The anecdote, by the way, is well known that Kinglake once sent a challenge, went off to Boulogne where the duel was to take place, waited there for days in vain, and, his adversary having failed to appear or to make any sort of response, returned to London in disgust. The point of this story, however, has never been revealed, and after so many years I think I can hardly be accused of indiscretion if I tell my readers the interesting detail that the adversary to whom Kinglake had sent his unanswered challenge was no less a personage than Louis Napoleon, afterwards the Emperor Napoleon III! I have this from Abraham Hayward, a very indiscreet friend of Kinglake's, who never appreciated the importance of the Oriental saying: "Speech is silver and silence is gold." For my part, I have often regretted having said too much, and never deplored having said too little. But to return to the serious aspect of the question. My brother, though he always strongly condemned the frivolity and light-mindedness with which the practice of duelling is treated in Germany, held the view that duels were an indispensable necessity where questions of honour are concerned. {189} "Can you imagine," he said to me one day in reply to a remonstrance in this connection, "that I could, for instance, allow some madman to attack with impunity your good name or that of our mother? How could I hesitate for a moment to send him a challenge?" "But you yourself say '_a madman_,'" I protested. "A madman is not responsible for his actions." "The line between madness and sanity," answered my brother, "is a very difficult one to determine. The punishment of certain misdeeds is necessary, not only for the culprit himself, but as a deterrent and precautionary measure, without which no civilised society can long exist in safety." My brother, indeed, was exceedingly keen on this subject, and really became quite an authority on the question of duelling. Not long before his death, when he was already very ill, General Mikoulin, who was publishing a book in this connection, came and asked my brother to give him some of his views, which he did at some length. "Why can we not publish your thoughts ourselves?" I protested, when Mikoulin had left the room; "why should you give them to someone else?" My brother smiled sadly. "Is it not all the same?" he asked. "As long as these views are propagated, what matter under whose name? Mikoulin is a staff-general, and I am sure he will do it well." Mikoulin, by the way, who published the book entirely according to what my brother had told him, was killed the other day, after many brilliant deeds. It seems to me that some of the opinions my {190} brother at various times expressed on this favourite theme, may be of interest to English readers. I will quote from some of his letters and articles.