 It will scarcely put the man of delicate make and petty stature
upon a level with the athletic pugilist; and, if it did in some measure secure
me against the malice of a single adversary, still my person and my life, so far
as mere force is concerned, would always be at the mercy of two. Farther than
immediate defence against actual violence it could never be of use to me. The
man who can deliberately meet his adversary for the purpose of exposing the
person of one or both of them to injury, tramples upon every principle of reason
and equity. Duelling is the vilest of all egotism, treating the public, which
has a claim to all my powers and exertions, as if it were nothing, and myself,
or rather an unintelligible chimera I annex to myself, as if it were entitled to
my exclusive attention. I am unable to cope with you: what then? Can that
circumstance dishonour me? No; I can only be dishonoured by perpetrating an
unjust action. My honour is in my own keeping, beyond the reach of all mankind.
Strike! I am passive. No injury that you can inflict shall provoke me to expose
you or myself to unnecessary evil. I refuse that; but I am not therefore
pusillanimous: when I refuse any danger or suffering by which the general good
may be promoted, then brand me for a coward!
    These reasonings, however simple and irresistible they must be found by a
dispassionate enquirer, are little reflected on by the world at large, and were
most of all uncongenial to the prejudices of Mr. Falkland. But the public
disgrace and chastisement that had been imposed upon him, intolerable as they
were to be recollected, were not the whole of the mischief that redounded to our
unfortunate patron from the transactions of that day. It was presently whispered
that he was no other than the murderer of his antagonist. This rumour was of too
much importance to the very continuance of his life, to justify its being
concealed from him. He heard it with inexpressible astonishment and horror; it
formed a dreadful addition to the load of intellectual anguish that already
oppressed him. No man had ever held his reputation more dear than Mr. Falkland;
and now in one day he was fallen under the most exquisite calamities, a
complicated personal insult, and the imputation of the foulest of crimes. He
might have fled; for no one was forward to proceed against a man so adored as
Mr. Falkland, or in revenge of one so universally execrated as Mr. Tyrrel. But
flight he disdained. In the mean time the affair was
