The Sentiment of the Sword. Richard Francis Burton
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Please don't abuse the single-stick," Shughtie interrupted; " it once saved my life."
Nothing newer than to hear him speak of his adventures, as he was that rarity, a lion who seldom roared. The smoking- room at once seized the occasion for insisting that the whole tale be told. The words had fallen from him inadvertently; he could not withdraw them, and so with a resigned air he began:
" Once upon a time, as the story books say, I was travelling amongst the Galla (3), who at first held me in high honour; few had ever seen the ' hot-mouthed weapon,' and those who had knew only ball, so when I made a flying shot they cried ' Wak, wak, the man from the sea brings down the birds from heaven! ' Presently the marvel waxed stale, and my savage friends, in this matter very like the civilised, began to treat me as one of themselves which means I was going very fast down a deep slope, with a deep drop at the end. My ' long knife,' as they called my broad sword, also sank in public esteem with its owner. One day a certain ruffler, a fellow of the bully type, showed his entourage how easy it was to beat me with spear and targe; I laughed in his face, and he pre- pared a trial. My Abyssinian servants were sorely frightened ' if you fail, we're all down among the dead men.' I chose a stout, solid stick, and made my boaster take one the length of his assegai, not wishing to trust him with the spear-head. We stood opposite each other; I cut ostentatiously at his face: he guarded with his shield, and my stick was broken, with a resounding thud across his well, his flank, low down. A roar of laughter sent him flying in a fury to snatch up his weapon; I cocked my gun, and the bystanders interfered. But my name was made for ever and a day. So I don't abuse single-stick, nor do I ever shoot the ' katta,' the sandgrouee, which saved us during the same journey from a torturing death by show- ing a spring of water."[3]
I ventured to assert it was exceptionally rare to find, as in this smoking-room, two out of ten who have made the sword's principles their study.
(3) The Galla is a, fierce pastoral nomad tribe of Eastern inter-tropical Africa. &>e Life of Burton, I., page 260. The same story is told in Burton's Diary on page 203 of Vol. I.
Such assertions could hardly be disputed, but the auditory, especially those who did not fence or intend to fence, were loud, and I thought invidiously loud, in their praise of " wet bobs and dry bobs," of out-of-door exercises and sports, athletics, boating, rowing, from cricket to foxhunting.
I should be the last man in the room to decry them; but do not let us be Pharisees, who can see no good beyond a certain pale. Athletics are the great prerogative of the North as are gymnastics of the South, and this ie one of the main reasons why the North always beats the South has always beaten it, from the days of Bellovesus and Brennus, to those of " Kaiser Weissbart." and allow me to predict always will beat it.
" Unless," cried Seaton. " some avatar, some incarnation of Mare like Alexander or Hannibal, Caesar, or Napoleon Buona- parte, throw in his sword to turn the scale. But, happily, it would take half a millennium to breed such men."
Out-of-door exercises give bodily strength, weight, and stature, endurance, nerve, and pluck; tell me how many foot pounds two racers can raise, and I will point out the winner in the long run.
But the use of the sword is something more: look at the fine health and the longevity of the maitre d'arms I doubt if the poet or the mathematician exceed him in this matter of great individual importance.
Our study also is the means adapted to an end. He who can handle a rapier well can learn the use of any other weapon in a few days. It teaches him flexibility of muscle, quickness of eye, judgment of distance, and the consensus of touch with sight, one of the principal secrets of the sword. If he practise consecutively, as much with the left as with the right side, it obviates that serious defect of training only one-half of the body to the detriment of the other. Do you know why men who lose their way in the Arabian desert, on the prairies and pampas of America, on the Russian steppes, or in the Australian bush walk round and round, describing irregular circles and broken ovals, till they droop and drop and die of fatigue, perhaps within a mile of the hidden camp? Simply because when the brain is morbidly fixed upon one object muscle asserts itself, and the stronger right runs away with tho weaker left.
"I'm not quite sure," Shughtie objected, "that men do not sometimes wander ' widdershins ' or 'against the sun.'"
Moreover, I continued, without noticing the remark of the "objector general," these are the days when the "silver streak," our oft-quoted " inviolate sea," must not be expected to ditch and moat us, especially as we seem likely to burrow under it in a measure which I greatly fear will turn out
"Yes," cried Seaton, "with peace-at-any-price policy, someday we may have a hundred thousand men hold the tete-de-pont before our unreadiness has time to move a corps. Nothing proves so well the greatness of Englishmen, nationally and individually, as their wonderful success, despite their various governments.
And now, when "la force prime le droit," when Europe stands up like Minerva in her panoply ready for the trial by what sciolists call " brute strength," I would see the old nation, England, take a lesson from her fair and gallant daughter, Canada. It is really refreshing to read of four millions being able to arm nearly 700,000 hands. We are fast returning to those fine old days, still preserved in Asia and Africa, where every free-born man was a born man-at-arms, when every citizen was a soldier, and our falling back on the " wisdom of antiquity " in this, as in other matters, is not one of the least curious features of the age. I would make Pro- fessor Sergeant part and parcel of every school. This has been tried partially and has failed, because the boys take little interest in learning the dull course of " sitting up" and " squad work," which the artless tutor proposes as the art of arms; but when the parents shall set the example, the sons will follow them.
" Ou le pere a passe, passera bien 1'enfant," but the sooner drill is introduced perforce into our public schools, the better.
" The worst of fencing," said Charlie, the Oxonian, " is that one must begin from one's childhood, like riding; one must work for years to be a tolerable hand; if one does not keep it up, it becomes as rusty as running or swimming."
Parenthetically, I knew that my fresh-cheeked and stout- framed Oxonian had been an inveterate sportsman from his greenest years, and that even now many an hour during vacation was given to otter hunting. He could also whip a stream and throw a quoit admirably in fact, he had spent upon these and other recreations time and toil enough to make a complete swordsman. But he was leading up to my point, so I told him bluntly enough he was wrong.
" Pardon me, I've turned over a treatise or two in the library, and they made me feel small; really, it is like reading up geometry or alchemy, or any other secret science."
IV. Early Fencing Treatises and Technicalities Simplification Italian School and Names of Parries
Now we come to the gist of the matter. You are quite right about the treatises. They are produced mostly by or for men far more used to the company of Captain Sword[4]than that of Captain Pen. Though some masters in the olden day were highly educated men, and, later still, others have written comedies, the pretensions of the modern school are less to literature than to moral dignity. For instance:
" Le maitre d'armes doit avoir une conduite irreprochable, une humeur egale, de la bonte, de 1'indulgence sans faiblesse, il doit surtout etre juste et impartial, c'est le moyen pour lui d'obtenir 1'estime publique et la confiance de scs elevcs.
" Le professorat est un sacerdoce, et le maitre d'armes ne doit jamais 1'oublier.
" Le maitre d'armes devrait etre non seulement un modele de l^nu, de dignite, do maintien, de politesse et de courtoisie, mais encore un modele d'honneur."
This does not much help one with a foil. Again, the art of arms is a subject which, like chemistry, cannot bo learned from books; even illustrations give only the detached stanzas of the poem (6). Chief of all, these are the words of the professional men who take a pride in making and multiplying difficulties; as masters