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IV

“We may as well follow up the turn our conversation has taken, and pass under review without further preface the three watch-words of swordsmanship: —

Judgment Control Speed

The man who should master these three would be the pattern of the perfect fencer.

“Well, what of fencing judgment? Why in the world should you be afraid of it, as though it were the hundred-headed hydra that guards the sacred portals? What is it but that part of the understanding that we all bring to bear on the conduct of everyday life? Nothing in human affairs however trivial or however great can be done without it.

“Fencing judgment implies more especially distrust, cunning, a wise caution, the power of interpreting the dumb language of the sword, the faculty of drawing correct inferences. These faculties are in the first instance directly stimulated by the master’s lessons, and natural intelligence, acting without any conscious effort on your part, combined with experience, will make the good seed grow. Do not concern yourself about it. Over-anxiety always has a most disturbing effect on the mind.

“The other night when I spoke of the alphabet of fencing, I had a special object in view. There is a language of the sword, by which questions are asked and answered. As soon as you have learnt the words you can speak and understand it. To admit that it is necessary to make a separate study of every possible phrase implies that a simple and straightforward method of instruction, which I hold to be of the highest importance, is unattainable.

V

“In like manner the faculty of control is a thing that may be gradually acquired by practice. It is the result of imparting a supple ‘temper’ to the wrist and body, and consists in the knitting up of the various operations into one continuous movement. But, as in the case of fencing judgment, so here, the desired result cannot be obtained all at once. It is the first and most natural consequence of your master’s instructions. It comes of daily practice and you must patiently watch and wait for it, as you might wait for a peach slowly ripening on a sunny wall. Let it grow upon you like a habit, by slow degrees, till it becomes a second nature.

“Speed, not of course mere quickness of hand, but the rapid execution of every movement, is one of the fencer’s great resources, whether in attack, parry, or retreat. It is to my mind the main point to be insisted on from the very first.

“And, accordingly, I think that the master should be careful not to overdo the sort of teaching, that consists in delivering a running commentary such as this: – ‘Steady now: not too fast: take your time about it: think what you are doing: keep your hand in order: mark each motion: at the word one, – and so forth: don’t hurry, you will go fast enough by and by.’

“It is certainly useful to practise the hand by exercising it on the master’s jacket, but it is useless to practise it by slow movements. First explain how the stroke is to be executed, and then without more ado make your pupil get into the way of taking it quickly. Slowness is convenient, because it renders execution easy, but the ease of execution that is derived from it is dangerous, because it reacts on the judgment and accustoms the mind to lazy ways. Your object is, no doubt, to bring the hand under control and analyse the stroke in detail, but if the result of your teaching is that your pupil falls into a sluggish habit you are sowing the seeds of a vice, which you will probably never succeed in extirpating.

“Suppose you are teaching a child to walk, you are not surprised that his first steps are wavering and unsteady, and that he cannot plant his feeble feet firmly on the ground. You hold him up, but you let him walk. In due time he learns to use his strength, as a bird learns to fly. The young fencer is the child learning to walk. As his knowledge and experience gradually expand, many faults will disappear of themselves, or will be more easily seen and corrected by his maturer judgment.

“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 have to do is to change the word of command: – ‘Now do quickly what you have done slowly hitherto’? Your new command introduces a new idea and creates new difficulties.

“Such, speaking generally, are the essential principles of fencing. I cannot say whether I have succeeded in showing you clearly how simple the lesson on these lines may be made, or how far I have been able to reassure those, who have inadvertently opened a treatise on sword-play and have fought shy of the subject ever since, but I am convinced that a course of instruction such as I suggest would produce very good results.

“To explain myself more fully, as I am talking among friends and there are no professors present, I will go on to tell you briefly how I should set about teaching the use of the sword.

VI

“I should expect my scholar during the first month to give up half an hour a day to foil practice, and after that to keep it up three times a week. My first lesson would be devoted to showing him theoretically and practically the vital importance of establishing a perfect concert or balance between the various movements. This is the fundamental principle of all athletic exercises, and applies equally to riding, swimming, gymnastics, and to fencing.

“I should make him advance and retire, lunge and recover, taking care not to lose his balance. This first lesson is sufficient to enable the least intelligent to understand the mechanism of the different movements, which are based on the natural and instinctive faculties of the human body.

“Come, C – ,” I said, rising from my chair, “unless I am mistaken, you have never attempted to fence. Will you allow me to make use of you by way of illustration?”

“I shall be delighted,” replied C – , “but I shall be very awkward.”

“Perhaps you will be for the first five minutes. It is the common lot from which no one can escape. Now place yourself ‘On guard’; the words explain themselves: – to be on guard, to protect yourself, that is to say to hold yourself equally ready for attack or defence.

“Bend your legs. Let me use an expression which is perhaps incorrect but which explains my meaning clearly: – Sit well down.

“Your right arm must be half extended. As a general rule the wrist should be at the height of the breast. You will be able later to modify these elementary studies, by adapting them to suit the position which comes to you most naturally. The important thing is to acquire an uncramped easy style, and to keep the body evenly balanced. In this position the sword can most easily traverse the various openings that are offered to it.

