some of the virtues of the good gambler; his self-control, his courage
under misfortune, his modesty under the strain of success, his firmness,
his alertness, his general indifference to fate. Good lessons these,
all of them. If by the game we learn some of them our time on the green
earth has not been wasted. If we rise from the table having learned only
fretfulness and self-pity I fear it has been.

The grim Hall Porter taps at the door: "Number Five hundred billion and
twenty-eight, your boatman is waiting, sir."

So! is it time already? We pick up our counters. Of what use are they?
In the country the other side of the river they are no tender. The
blood-red for gold, and the pale-green for love, to whom shall we fling
them? Here is some poor beggar longing to play, let us give them to him
as we pass out. Poor devil! the game will amuse him--for a while.

Keep your powder dry, and trust in Providence, is the motto of the wise.
Wet powder could never be of any possible use to you. Dry, it may
be, WITH the help of Providence. We will call it Providence, it is a
prettier name than Chance--perhaps also a truer.

Another mistake we make when we reason out our lives is this: we
reason as though we were planning for reasonable creatures. It is a big
mistake. Well-meaning ladies and gentlemen make it when they picture
their ideal worlds. When marriage is reformed, and the social problem
solved, when poverty and war have been abolished by acclamation, and sin
and sorrow rescinded by an overwhelming parliamentary majority! Ah, then
the world will be worthy of our living in it. You need not wait, ladies
and gentlemen, so long as you think for that time. No social revolution
is needed, no slow education of the people is necessary. It would all
come about to-morrow, IF ONLY WE WERE REASONABLE CREATURES.

Imagine a world of reasonable beings! The Ten Commandments would be
unnecessary: no reasoning being sins, no reasoning creature makes
mistakes. There would be no rich men, for what reasonable man cares for
luxury and ostentation? There would be no poor: that I should eat
enough for two while my brother in the next street, as good a man as I,
starves, is not reasonable. There would be no difference of opinion on
any two points: there is only one reason. You, dear Reader, would find,
that on all subjects you were of the same opinion as I. No novels would
be written, no plays performed; the lives of reasonable creatures do
not