going to a doctor's shop and having him open a vein in the arm of each.
Just before they fainted from exhaustion they made signs that their
honor was satisfied, so the doctor tied up the veins. I see that you
don't believe it, but it's true."

"And why did they fight a duel in that way?"

"I give it up," I said, "unless it was in self-defence. We are a most
remarkable society of self-defenders. But if every man who fights in
Kentucky is merely engaged in warding off a murderous attack upon his
life, who does all the murderous attacking? You know the seal of our
commonwealth: two gentlemen in evening dress shaking hands and with one
voice declaring, 'United we stand, divided we fall.' So far as the
temper of our time goes, these two gentlemen might well be represented
as twenty paces apart, and as calling out, 'United, we stood; divided,
_you_ fall!' Killings and duels! Killings and duels! Do you think we
need these as proofs of courage? Do you suppose that the Kentuckians
of our day are braver than the pioneers? Do you suppose that any
people ever elevated its ideal of courage in the eyes of the world by
all the homicides and all the duels that it could count? There is only
one way in which any civilized people has ever done that, there is only
one way in which any civilized people has ever been able to impress the
world very deeply with a belief in the reality and the nobility of its
ideal of courage: it is by the warlike spirit of its men in times of
war, and by the peaceful spirit of its men in times of peace. Only,
you must add this: that when those times of peace have come on, and it
is no longer possible for such a people to realize its ideal of courage
in arms, it is nevertheless driven to express the ideal in other
ways--by monuments, arches, inscriptions, statues, literature,
pictures, all in honor of those of their countrymen who lived the ideal