“I advance on you. In order to get back and always keep your distance you have only to carry the left foot to the rear, and let the right foot follow it immediately. To advance on me, simply reverse these movements. Bring the right foot forward and follow it up with the left.

“Bravo! you advance like a professor. See that you keep your legs bent and the body upright, so as to be always ready for advance or retreat. If you cannot avoid stooping, lean forward rather than backward. By carrying the body forward you are no more exposed than you were before; for the body by its inclined position protects itself, presents a smaller surface, and makes it more difficult for your opponent to fix his point, when he might otherwise hit you; but if you throw the body back, you lose the power of making a quick attack and a quick riposte. Are you tired?”

“No.”

“Good! That shows that your position is correct, and that it does not cramp your muscles or paralyse any of your movements. You understand, of course, that by standing sideways you present a smaller target to your adversary.

“So much for defence. Now, for the attack.

VII

“In order to attack, you lunge, by carrying the right leg smartly forward and straightening the left, so as to give the body its full extension.

“Whatever the attack may be, whether simple or composite, the movements of the hand must be completed and the arm absolutely straight, before the lunge is made, though the different movements must follow each other without the least interval.

“It is equally important to remember that the recovery must be as smart as the attack. The great danger of the attack is that it should be too intemperate, for a too intemperate attack leaves you exposed to danger, without strength or speed to escape.”

“But,” some one asked, “is it really necessary when you are on guard, to arrange the left arm above the head in a graceful curve, and then swing it down to the leg as you lunge?”

“The graceful curve is not an absolute necessity. Place the arm behind your back if you prefer to do so, for if you bring it to the front you drag forward the left shoulder, and thereby expose a larger target to your opponent’s point. The arm, you see, acts the part of a rope-walker’s balancing pole. It steadies the movements and balances the weight of the body. Since you have a spare arm you must place it somewhere, and if you consider you will see that it is least in the way where I have placed it. It serves a useful purpose in the general arrangement, – that is the only object of the position. I need not refine the point further.

“In fencing, the movements of the body and limbs are of great importance. All the mechanical part of sword-play depends on the principles which I have just explained. I have now taken the mechanism to pieces and shown you how it is put together.

VIII

“One word more. What was the reason for choosing this attitude and these movements?

“They were chosen because they are natural and instinctive. Instinct dictated the rule, which is based on experience, on practical necessity, on correct principle.

“What is the object to be attained?

“First, for defence, to allow the limbs their complete liberty of action, their natural elasticity and easy play; secondly for attack, to give the extension of the body its full force.

“Now try to change the position; straighten your legs; you will at once notice the increased difficulty of executing the different movements, whether of attack, defence, or retreat. You lose your balance, and the lunge either precedes the action of the hand and the extension of the arm, or follows those movements too late.

“The legs are springs which support the body and determine its most rapid movements. If you are out shooting and want to jump a ditch, you bend your legs in order to obtain the necessary spring. Or again, if you jump down from a height, you bend your legs at the moment your feet touch the ground; if you do not, your whole body is jarred.

“I dwell on this point in order to convince you of its absolute necessity, and to make you understand clearly the why and wherefore of the position. But, I repeat, instinct was the first teacher, experience came later and has only confirmed the principle.

“One last caution. When once you have learnt by practice how to harmonise your movements, and have realised how great a power at a given moment the faculty of making these movements with ease and rapidity may be, then, and not till then, venture to take your personal inclination into account. And if after carefully weighing the pros and cons you come to the conclusion that you can, owing to some personal peculiarity, improve upon the elementary rules of the lesson, do not hesitate to depart from them without scruple, but never without good reason. The best position is that which allows you complete freedom and perfect balance. But never forget that all exaggeration is bad, and that nothing can be worse than the exaggeration of an ungraceful and ungainly style. That is all I have to say this evening.”

The Third Evening

I

“We will continue the course of instruction of which you have studied at present only the first page; I am going into very minute detail, as you see.

“Our scholar now knows the different positions, and can appreciate why they are to be commended, and what is to be gained by adopting them. At the next lesson, – and each lesson would consist of not more than three bouts of eight or ten minutes each, – I should show him and make him execute the simple attacks and the simple parries: —Disengagements in tierce and quarte, straight thrusts, the cut over, and parries of quarte and tierce. The attacks will exercise him in the lunge, the parries will improve the flexibility of his wrist.

“I should make him continually retire and advance. I should, even at this early stage, take pains to secure a certain degree of life and speed in his execution, and I should be careful to vary the exercises, and never appeal to his intelligence at the risk of checking the activity of his movements. Sluggishness, I repeat, is a deadly foe, against which every avenue must be closed from the very first.

“Next I should go on to composite parries and composite attacks. I have already named them, and you remember that they are not very numerous. Counters, double counters, and combinations of the cut over and disengagement are the most useful things to practise, because they work the wrist in every direction, and make it both quick and supple.

“Although a great many instructors would say that I am wrong, I should make it my principal aim to form and cultivate a habit of executing all movements at speed. I should insist less on precision of control than on smartness of execution, and at the same time I should call my pupil’s attention to the mistakes which he must be most careful to avoid, and to the points of danger where he must exercise the greatest caution.

