Secrets of the Sword

If French is, as we have been told, the natural language of the art of fencing, it seems a particularly rash venture to translate a French book on the subject into English. This...

"The third is fencing considered from the point of view of practical self-defence. In this case the method is fashioned, so to speak, by personal inspiration, and is impressed w...

"Speed is a mechanical force, unreasoning, unconscious, but a force capable of development. You must add fuel to the fire and not allow it to go out. Do you suppose that all you...

"In the assault with its incessant alarms and perilous crises, in encountering the wiles and avoiding the snares of the enemy, those who use the sword find their 'crowded hour o...

"This, I consider, was one of the most successful innovations of what it is the fashion to call 'The New School'; and I am therefore very far from sharing the opinions of the pr...

"Let me explain before going on. There is a distinction to be made between stop thrusts, and time thrusts. The stop thrust is taken, when your opponent advances incautiously, or...

"When a man fights, his conviction that right is on his side is everything. And therefore the correct attitude of a second is that of a man, who acting calmly but firmly in his...

"Well," I replied, "I have stated what I believe to be the rights of the case, on which either combatant can fairly insist. I will now give you my reasons.

"Now suppose that you decide to lunge to the rear; that is to say, to reverse the lunge by throwing the left leg back to its full extent and dropping the body, without moving th...

"To describe them, we need not distinguish more than two sorts,--methods of attack, and methods of evading or dodging an opponent's attack. These tricks are all very much of the...