Secrets of the Sword

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César Lecat de Bazancourt. Secrets of the Sword

PREFACE

Introduction

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The First Evening

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The Second Evening

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The Third Evening

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The Fourth Evening

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X

The Fifth Evening

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The Sixth Evening

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The Seventh Evening

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The Eighth Evening

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The Ninth Evening

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The Tenth Evening

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The Eleventh Evening

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Отрывок из книги

Why have I written this book? I will tell you. For of all the subjects that might have occurred to me, this I am sure is the last in the world on which I should have ever dreamed of trespassing. Accident, however, is apt to take a hand in the most trivial things of this world as well as in the most important. It is continually responsible for the most unlikely events, and it was in fact by accident that I undertook this work, in which I have collected and jotted down remarks that are entirely my own, concerning an art to which I have devoted myself for more years than I care to remember.

I was staying in the country at an old manor house belonging to one of my friends. The litter of autumn, fallen leaves and withering herbage, was scattered over field and woodland. This is a favourite season with poets, when Nature before her winter sleep affects a serene and melancholy air, that inclines to reverie and lends wings to fancy. The season also favours sportsmen. Coverts in which the game has hitherto found shelter are no longer impenetrable, and every day the wind robs the poor persecuted beasts of some fraction of their shield of verdure. At my friend’s house there were no poets, but there was instead a large shooting party. We used to take the field after breakfast, and come home towards dusk, all of us as tired as a man has a right to be when he has done six or eight hours’ walking. After dinner we invariably adjourned to the smoking room, and spent the evening in discussing things in general over our cigars.

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“I am sure of it; but don’t misunderstand me, I mean riding in the sense of sticking on. In fact, without driving the analogy too hard, I should say that for both exercises a year at the outside is all that is required to obtain useful and solid results. And I should add that after a few months’ trial you will find that you cannot resist the fascination that belongs unmistakably to both these sports. Surely that is not too much to ask for putting you into good trim, and teaching you how to protect yourself?”

“Then, why don’t they say so?” some one remarked.

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