M. C. A. Hogarth (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} haikujaguar) wrote,@ 2008-04-16 13:34:00 |
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| Current mood: | ! |
| Entry tags: | fencing, humor, writing |
The Secret Thrust
I'm reading By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers and Olympic Champions, which dracosphynx sent me, and it's been delightful... I'm usually a slow reader of nonfiction, but this one's been pleasurable.
Anyway, there's a chapter on the mystique of the "secret thrust," the one winning move that will always get your opponent, wherein we hear of Egerton Castle, who wrote in the 1860s or so:
Castle lived by his pen, turning his hand to any topic from English bookplates to landscape gardening. He wrote plays for Sir Henry Irving, for nearly a decade was on the staff of the Saturday Review, and together with his wife, Agnes Sweetman, penned more than twenty historical romances, several of which became best-sellers. Some had splendid titles—his last, posthumous novel was Pamela Pounce: A Tale of Tempestuous Petticoats—and several drew upon his love of swordplay, one dealing explictly with the botte secrete. At the climax of his short story "The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust" its hero confronts the evil Todescan: "Never, for the smallest breathing-space, did the provost's terrible long blade release his own. He felt it gliding, seeking to bind, fiercely caressing; felt the deadly spring behind a tiger's crouch; felt the invincible, unknown thrust ready against his first weakening."
The book goes on to discuss whether the secret thrust described in this short story was actually very secretive, or even very effective... but as you can imagine, the rest of the discussion was totally lost on me.
Stardancer Home.
