage he may please himself, and even win the praise of the world by the variety and the mobility of his play. It is enough for me to eee that my pupil understands thoroughly what he does, and that his hand becomes the faith- ful echo of his thought. The young idea so taught cannot fail to shoot straight and to shoot far. ”

“ I envy the unimpressionable being who, without an additional pulse-beat, without the least sensation of chill in hands and feet, stands up to address the Chambers, the theatre, the banquet, or the Christian Young Man. ”

“ I prize exact regularity far less than rapidity of execution, and I strongly object, except in special matters, to what is called "decomposing the move- ments." My object is to make even the first lessons so lively, so emotional, that the learner has not time for the ennui which attends the beginning of studies. It is, of course, necessary to point out the rocks upon which he may dash, and to save him from the wildness and extravagance of movements which must accompany unskilled quickness. ”

“ As the ladies are not here I may confide to you that acolytes of that "persuasion" have sometimes insisted upon attacking me within the week, and have shown themselves aught but grateful indeed, most recalcitrant, almost threatening to call me out when debarred of such enjoyment. ”

“ The passes develop the regularity of bodily action, the parries give force and suppleness to the wrist. You must be careful, however, not to depend only upon the wrist; in the circles especially there should always be a slight rotatory motion of the elbow. In fact, you should feel that you have an elbow. A man in perfect health never feels that he has anything; we recognise our limbs only when there is something unsound about them. ”

“ The science of arms by which, of course, I mean the methodical knowledge of the small sword is subject more than any other to different appreciations, and especially to divers degrees of study and proficiency. ”

“ In short, I make no difficulty about indulging my pupil as soon as possible. All vary in capacity for work and in capability of progress. But as a rule, after a month, more or less, of regu- lar study, when my acolyte has learned to understand the small number of movements which have been described to you, and when he executes them with vivacity and relative regularity why, I put on my mask and plastron, and bid him come on and do his best. ”

“ It must always be well understood that slowness is the one sin which cannot be endured; it is the implacable enemy of anything like excellence; it is the infdme which must be crushed. The best way to punish a lazy lunge or a " dawdling " recovery is a stiff thrust in the lower ribs, with the hand low, so as not to allow the blade to bend. This should be repeated each time the fault occurs. Whatever the professors may say and they all say the same thing! ”

“ Sous 1' empire de la sur-excitation nerveuse produite par les exercises violents, 1' esprit oublie souvent la politesse apprise et accoutumee: les gens bien eleves restent toujours convenables sans doute, mais eux-memes subissent 1' influence de ces courants passionnes. ”

“ Les defauts de chacun deviennent beau- coup plus apparents. Le moraliste et I'observateur, qui n'ont vu au dehors que des gens revetis d'un vernis uniforme les trouvent la transformes: plus beaux, plus grands, plus petits, ou plus laids; tels qu'ils sont reellement. Les uns, domines par un'j sorte de furia irreflechie, se precipitent en aveugles sur la lame immobile du tireur qui leur est oppose; d'autres, calmes, moderes, pleins d'une ardeur reflechie mais inebranlable, ne don-
(1) What Buffon did say was Le style c'est de 1'homme meme. ”