I have been informed, my friend, of what has passed between you and my Lord B——; and from a perfect knowledge of the fact, I have a mind to discuss the affair, and give you my opinion of the conduct you ought to observe on this occasion, agreeable to the sentiments you profess, and of which I suppose you do not make only an idle parade.
I do not concern myself whether you are skilled in fencing, nor whether you think yourself capable of contending with a man who is famous all over Europe for his superior dexterity in that art, having fought five or six times in his life, and always killed, wounded, or disarmed his man. I know that in such a case as yours, people consult not their skill, but their courage; and that the fashionable method to be revenged of a man who has insulted you, is to let him run you through the body. But let us pace over thiswisemaxim; you will tell me that your honour and mine are dearer to you than life. This, therefore, is the principle on which we must reason.
To begin with what immediately concerns yourself. Can you ever make it appear in what respect you were personally offended by a conversation that related solely to me? We shall see presently whether you ought on such an occasion to take my cause upon yourself: in the mean time, you cannot but allow that the quarrel was quite foreign to your own honour in particular, unless you are to take the suspicion of being beloved by me as an affront. I must own you have been insulted; but then it was after having begun the quarrel yourself by an atrocious affront; and, as I have had frequent opportunities, from the many military people in our family, of hearing these horrible questions debated, I am not to learn that one outrage committed in return to another does not annul the first, and that he who receives the first insult is the only person offended. It is the same in this case, as in a rencounter, where the aggressor is only in fault: he who wounds and kills another in his own defence, is not considered as being guilty of murder.
To come now to myself; we will agree that I was insulted by the conversation of my Lord B——, although he said no more of me than he might justify. Do you know what you are about in defending my cause with so much warmth and indiscretion? You aggravate his insults; you prove he was in the right; you sacrifice my honour to the false punctilios of yours, and defame your mistress to gain at most the reputation of a good swords-man. Pray tell me what affinity there is between your manner of justifying me and my real justification? Do you think that to engage in my behalf with so much heat is any great proof that there are no connections between us? And that it is sufficient to shew your courage to convince the world you are not my lover? Be assured, my Lord B——'s insinuations are less injurious to me than your conduct. It is you alone who take upon yourself, by this bustle to publish and confirm them. He may, perhaps, turn aside the point of your sword in conflict; but never will my reputation, nor perhaps my being, survive the mortal blow you meditate.
These reasons are too solid to admit of a reply; but I foresee you will oppose custom to reason; you will tell me there is a fatality in some things which hurries us away in spite of ourselves; that we can, in no case whatever, bear the lie; and that, when an affair is gone a certain length, it is impossible to avoid fighting or infamy. We will examine into the validity of this argument.
Do not you remember a distinction you once made, on an important occasion, between real and apparent honour? Under which of these classes shall we rank that in question? For my part, I cannot see that it will even admit of a doubt. What comparison is there between the glory of cutting another's throat, and the testimony of a good conscience? And of what importance is the idle opinion of the world, set in competition with true honour, whose foundation is rooted in the heart? Can we be deprived of virtues we really possess by false aspersions of calumny? Does the insult of a drunken man prove such insults deserved? Or does the honour of the virtuous and prudent lie at the mercy of the first brute he meets? Will you tell me that fighting a duel shews a man to have courage, and that this is sufficient to efface the dishonour, and prevent the reproach, due to all other vices? I would ask you, what kind of honour can dictate such a decision? Or what arguments justify it? On such principles a knave need only fight, to cease to be a knave; the assertions of a liar become true when they are maintained at the point of the sword; and, if you were even accused of killing a man, you have only to kill a second, to prove the accusation false. Thus virtue, vice, honour, infamy, truth, and falsehood, all derive their existence from the event of a duel: a gallery of small arms is the only court of justice; there is no other law than violence, no other argument than murder: all the reparation due to the insulted, is to kill them, and every offence is equally washed away by the blood of the offender or the offended. If wolves themselves could reason, would they entertain maxims more inhuman than these? Judge yourself, from the situation you are in, whether I exaggerate their absurdity? What is it you resent? That the lie has been given you on an occasion wherein you actually asserted a falsehood. Do you think to destroy the truth, by killing him you would punish for having told it? Do you consider that, in risking the success of a duel, you call heaven to witness the truth of a lie, and impiously bid the supreme disposer of events to support the cause of injustice, and give the triumph to falsehood? Does not such absurdity shock you? Does not such impiety make you shudder? Good God! what a wretched sense of honour is that, which is less afraid of vice than reproach; and will not permit that another should give us the lie, which our own hearts had given us before?
