For we know how we are all made.

Laws ought to be based upon the ascertained facts of our nature.

It would be a simple thing to make a duelling law which would stop duelling.
As things are now, the mother is never invited.

She submits to this; and without outward complaint, for she, too, is the vassal of custom, and custom requires her to conceal her pain when she learns the disastrous news that her son must go to the duelling-field, and by the powerful force that is lodged in habit and custom she is enabled to obey this trying requirement--a requirement which exacts a miracle of her, and gets it.

Last January a neighbor of ours who has a young son in the army was wakened by this youth at three o'clock one morning, and she sat up in bed and listened to his message: "I have come to tell you something, mother, which will distress you, but you must be good and brave, and bear it.