“I should practise him in retiring quickly, and should make him deliver simple attacks on the march, keeping his blade in position. After a few lessons I should repeatedly place my button on his jacket, if he did not parry quickly enough, or if he was slow on the recovery. In a word I should put plenty of life and go into my lessons from the first, and not allow them to become tedious.

“After every lesson I should direct his serious attention to the principal faults I had noticed, and I should make him understand the dangers to which these faults must inevitably expose him. For instance, if he caught the fatal trick of dropping or drawing back his hand, I should take care to make him attack and riposte in the high lines, in order to get him to carry his wrist high, and vice versa. In this way I should exercise his judgment by making him think, and his hand and body by keeping him closely to his work.

II

“Above all, the master’s lesson must not lose itself in a maze of attacks and parries and ripostes, which in some treatises are as numerous and interminable as the stars of heaven. The strict limitation of the number of strokes to be taught renders their execution proportionately easier, and makes a clear impression on the mind. Experience and fencing instinct teach, far better than any lesson, certain niceties, which give life and finish and character to the play. There you have the lesson complete.

“As the scholar gradually grows stronger, he learns to hold himself correctly, and acquires ease. He understands what to do without being told, and his hand is in a fair way to become the faithful echo of his thought.

III

“We here touch on another point, where I find myself at variance with nearly all the professional instructors.

“I have read in the books which deal with this subject of ‘the danger of premature loose play.’ ‘You run the risk,’ say some, ‘of spoiling a promising pupil, and of arresting his future progress, just when he is beginning to form good habits.’ Others go further and declare that: ‘The instructor who allows his pupil to commence loose play too soon sacrifices by an act of fatal indulgence the whole future of fencing.’

“I do not agree with this view. I cannot even see that it logically applies to those who mean to devote all their time to the study of sword-play, and who are prepared to make a determined effort to reach the topmost summit of this difficult art. Much less, then, to my mind, is it applicable to the generality of men, who have no ambition to become such learned fencers, as we were saying the other evening. The professors wilfully refuse to see this.

“And yet of all arts, the art of fencing may be considered from the most widely different standpoints, and particularly may be approached with very varied degrees of knowledge and application. Is it so very certain that ‘premature loose play,’ as the professors love to call it, is so pernicious as they think, – the bad seed that cannot fail to produce an evil crop of vices? Right or wrong, I can only say once more that I am of quite the contrary opinion.

“I fail to see that it is dangerous for a pupil to attempt the assault, when he has learnt by taking lessons for a month, – more or less, according to the progress made and his natural capacity, – to understand the various strokes I have described, and can already execute them with some degree of liveliness and control.

IV

“Of course I am quite ready to admit that his first assaults, like all first attempts that require a trained habit of mind, cannot be free from mistakes, exaggerations, faults of all sorts. But is not the master there to correct these errors with his lesson, and to bring his pupil, who is inclined to go astray, back to the right path? Cannot the leading strings be readjusted?

“The very fact that the master has had an opportunity of observing the mistakes, to which his pupil is most liable, when left to himself, enables him to devote all his care to overcome and correct them by both practice and precept. More important still, he has also had an opportunity of observing his pupil’s bias; he notices the strokes which come naturally to his hand, the parries he most affects, the natural promptings of his impulse, impetuous or cautious as the case may be. He makes a study of his artless scholar, who is clumsily feeling his feet, reads him like a book, catches him in the act so to speak, and detects the working of his character, and thenceforward he knows the way in which his studies may be most profitably directed to give full play to his individual temperament.

“The assault teaches the novice what no amount of lunging at the master’s pad can drill into him. It enters him to the sudden emergencies, which in one shape or another arise at every moment, to the movement and exertion and keen emulation of real fighting. The assault is in fact a lesson subsidiary to the formal lesson, and you may rest assured that the instruction it conveys is equally salutary.”

V

“Then,” smilingly remarked the Comte de R., “you are for open war with the existing routine?”

“And with the old traditions. Yes, I am afraid I am. But what can I do? You admit the force of my arguments?”

“Certainly.”

“And that fencing taught on my plan loses its terrors?”

“Yes, I quite admit that.”

“And in fact it is not really formidable. My system is able to satisfy the requirements of all, and I do not overshoot the mark, by over-anxiety to reach it.

“It is most important to bear in mind that it is not necessary or even desirable to attend all the professor’s lectures, to pass all the examinations and finally to qualify as Bachelor of Arms in order to become a fair ordinary fencer. After all in every art one usually admits the professor’s right to dictate the elementary principles of his subject, but after the elementary stage is passed we are not, I believe, always ready to accept the professor’s estimate of the importance of the art which he happens to teach. The remark applies equally to music, to painting, to literature, and why not to fencing? Poets we know are nothing if not first-rate, but why should fencers be singled out for this invidious distinction?

“You may judge how firmly my own belief is rooted, when I say that I am as strongly convinced of the good results that follow from ‘premature assaults,’ as I am of the necessity of making the lesson as simple and as clear as possible.