Do you, who would have every one profit by their reading, make use of yours: see if you can find one instance of a challenge being given, when the world abounded with heroes? Did the most valiant men of antiquity ever think of revenging private injuries by personal combat? Did Caesar send a challenge to Cato, or Pompey to Caesar, for their many reciprocal affronts? Or was the greatest warrior of Greece disgraced, because he put up the threats of being cudgelled? Manners, I know, change with the times; but are they all equally commendable? Or is it unreasonable to enquire whether those of any times are agreeable to the dictates of true honour? This is not of a fickle or changeable nature: true honour does not depend on time, place or prejudice; it can neither be annihilated nor generated anew; but has its constant source in the heart of the virtuous man, and in the unalterable rules of his conduct. If the most enlightened, the most brave, the most virtuous people upon earth had no duels, I will venture to declare it not an institution of honour, but a horrid and savage custom worthy its barbarous origin. It remains for you to determine whether, when his own life or that of another is in question, a man of real honour is to be governed by the mode of the times, or if it be not a greater instance of his courage to despise than follow it. What do you think he would do in places where a contrary custom prevails? At Messina or Naples he would not challenge his man, but wait for him at the corner of a street, and stab him in the back. This is called bravery in those countries, where honour consists in killing your enemy, and not in being killed by him yourself. Beware then of confounding the sacred name of honour with that barbarous prejudice, which subjects every virtue to the decision of the sword, and is only adapted to make men daring villains! Will it be said this custom may be made use of as a supplement to the rules of probity? Wherever probity prevails, is not such a supplement useless? And what shall be said to the man who exposes his life, in order to be exempted from being virtuous? Do you not see that the crimes, which shame and a sense of honour have not prevented, are screened and multiplied by a false shame and the fear of reproach? It is this fear which makes men hypocrites and liars: it is this which makes them embrue their hands in the blood of their friends, for an indiscreet word, which should have been forgotten, for a merited reproach too severe to be borne. It is this which transforms the abused and fearful maid into an infernal fury: It is this which arms the hand of the mother against the tender fruit of——I shudder at the horrible idea, and give thanks at least to that being who searcheth the heart, that he hath banished far from mine a sense of that horrid honour, which inspires nothing but wickedness, and makes humanity tremble.
Look into yourself, therefore, and consider whether it be permitted you to make a deliberate attempt on the life of a man, and expose yours to satisfy a barbarous and fatal notion, which has no foundation in reason or nature. Consider whether the sad reflection of the blood spilt on such occasions can cease to cry out for vengeance on him who has spilt it. Do you know any crime equal to wilful murder? If humanity also be the basis of every virtue, what must be thought of the man, whose blood-thirsty and depraved disposition prompts him to seek the life of his fellow-creature? Do you remember what you have yourself said to me, against entering into foreign service? Have you forgot that a good citizen owes his life to his country, and has not a right to dispose of it, without the permission of its laws, and much less in direct opposition to them? O my friend, if you have a sincere regard for virtue, learn to pursue it in its own way, and not in the ways of the world. I will own some slight inconvenience may arise from it; but is the word virtue no more to you than an empty sound? and will you practise it only when it costs you no trouble? I will ask, however, in what will such inconvenience consist? In the whispers of a set of idle or wicked people, who seek only to amuse themselves with the misfortunes of others, and to have always some new tale to propagate. A pretty motive, truly, to engage men to cut each other's throats! If the philosopher and man of sense regulate their behaviour, on the most important occasions of life, by the idle talk of the multitude, to what purpose is all their parade of study, if they are at last no better than the vulgar? Dare you not sacrifice your resentment to duty, to esteem, to friendship, for fear it should be said you are afraid of death? Weigh well these circumstances, my good friend, and I am convinced you will find more cowardice in the fear of that reproach than in the fear of death. The braggard, the coward, would, at all hazards, pass for brave men.
