What's particularly appalling is that it never would have occurred to Marsh to suggest that the killing temper was always lurking just beneath the skin of the English gentleman, despite the fact that at the time she was writing there were potentially people living who had childhood memories of a time when English gentlemen fought to the death over matters of honour.

Hah. I didn't think of duels, but I did wonder whether the same terms would have been applied to an English doctor, or whether they might only have shifted locales of prejudice—would he have had a fiery Scotch temper to explain it? A touch of the fighting Irish? (I almost used berserkergang to describe Marsh's portrayal of Te Pokiha and then thought, no, that's not fair to the Norse.)

That's a very well-stated sentence, by the way.

and never mind the fact that WASPs in New Orleans (and the rest of the South) were just as apt to duel as anyone else, and, given their preference for pistols, less likely to be satisfied by merely drawing blood.

I have read papers about Southern dueling culture. I should find where those were online.