“[His reply to the chairman's other stock question, which had previously never failed to embarrass the claimant: "Tell me, Mr. Strachey, what would you do if you saw a German soldier trying to violate your sister?" With an air of noble virtue:] "I would try to get between them."”

—  Lytton Strachey

Reported in Robert Graves Good-bye to All That (1929), ch. 23.
Said during the First World War to a military tribunal assessing his claim to be treated as a conscientious objector. Variants along the lines of "I should try to interpose my body" are also sometimes quoted.

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Lytton Strachey 11
British writer 1880–1932

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