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leagues, and not much more hearty infractions of them, as in tradrille. But in square games (she meant whist), all that is possible to be attained in card-playing is accomplished. There are the incentives of profit with honour, common to every species though the latter can be but very imperfectly enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a participator. But the parties in whist are spectators and principals too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not wanted. He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist abhors neutrality, or interests beyond its sphere. You glory in some surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold -or even an interested-bystander witnesses it, but because your partner sympathizes in the contingency. You win for two. You triumph for two. Two are exalted. Two again are mortified; which divides their disgrace, as the conjunction doubles (by taking off the invidiousness) your glories. Two losing to two are better reconciled, than one to one in that close butchery. The hostile feeling is weakened by multiplying the channels. War becomes a civil game. By such reasonings as these the old lady was accustomed to defend her favourite pastime.

No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at any game, where chance entered into the composition, for nothing. Chance, she would argue -and here again, admire the subtlety of her conclusion; chance is nothing, but where something else depends upon it. It is obvious that cannot be glory. What rational cause of exultation could it give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times

together by himself? or before spectators, where no stake was depending? Make a lottery of a hundred thousand tickets with but one fortunate number and what possible principle of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it gratify to gain that number as many times successively without a prize? Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in backgammon, where it was not played for money. She called it foolish, and those people idiots, who were taken with a lucky hit under such circumstances. Games of pure skill were as little to her fancy. Played for a stake, they were a mere system of over-reaching. Played for glory, they were a mere setting of one man's wit - his memory, or combination-faculty rather against another's; like a mock-engagement at a review, bloodless and profitless. She could not conceive a game wanting the sprightly infusion of chance, the handsome excuses of good fortune. Two people playing at chess in a corner of a room, whilst whist was stirring in the centre, would inspire her with insufferable horror and ennui. Those well-cut similitudes of Castles and Knights, the imagery of the board, she would argue, (and I think in this case justly) were entirely misplaced and senseless. Those hard-head contests can in no instance ally with the fancy. They reject form and colour. A pencil and dry slate (she used to say) were the proper arena for such combatants.

To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the bad passions, she would retort, that man is a gaming animal. He must be always trying to get the better in something or other:- that this passion can scarcely be more safely expended than

upon a game at cards: that cards are a temporary illusion; in truth, a mere drama; for we do but play at being mightily concerned, where a few idle. shillings are at stake, yet, during the illusion, we are as mightily concerned as those whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dreamfighting; much ado, great battling, and little bloodshed; mighty means for disproportioned ends: quite as diverting, and a great deal more innoxious, than many of those more serious games of life, which men play without esteeming them to be such.

With great deference to the old lady's judgment in these matters, I think I have experienced some moments in my life, when playing at cards for nothing has even been agreeable. When I am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a game at piquet for love with my cousin Bridget - Bridget Elia.

I grant there is something sneaking in it; but with a tooth-ache, or a sprained ankle, when you are subdued and humble, you are glad to put up with an inferior spring of action.

-

There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as sick whist.

I grant it is not the highest style of man I deprecate the manes of Sarah Battle- she lives not, alas! to whom I should apologise.

At such times, those terms which my old friend objected to, come in as something admissible. — I love to get a tierce or a quatorze, though they mean nothing. I am subdued to an inferior interest. Those shadows of winning amuse me.

That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted her) - (dare I tell thee, how foolish

I am?) I wished it might have lasted for ever, though we gained nothing, and lost nothing, though it was a mere shade of play: I would be content to go on in that idle folly for ever. The pipkin should be ever boiling, that was to prepare the gentle lenitive to my foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply after the game was over: and, as I do not much relish appliances, there it should ever bubble. Bridget and I should be ever playing.

POOR RELATIONS

POOR relation

is the most irrelevant

A thing in nature, a piece of impertinent

correspondency, an

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odious approximation, — a haunting conscience, a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noon-tide of our prosperity, - an unwelcome remembrancer, a perpetually recurring mortification, a drain on your purse, - a more intolerable dun upon your pride, drawback upon success, a rebuke to your rising, a stain in your blood, · eon, a rent in your garment,

a

a blot on your 'scutch

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a death's head

a lion in

at your banquet, — Agathocles' ́pot, Agathocles' pot, a Mordecai a Lazarus at your door, frog in your chamber, a mote in your eye,

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a fly in a triumph

in your gate, your path, a your ointment, to your enemy, an apology to your friends, the one thing not needful, the hail in harvest, — the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet.

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He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you "That is Mr. -." A rap, between famil

iarity and respect; that demands, and at the same time seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth smiling and embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and-draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner-timewhen the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have company-but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visitor's two children are accommodated at a side-table. He never cometh upon open days, when your wife says, with some complacency, "My dear, perhaps Mr. will drop in to-day." He remembereth birth-days- and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. He declareth against fish, the turbot being smallyet suffereth himself to be importuned into a slice, against his first resolution. He sticketh by the port - yet will be prevailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, or not civil enough, to him. The guests think" they have seen him before." Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part take him to be a -tide-waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity, he might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness, he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a friend; yet taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rent — yet 't is odds, from his garb and demeanour, that your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist

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