The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1893-01-17


Rousseau consumed days and nights in
close study in an attempt to master the
game of chess; but, though he perse-
vered in repeated endeavors they all
came to nothing, for as often as he sat
down to game all that he had learned
went out of his head. But such in
stances are exceptional, and in most
characters hard work, unrelieved by
competitive games is apt to produce.
ssQrooviness"-and superduous leisure,
stupidity. 1t is difficult to imagine q
young woman fond Of lawn tennis fall
ing a prey to the morbid self-conscious-
ness which consumed the Comtesse de
Senecterre, whom Tallemant des Reaux
describes as beautiful but very fool
ish woman. One of her fancies was to
have pillows of every size in her bed
even for her thumbs-for she prided
herself on her beautiful hands and
slept with them open, to keep the
Joints small. Athletes, it is true, are
peculiarly prone to vanity, but the form
that vice assumes in them is that of the
pride of life, by many degrees more
pardonable than the deliberate selt-love
Of Incidence.
It is a long descent from games which
exercise mind or body to those OF pure
chance, yet these have as firm a hold
upon human inclination as If they pos
sessed merit in themselves. No more
piteous impression can be made upon a
mind capable of reflection than is left
by visit to the tables at Monte Carlo
Hour after hour, day after day, year
after year, the same crowds gather
round them, blind to the beauty of sap
phire sea and glorious sunshine, con-
tent to swelter and scramble and
wrangle--for what? Well, they are
under thrall of one of two motives
two deplorable motives; one the lowest,
the other the saddest that can be con-
ceived. For the first is avarice-of all
lust the most obscene, of all passions
the most disastrous. Valor, self-devo-
ton, truth, humanity, may $50 complex
is human nature) coexist with much
that is evil in character, but avarice
taints the whole being; unlike other
desires, it is never satisfied, it is never
at rest; nothing sweet can flow from
the source which it has polluted Let
there be no mistake or palliation about
this: Avarice is the primary lure to the
Casino. Take away the gold and who
would be so childish as to play for
counters or sweetmeats? The other
and subsidiary motive which collects a
crowd round the tables is the desire OF
idle men to rid themselves of that most
precious possession-time-which, once
it is gone, can never be recalled, the
loss of which is ever the cause of fruit
less regret.
"Knowledge comes, but wisdom tar
ries;s but here even knowledge seems
to be set at contempt. Crowds OF edu-
Gated people, with ready access to all
the stores of knowledge laid up through
the laborious ages for present use, at
firm the contemplate creed of luck.
Never was there god so false, never
one before whom so many bowed the
knee in profound and ignorant faith.
1t would be lost labor to combat the
belief-almost universal and wholly in-
eradicable among gamblers-in an in
scrutable influence upon human occa-
sion, capable of being offended or
propitiated. 1t differs in no respect
from idolatry; for civilized, well edu-
GATED people behave just as the pagan
does in regard to the Great Spirit; the
souls of his ancestors, or the deifed
powers of nature It is, in fact, kind
of lusorial animism. Don't disappoint
your luck"-the gamblers cardinal
precept-implies the same dread of of
Tending powerful being, impatient OF
slight, as still moves the inhabitants OF
Tinnevelly, in Indo- China, to lay brandy
and cheroots on the grave Of a certain
British officer whom they hated and
feared on account of his tyrannical rule
over them, believing that his spirit can
only be kept from mischief by being
piled with the same little Injuries he
loved when alive 1.-THE Lord thy God
is a jealous Lordl'' is dogma not peculiar
to Jewish worship; it is the idea upper
most in all religions Blackwood's
Magazine