Ma verace valor, ben che negletto,
E' di se stesso a fe freggio assai chiaro.
He, who affects to meet death without fear, is a liar. All men fear to die; it is a law with all sensible Beings, without which every species of mortals would soon be destroyed. This fear is the simple emotion of nature, and that not in itself indifferent, but just and conformable to the order of things. All that renders it shameful, or blameable, is, that it may sometimes prevent us from well doing, and the proper discharge of our duty. If cowardice were to no obstacle to virtue, it would never be vicious. Whoever is more attached to life than his duty, I own, cannot be truly virtuous; but can you, who pique yourself on your judgment, explain to me what sort of merit there is in braving death in order to be guilty of a crime?
What though it be true, that a man is despised who refuses to fight; which contempt is most to be feared, that of others for doing well, or that of ourselves for having acted ill? Believe me, he, who has a proper esteem for himself, is little sensible to the unjust reproach cast on him by others, and is only afraid of deserving it. Probity and virtue depend not on the opinion of the world, but on the nature of things; and though all mankind should approve of the action you are about, it would not be less shameful in itself. But it is a false notion, that to refrain from it, though a virtuous motive, would be bringing yourself into contempt. The virtuous man, whose whole life is irreproachable, and who never betrayed any marks of cowardice, will refuse to stain his hands with blood, and will be only the more respected for such refusal. Always ready to serve his country, to protect the weak, to discharge his duty on the most dangerous occasions, and to defend in every just and reasonable cause whatever is dear to him, at the hazard of his life, he displays throughout the whole of his conduct that unshaken fortitude, which is inseparable from true courage. Animated by the testimony of a good conscience, he appears undaunted; and neither flies from, nor seeks, his enemy. It is easily observed that he fears less to die than to act basely; that he dreads the crime, but not the danger. If at any time the mean prejudices of the world raise a clamour against him, the conduct of his whole life is his testimony, and every action is approved by a behaviour so uniformly irreproachable.
But do you know what makes this moderation so painful to the generality of men? It is the difficulty of supporting it with propriety. It is the necessity they lie under of never impeaching it by an unworthy action: for if the fear of doing ill does not restrain men in one case, why should it in another, where that restraint may be attributed to a more natural motive? Hence, it is plain, it does not proceed from virtue, but cowardice; and it is with justice that such scruples are laughed at, as appear only in cases of danger. Have you not observed that persons, captious and ready to affront others, are, for the most part, bad men, who, for fear of having the contempt in which they are universally held publicly exposed, endeavour to screen, by somehonourablequarrels, the infamy of their lives? Is it for you to imitate such wretches as these? Let us set aside men of a military profession, who fell their blood for pay, and who, unwilling to be degraded from their rank, calculate from their interest what they owe to their honour, and know to a shilling the value of their lives. Let us, my friend, leave these gentlemen to their fighting. Nothing is less honourable than that honour about which they make such a noise; and which is nothing more than an absurd custom, a false imitation of virtue, which prides itself in the greatest crimes. Your honour is not in the power of another: it depends on yourself, and not on the opinion of the world; its defence is neither in the sword nor the buckler, but in a life of integrity and virtue; a proof of greater courage than to brave death in a duel.——
On these principles you may reconcile the encomiums I have always bestowed on true valour, with the contempt I have as constantly expressed for the base pretenders to magnanimity. I admire men of spirit, and hate cowards; I would break with a pusillanimous lover, who should betray the want of a proper resolution in cases of danger, and think with all the rest of my sex, that the ardours of true courage heighten those of love. But, I would have such courage exerted only on lawful occasions, and not an idle parade made of it when it is unnecessary, as if there was some fear of not having it ready when it should be called for. There are cowards who will make one effort to exert their courage, that they may have a pretence to avoid danger the rest of their lives. True courage is more constant and less impetuous; it is always what it ought to be, and wants neither the spur nor the rein; the man of real magnanimity carries it always about him; in fighting he exerts it against his enemy; in company against back-biting and falsehood, and on a sick bed against the attacks of pain and the horrors of death. That fortitude of mind which inspires true courage is always exerted; it places virtue out of the reach of events, and does not consist in braving danger, but in not fearing it. Such, my friend, is the merit of that courage I have often commended, and which I would admire in you. All other pretences to bravery are wild, extravagant, and brutal; it is even cowardice to submit to them; and I despise as much the man who runs himself into needless danger, as him who turns his back on what he ought to encounter.
