rraces, where
lounging parties come and go; and then the measured step of princely
equipages, in all the panoply of tasteful wealth! Truly, Vice wears its
holiday suit in Baden, and the fairness of this lovely valley seems to
throw a softened light over a scene where, as in a sea, the stormy waves
of every bad passion are warring.

When, in all the buoyant glow of youth and health, I remembered feeling
shocked, as I strolled through the promenade at Carlsbad, at the sight
of so many painful objects of sickness and suffering; the eager, almost
agonising, expressions of hoping convalescence; the lustreless stare of
those past hope; the changeful looks of accompanying friends, who seemed
to read the fate of some dear one in the compassionate pity of those who
passed, were all sights that threw a chill, like death, over the warm
current of my blood. Yet never did this feeling convey the same intense
horror and disgust that I felt last night as I walked through the
Cursaal.

To pass from the mellow moonlight, dappling the pathway among the trees
and kissing the rippling stream, from the calm, mild air of a summer's
night, when every leaf lay sleeping and none save the nightingale kept
watch, into the glare and glitter of a gilded saloon, is somewhat trying
to the jarred nerves of sickness. But what was it to the sight of
that dense crowd around the play-table, where avarice, greed of gain,
recklessness, and despair are mingled, giving, even to faces of manly
vigour and openness, expressions of low cunning and vulgar meaning?
There is a terrible sameness in the gambler's look, a blending of
slavish terror with a resolution to brave the worst, almost demoniacal
in its fierceness. I knew most of the persons present; I need not
say, not personally, but from having seen them before at various other
similar places. Many were professed gamblers, men who starved and
suffered for the enjoyment of that one passion, living on the smallest
gain, and never venturing a stake beyond what daily life demanded;
haggard, sad, wretched-looking creatures they were, the abject poverty
of their dress and appearance vouching that this _metier_ was not a
prosperous one. Others farmed out their talents, and played for those
who were novices. These men have a singular existence; they exact a
mere per-centage on the winning, and are in great request among
elderly ladies, whose passion for play is modified by the fears of its
vicissitudes. Then there