"Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr Collins and I will never see you again if you do; for I shall not have my best warrior resigned to the service of a man who is fatter than Buddha and duller than the edge of a learning sword".
Although alcohol abuse is a serious worldwide public health problem, and even light drinking can be detrimental in certain situations, one wonders why no reference was made to this potentially beneficial edge of a double-edged sword.
Correction: February 11 , 2001 Sunday A Bookend essay on Jan . 14 about the reading habits of American presidents, misstated the scope and original date of a book by Charles de Gaulle, "The Edge of the Sword".
Mann words it more strongly: "It's a double-edged sword, and we're about to see the other edge of that sword".
The lonely Nixon underscored this passage in de Gaulle's 1960 memoir, "The Edge of the Sword": "Great men of action have without exception possessed to a very high degree the faculty of withdrawing into themselves".
But those who refuse... will have nothing from us but the edge of the sword.
The Italians discovered the effectiveness of the dexterous use of the point rather than the edge of the sword.
"We indeed raided and captured the kāfirah (infidel) women, and drove them like sheep by the edge of the sword.
God advocates herem not just for Canaanite foes but for Israelite cities that have backslid into pagan practices: "You shall surely strike down the inhabitants of that town by the edge of the sword, putting it under the ban, it and everything in it, and its beasts, by the edge of the sword".
The article claims that Isis' bloody crusade to establish an Islamic State across Iraq and Syria is God's will, continuing: "By Allah, we brought it back by the edge of the sword, and we did not do so through pacifism, negotiations, democracy, or elections.
