nd
trying to win his neighbour's money, then in four weeks he has wasted
twenty-four hours, and in one year he wastes thirteen days. Is there
any gain--mental, muscular, or nervous--from this unhappy pursuit? Not
one jot or tittle. Supposing that a weary man of science leaves his
laboratory in the evening, and wends his way homeward, the very thought
of the game of whist which awaits him is a kind of recuperative agency.
Whist is the true recreation of the man of science; and the astronomer
or mathematician or biologist goes calmly to rest with his mind at ease
after he has enjoyed his rubber. The most industrious of living
novelists and the most prolific of all modern writers was asked--so he
tells us in his autobiography--"How is it that your thirtieth book is
fresher than your first?" He made answer, "I eat very well, keep regular
hours, sleep ten hours a day, and never miss my three hours a day at
whist." These men of great brain derive benefit from their harmless
contests; the young men in the railway-carriages only waste brain-tissue
which they do nothing-to repair. A very beautiful writer who was an
extremely lazy man pictures his own lost days as arising before him and
saying, "I am thy Self; say, what didst thou to me?" That question may
well be asked by all the host of murdered days, but especially may it be
asked of those foolish beings who try to gain distinction by recklessly
losing money on the Turf or in gambling-saloons. A heart of stone might
be moved by seeing the precious time that is hurled to the limbo of lost
days in the vulgar pandemonium by the racecourse. A nice lad comes out
into the world after attaining his majority, and plunges into that
vortex of Hades. Reckon up the good he gets there. Does he gain health?
Alas, think of the crowd, the rank odours, the straining heart-beats!
Does he hear any wisdom? Listen to the hideous badinage, the wild bursts
of foul language from the betting-men, the mean, cunning drivel of the
gamblers, the shrill laughter of the horsey and unsexed women? Does the
youth make friends? Ah, yes! He makes friends who will cheat him at
betting, cheat him at horse-dealing, cheat him at gambling when the
orgies of the course are over, borrow money as long as he will lend, and
throw him over when he has parted with his last penny and his last rag
of self-respect. Those who can carry their minds back for twenty years
must remember the foolish young nobleman who sold a splendid