courage in times of peace. And with every other brave people this
proof passes as the sign universal. But our homicides and our duels,
nearly all of them brought about in the name--even under the fear--of
courage, what effect have they had in giving us abroad our reputation
as a community? I ask myself the question, what if all the men who
have killed their personal enemies or been killed by them in Kentucky,
and if all the men who have killed their personal friends or been
killed by them in Kentucky, had spent their love of fighting and their
love of courage upon a monument to the Pioneers--such a monument as
stands nowhere else in the world, and might fitly stand in this State
to commemorate the winning of the West? Would the world think the
better or the worse of the Kentucky ideal of bravery?

"I had not meant to talk to you so long on this subject," I added, in
apology, "but I have been thinking of these things lately since I have
been so much in town."

"I am interested," said Georgiana; "but as I agree with you we need not
both speak." But she looked pained, and I sought to give a happier
turn to the conversation.

"There is only one duel I ever heard of that gave me any pleasure, and
that one never came off. A few years ago a Kentuckian wrote a
political satire on an Irishman in Illinois--wrote it as a widow. The
Irishman wished to fight. The widow offered to marry the Irishman, if
such a sacrifice would be accepted as satisfactory damages. The
Irishman sent a challenge, and the Kentuckian chose cavalry broadswords
of the largest size. He was a giant; he had the longest arms of any
man in Illinois; he could have mowed Erin down at a stroke like a green
milkweed; he had been trained in duelling with oak-trees. You never