Goethe, Heine and Wilhelm von Humboldt did it, although not Wagner; Clemenceau did it on 22 different occasions; characters in Maupassant, Turgenev, Fontane and Schnitzler did it. In 19th-century Europe practically everyone was doing it, except the English. We are talking about fighting duels.

LRB 9 February 1995 | PDF Download