If I am not much mistaken, I have now made it clear, that, in this your quarrel with Lord B——, your own honour is not at all concerned; that you are going to compromise mine by drawing your sword to avenge it; that such conduct is neither just, reasonable, nor lawful; that it by no means agrees with the sentiments you profess, but belongs only to bad men, who make use of their courage as a supplement to virtues they do not possess, or to officers that fight not for honour but interest; that there is more true courage in despising than adopting it, that the inconveniences to which you expose yourself by rejecting it are inseparable from the practice of our duty, and are more apparent than real; in fine, that men who are the most ready to recur to the sword, are always those of the most suspicious characters. From all which I conclude, that you cannot either give or accept a challenge on this occasion, without giving up at once the cause of reason, virtue, honour, and Eloisa. Canvas my arguments as you please, heap sophism on sophism, as you will, it will be always found that a man of true courage is not a coward, and that a man of virtue cannot be without honour. And I think I have demonstrated as clearly that a man of true courage despises, and a man of virtue abhors, duelling.
I thought proper, my friend, in so serious and important an affair, to speak to you only in the plain language of reason, and to represent things simply as they are. If I would have described them as they appear to me, and engaged the passions and humanity in the cause, I should have addressed you in a different stile. You know that my father had the misfortune, in his youth, to kill his antagonist in a duel: that antagonist was his friend; they fought with regret, but were obliged to it by that absurd notion of a point of honour. That fatal blow which deprived the one of life, robbed the other of his piece of mind for ever. From that time has the most cruel remorse incessantly preyed on his heart; he is often heard to sigh and weep in private: his imagination still represents to him the fatal steel pushed by his cruel hand into the breast of the man he loved; his slumbers are disturbed by the appearances of his pale and bleeding friend: he looks with terror on the mortal wound; he endeavours to stop the blood that flows from it; he is seized with horror, and cries out, will this corpse never cease pursuing me? It is five years since he lost the only support of his name, and hope of his family; since when, he has reproached himself with his death, as a just judgment from heaven, which avenged on him the loss of that unhappy father, whom he deprived of an only son.
I must confess that all this, added to my natural aversion to cruelty, fills me with such horror at duels, that I regard them as instances of the lowest degree of brutality into which mankind can possibly descend. I look upon those, who go chearfully to a duel, in no other light than as wild beasts going to tear each other to pieces; and, if there remains the least sentiment of humanity within them, I think the murdered less to be pitied than the murderer. Observe those men who are accustomed to this horrid practice; they only brave remorse by stifling the voice of nature; they grow by degrees cruel and insensible; they sport with the lives of others, and their punishment for having turned a deaf ear to humanity, is to lose at length every sense of it. How shocking must be such a situation? Is it possible you can desire to be like them? No, you were never made for such a state of detestable brutality: be careful of the first step that leads to it; your mind is yet undepraved and innocent: begin not to debase it, at the hazard of your life, by an attempt that has no virtue, a crime that has no temptation, and a point of honour founded only on absurdity.
I have said nothing to you of your Eloisa; she will be a gainer, no doubt, by leaving your heart to speak for her. One word, only one word, and I leave her to you. You have sometimes honoured me with the endearing name of wife; perhaps I ought at this time to bear that of mother. Will you leave me a widow before we are legally united?
P. S. I make use of an authority in this letter, which no prudent man ever resisted. If you refuse to submit to it, I have nothing farther to say to you: but think of it well before hand. Take a week's time for reflection, and to meditate on this important subject. It is not for any particular reason I demand this delay, but for my own pleasure. Remember, I make use only on this occasion of a right; which you yourself have given me over you, and which extends at least to what I now require.
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