The decline of duelling

‘The decline of duelling has ruined more private lives than I care to think of — in my young day nobody’d have dared tittle-tattle the way they do now. Horse-whipping journalists has gone out too.’


Mr American, p.521, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, journalist.

Art criticism the Flashman way

‘In my youth, if a lady of quality had expressed her opinion* — as she has a perfect right to do — d’you think she’d have been dragged before a magistrate? Certainly not! She’d have been sent down to the country for a rest, her father would have bought the damned painting, her brother would have horse whipped the artist and that’d be that!’


* i.e. Attacking a painting with a meat cleaver (Speedicut)


Mr American, p.391, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, youth.