be more
monstrous than the prevailing feeling about duelling a few years ago, as
I can well remember it in my young days. Why, duelling was at that time
the highroad to a reputation for courage, and the man who refused to
fight was frowned upon in good society, and in some places scouted from
it. And--I say it with the deepest shame--my own sex greatly helped to
keep up this feeling; for the man who had fought the most duels was,
with the ladies of his own neighbourhood, for the most part, an object
of special admiration and favour.

"And yet, what nobility or moral courage was there in the man who gave
or accepted the challenge? Just think of what the consequences might
be, and what the ground of the quarrel often was. A hasty word, or even
a mere thoughtless breach of etiquette, would bring a challenge; and the
person called out must not decline to meet his challenger, and give him
`satisfaction,' as it was called, in the shape of a pistol bullet, under
pain of being cut by all his friends and acquaintances as a coward. So
a man who was a husband and father would steal away from his home early
in the morning, and go out to some lonely spot and meet the man whom he
had offended, and be murdered in cold blood, and carried back a bleeding
corpse to his miserable widow and fatherless children, just because he
could not bear to be called a coward by the world. And to call this
`satisfaction!' The devil never palmed upon his poor deluded slaves a
more transparent lie.

"Just think of two men, for instance, who had been friends for years,
and in some unguarded moment had used intemperate language towards each
other. Their companions tell them that this is a matter for giving and
receiving satisfaction. So, in perfectly cold blood, with the most
ceremonious politeness, the time and place of meeting are fixed by the
seconds, who make all arrangements for their principals; and at the time
appointed these two men stand face to face, with no malice, it may be,
in either heart, feeling rather that there were faults on both sides,
and at any rate no more wrong done or intended than a little mutual
forbearance and concession might easily set right. And yet there they
stand; at a given signal aim each at the other's heart; and, if that aim
is true, each is murdered by his brother, and hurried in a moment red-
handed into the awful presence of his Maker and Judge. And this used to
be called `satisfaction,' and the man who