The Sentiment of the Sword. Richard Francis Burton
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begun riding and fencing early in life; he was short of stature and long of back, his nose was prominent, and his hair, moustache, and regulation whiskers were, his friends said, auburn, his unfriends fiery. Such sanguine temperaments usually have strong opinions, and their strongest are about themselves.
My lecture is over. Briefly, in six weeks men with " good dispositions " can do something; with a year's work they ought to make palpable and real progress in the noble art of arms. But they too often go to a mere sciolist of tierce and carte, or to the dancing-master; fencing-master (12). For the scri studiorutn the coach is all in all, and I can prove it.
" Advice to people about to marry! " murmured Shughtie.
(12) There is early literary authority for this combination: Thoinot Arbeau's (Tabourot's) Orchesographie, published 1 in 1595, is not only the earliest printed " Dancing-Master," but also comprised " methode et theorio en forme de discours et tablatures pour apprendre a ... tirer des armes et escrimer "but this title-page promise only realises a sword-dance performance I
On seeing him for the first time a stranger would be apt to exclaim, " That's a hard-looking man! " and, after hearing where he had been and what he had done, the stranger would be apt to add, " He's just the man to do it." Hard, indeed, was the character of Shughtie's weather-beaten features hard as his heart was soft. High cheek bones, grey eyes, set deep in cave-like sockets, shining forth a fierce light, with prominent eyebrows jutting over them like a pent-house; forehead low and slightly retreating, nose thick and anything but classical, a beard falling to the waist, and grizzly, short-cropped hair which, they say, prevented his becoming bald; an upper lip clothed with a large moustache, stiff but not bristly that shows the rough " son of Neptune " yet hardly large enough to hide the setting of the lips, and jaws vast and square, as if settled down into a somewhat humorous war with the world, -it the same time showing none of the futile pugnacity of the Celt. Such was the countenance. He was a tallish man, whose vast breadth of chest and shoulders made him appear below middle size. The tout ensemble of face and figure wae intended, said the jealous, for a born pugilist. Such men, who voluntarily assume the bearskin, are apt to growl, and sometimes to barb a growl with a venerable quotation from Mr Punch. (13)
" Perhaps, gentlemen," said Lord B., with even more than usual kindness, " to-morrow evening Capt. Burton will give us a sketch of his curriculum?"
With all the pleasure in life! But I would warn you that it will bo as an improvisatore, not as a professor. And now good- night. Seaton, have you brought your plastron? (14) Shughtie, do not mistake in your dreams that other valley for the valley of the Nile! And under cover of these feeble shots I effected my escape.
Original footnotes
1 ↑ "A congener of the Egyptian flesh-knife sword " (Book of the Sword, page 212).
2 ↑ See Book of the Sword, page 164, for illustration.
3 ↑ This journey is described most vividly on page 215 of Burton's Lite, Vol. I.
4 ↑ "Captain Sword and Captain Pen," a poem by Leigh Hunt, 1835.
5 ↑ Since Burton's day -I ho word "disengagement" is solely used for the French degagement (Italian cavagione), which means passing your point under the adversary's blade from tieroe to caxto or rice vcrsd. Sinco his day, too, sixte has come largely into n- in phwc of tierce.
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