Читать книгу The Sentiment of the Sword - Richard Francis Burton - Страница 10

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" You must not let your listeners suppose," remarked Lord B., " that you would make arms the business of every man's life."

Of course not, unless they are to be soldiers; we may leave that to their intelligence. A pleasant and useful exercise should not be turned into an absorbing pursuit. Some will be amateur fencing masters, like myself; others will take up a foil gymnastically, or to spend a pleasant hour amongst friends.

But I must again notice Charlie's remark that fencing, like riding, must be begun when the boy is breeched. This is a long subject

" Which will lead ue into the small hours," quoth Shughtie with intention.

" Bear with me till you finish your last pipe a ponderous meerschaum, by the by perfectly bien culottee. The average intellect, we may say, learns most during its first ten years, and after fifty it generally fails to assimilate a new idea. What the usual run of mankind want to master quickly, and thoroughly to retain, must, I own, be studied in youth; but there are many exceptions men with all the qualifications neces- sary to success save one, and that is opportunity. I remember two instances in particular. A. had passed thirty before touch- ing a foil; at thirty-five he was a first-rate fencer. B. was a " gunner," who had never mounted anything but a donkey, and that in his Ramsgate days. He slipped over the horse^s head at his first leap, his second trial threw him upon the pommel, and the third found him in the saddle. I did not witness the process, but I did see him win certain welter stakes, when he rode like a professional.

Then, again, there are degrees and degrees. The collegian, who wants only to understand the Pentateuch, does not read after the fashion of his neighbour who intends to become a Hebrew professor. If men refused to ride unless they could rival Lords Waterford and Cardigan, they would be doomed never to sit on pigskins. Fencers like the inimitable Cheva- lier de Saint-Georges (11), of Guadaloupe, called the phenix des armes of the last, and Lord Henry Seymour in the present century not to mention those now living spent long years in physical toil, in deep meditation, and in pure devotion to their art. But of what use would be such excellences hors ligne to anyone in this room? Rather a source of trouble than of pleasure and profit. I knew a Brazilian who laid out all his money in buying a diamond fabulous as to number of carats, and who was nearlly s'tarved because he could not sell it.

" You have forgotten to tell us," urged Shughtie, " that your inimitable Saint-Georges was twice buttoned and soundly beaten, once in London by an Englishman, Mr Goddart (in foreign books called ' Godart '), and again by an Italian, the celebrated Giuseppe Gianfaldoni, of Leghorn. The famous Creole was travelling from France to Italy, and at an academy

(11) A biographical sketch of Chevalier Saint-Georges, with his portrait, is given in Angelo'e Treatise on the Ability and Advantages of Fencing (Fol. 1817, London) and a "Notice Historique" by M. La Boessiere in his TraiU de I'Art des Armes (1818, pp. xvi.-xxii.), Saint Georges having been a pupil of the elder La Boessiere.

lie received two buttons to one. An account of the rencontre \vtis published at Leghorn by the victor's brother in 1825." I owned not to have heard of it before.

" Then we are to understand you," asked Claude, " that it is as easy to learn fencing as riding?"

The Cantab was thoroughly at home on horseback, and he had that slightly parenthetical form of leg which betrays infantine acquaintance with the eaddle; indeed, the length of body and the shortness of the extremities had suggested to his friends the sobriquet " Jock."

I should say fencing was as easy as riding for most men, whose sight is good and whose nerves can be depended upon. Of course, we must not push the comparison between fencing and riding too far.

The first point to try with the pupil is, to flash the sword before his eyes. If he winks nervously, and if no practice will cure him of winking, he will never be a perfect swordsman or a first-rate shot.

"I'm certain of that," interrupted Shughtie. "In Upper India a Sikh will swing his open hand across a stranger's face without touching it, and cry ' You are a soldier! ' if the eyes do not blink; if they do, ' Chi! you are a peasant,' or, worse still, a ' coolie.' "

What I mean is that the winker can never depend upon a simple parade and riposte, upon that " tic-tac," which is the height of good, clean fencing. But an old master will teach him to supplement his weak point as the stammer doctor walks his patient round the difficulty, and he may even be able to get beyond mediocrity no easy task.

" My cigar's finished," said 1 , Scaton, with intention, but no malice. My friend had 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.