"Approbation is expressed of the conduct of those who, having had the misfortune to give offense to, or injure or insult others, shall frankly explain, apologize, or offer redress for the same, or who, having received offense, shall cordially accept frank explanations or apologies for the same; or, if such apologies are refused to be made or accepted, shall submit the matter to the commanding officer; and, lastly, all officers and soldiers are acquitted of disgrace or disadvantage who, being willing to make or accept such redress, refuse to accept challenges, as they will only have acted as is suitable to the character of honourable men, and have done their duty as good soldiers who subject themselves to discipline" (Cited in Haldick, op. cit., p. 114). Baldick comments thusly:
"With surprising suddenness, these articles, which were recognized as constituting a British ‘Code of Honour,’ combined with the obvious determination of judges and juries to convict duellists of murder, the sarcasm of the Press, and the sheer pressure of public opinion, succeeded in suppressing duelling in Britain . . . the duel as a thriving, honoured and respected institution to all intents and purposes ceased to exist in Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century” (ibid).
148 A good recent example is provided by the heroes of timing who brought off the Great Train Robbery in England. On the regard held for them, see J. Gosling and D. Craig, The Great Train Robbery (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), PP- 173-75260
149 Persons differ according to how long they hold their breath for a continuous experience. Zealots and true believers seem to be inclined to stretch things out a bit, sustaining a span of ex-perience and enthusiasm where others would exhale and mark life off into different plays. Of course poets and the religious are wont to argue that if the individual compares the very considerable time he is slated to spend dead with the relatively brief time allowed him to strut and fret in this world, he might well find reason for viewing all of his life as a very fateful play of very short span, every second of which should fill him with anxiety about what is being used up. And in truth, our rather brief time is ticking away, but we seem only to hold our breath for seconds and minutes of it.
150 James Bond is given a fateful undertaking. He checks with his seniors at an exclusive club whose services he handles very firmly. James Bond takes a room at a plush hotel at a plush resort in a plush part of the world. James Bond makes the acquaintance of an unattainable girl and then rapidly makes the girl, after which he shows how coolly he can rise above her bedside murder. James Bond contests an opponent with cars, cards, ‘copters, pistols, swards, spear guns, ingenuity, discrimination of wines, judo, and verbal wit. James Bond snubs the man about to apply a hot iron. Etc.
151 There are of course great differences through time and across cultures regarding what persons will allow themselves to enjoy vicariously. I don’t think execution watching is now considered much of a privilege, but there is no doubt that it was once a neater example of thrills through vicarious participation. Thus in eighteenth-century England:
“The curiosity of men about death led intellectuals and >eople of fashion to be fascinated by the scaffold. Pepys was a requent spectator and Boswell, Johnson’s biographer, is said to have used his great gift for making friends with the famous to the Keeper of Newgate for no other purpose than to get good seats at hangings. On one occasion when he was able to ride to Tyburn with the condemned man he considered himself as fortunate as a modern sports fan with a couple of tickets for a world heavyweight fight. His pleasure was shared by Sir Joshua Reynolds riding in the coach beside him” (Atholl, op. at., p. 53).
152 J. Williams, “This Is My Country Too,” Part II, Holiday, September 1964, p. 80.
153 B. Berger, “The Sociology of Leisure: Some Suggestions,” Industrial Relations, 1, 2 (1962), p. 41. Yablonsky, op. ext., pp. 226-27, makes a similar point in a discussion of what he calls the “sociopathic hero.”
154 A. Cohen, Delinquent Boys (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1955 )> P- 140. Here it would hardly be possible to find a better example than the writer, Norman Mailer. His novels present scenes of fateful duties, character contests, and serious action; his essays expound and extol chance-taking, and apparently in his personal life he has exhibited a certain tendency to define everything from his marriages to his social encounters in terms of the language and structure of the fight game. Whatever the rewards and costs of life-orientation to gambles, he appears to have reaped them. In this fantasization of one’s own fife, Hemingway of course was the previous champ.
155 See, for example, J. Popplestone, “The Horseless Cowboys,“ Trans-Actions, May-June 1966.
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