wending; till at length, after infinite effort, the
two parties come into actual juxtaposition; and Thirty
stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his hand.

'Straightway the word "Fire!" is given, and they blow the
souls out of one another, and in place of sixty brisk useful
craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcases, which it must
bury, and anon shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel?
Busy as the devil is, not the smallest! They lived far
enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in so wide a
universe, there was even, unconsciously, by commerce, some
mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! their
governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one
another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads
shoot.' (Sartor Resartus.)

Positively, then, gentlemen, the game of battle must not, and shall not,
ultimately be played this way. But should it be played any way? Should
it, if not by your servants, be practised by yourselves? I think, yes.
Both history and human instinct seem alike to say, yes. All healthy men
like fighting, and like the sense of danger; all brave women like to
hear of their fighting, and of their facing danger. This is a fixed
instinct in the fine race of them; and I cannot help fancying that fair
fight is the best play for them, and that a tournament was a better game
than a steeple-chase. The time may perhaps come in France as well as
here, for universal hurdle-races and cricketing: but I do not think
universal 'crickets' will bring out the best qualities of the nobles of
either country. I use, in such question, the test which I have adopted,
of the connection of war with other arts; and I reflect how, as a
sculptor, I should feel, if I were asked to design a monument for a dead
knight, in Westminster abbey, with a carving of a bat at one end, and a
ball at the other. It may be the remains in me only of savage Gothic
prejudice; but I had rather carve it with a shield at one end, and a
sword at the other. And this, observe, with no reference whatever to any
story of duty done, or cause defended. Assume the knight merely to have
ridden out occasionally to fight his neighbour for exercise; assume him
even a soldier of fortune, and to have gained his bread, and filled his
purse, at the sword's point. Still, I feel as if it were, somehow,
grander and worthier in him to have made his bread by sword play than
a