Cornelius Nepos Tells Us, That A Famous
Athenian General, Having A Dispute With His Colleague, Who Was Of
Sparta, A Man Of A Fiery Disposition, This Last Lifted Up His
Cane To Strike Him.
Had this happened to a French petit maitre,
death must have ensued:
But mark what followed - The Athenian, far
from resenting the outrage, in what is now called a gentlemanlike
manner, said, "Do, strike if you please; but hear me." He never
dreamed of cutting the Lacedemonian's throat; but bore with his
passionate temper, as the infirmity of a friend who had a
thousand good qualities to overbalance that defect.
I need not expatiate upon the folly and the mischief which are
countenanced and promoted by the modern practice of duelling. I
need not give examples of friends who have murdered each other,
in obedience to this savage custom, even while their hearts were
melting with mutual tenderness; nor will I particularize the
instances which I myself know, of whole families ruined, of women
and children made widows and orphans, of parents deprived of only
sons, and of valuable lives lost to the community, by duels,
which had been produced by one unguarded expression, uttered
without intention of offence, in the heat of dispute and
altercation. I shall not insist upon the hardship of a worthy
man's being obliged to devote himself to death, because it is his
misfortune to be insulted by a brute, a bully, a drunkard, or a
madman: neither will I enlarge upon this side of the absurdity,
which indeed amounts to a contradiction in terms; I mean the
dilemma to which a gentleman in the army is reduced, when he
receives an affront:
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