But if I am to write a letter, let me begin, and not stand flourishing like a fencer at a fair.

Mr. Gladstone was no match for this great parliamentary fencer in irony, in wit, in sarcasm, and in bold attacks; but even in a House so fond of jokes as that of the Commons he commanded equal if not greater attention by his luminous statements of fact and the earnest solemnity of his manner.

He was not a fencer like Abélard, displaying wonderful dexterity in the use of sophistries, overwhelming adversaries by wit and sarcasm; arrogant and self-sufficient, and destroying rather than building up.

He is a fencer of language, that falsifies his blow and hits where he did not aim.

Its movements are as the sword-play of an alert, poised, well-knit, strong-wristed fencer with the rapier, in which the skill impresses one more than the force, while without the force the skill would be valueless, even hurtful, to its possessor.