Vienna.
So the fate of poor —— is finally decided, and he now finds, that to
be ruined is not a matter of so much indifference as he once imagined.
I neither see the possibility of his extricating himself from his
present difficulties, nor in what manner he will be able to support
them. Accustomed to every luxuriant indulgence, how can he bear the
inconveniencies of poverty?—Dissipated and inattentive from his
childhood, how can he make any exertion for himself?—His good-humour,
genteel figure, and pliant disposition, made him well received by
all.—While he formed no expectations from their friendship, his company
seemed particularly acceptable to some who are at present in power:
Whether it will be equally so now, when he has nothing else to depend
on, is to be tried. And I really think it as well for him that it be
tried now, as five or six years hence.
This calamity has been long foreseen.—There seemed to be almost a
necessity that it should happen sooner or later; for he had neither
caution, plan, nor object in his gaming.—He continued it from habit
alone. Of all mankind, he was the least covetous of excessive wealth;
and exclusive of gaming, he always lived within his income, not from a
desire of saving money, but merely because he had no taste for great
expence.—How often have we seen him lose immense sums to those who could
never have paid the half, had he happened to win it; and to some of whom
he had lent the money which enabled them to stake against him?
There are many careless young men of great fortunes, who game in the same
style, and from no other motives than those of our unhappy friend.—What
is the consequence?—The money circulates for a while among them, but
remains finally with persons of a very different character.—I shall not
suppose that any of the very fortunate gamesters we have been acquainted
with, have used those means to correct fortune which are generally
reckoned fraudulent. I am fully persuaded, they are seldomer practised in
the clubs in London, than in any other gaming societies in the world.—Let
all slight of hand, and every species of downright sharping, be put out
of the question; but still we may suppose, that among a great number
of careless inattentive people of fortune, a few wary, cool and shrewd
men are mingled, who know how to conceal real caution and design under
apparent inattention and gaiety of manner;—who have a perfect command
of themselves, push their luck when fortune smiles, and refrain when she
changes her disposition;—who have calculated the chances, and understand
every game where judgment is required.
If there are such men, is not the probability of winning infinitely in
their favour?—Does it not amount to almost as great a certainty, as if
they had actually loaded the dice or packed the cards?—I know you live in
the habit of intimacy with some who answer to the above description; and
I have heard you say, that however fortunate they may have been, you were
fully convinced that nothing can be fairer than their manner of playing.
I accuse them of taking no other advantages than those above mentioned;
but I appeal to your own experience,—pray recollect, and I am greatly
mistaken, if you will not find, that by far the greater part of those
who have made fortunes by play, and have kept them when made, are men of
cool, cautious, shrewd, and selfish characters.
If any of these very fortunate people were brought to a trial, and
examined by what means they had accumulated such sums, while so many
others had entirely lost, or greatly impaired their fortunes (if the
word esprit be allowed to imply that artful superiority which belongs to
their characters), they might answer in the words of the wife of Concini
Marechal d’Ancre, when she was asked what charm she had made use of to
fascinate the mind of the Queen?—De l’ascendant, she replied, qu’un
esprit superieur a toujours sur des esprits foibles.—Certainly there can
be no greater weakness, than for a man of independent fortune to game
in such a manner as to risk losing it, for the chance of doubling or
tripling his income: because the additional happiness arising from any
supposable addition of wealth, can never be within a thousand degrees so
great, as the misery which would be the consequence of his being stripped
of his original fortune.
This consideration alone, one would imagine, might be sufficient to deter
any reasonable man from a conduct so weak and absurd: yet there are other
considerations which give much additional weight to the argument;—the
dismal effects which the continued practice of gaming has sometimes
been observed to produce in the disposition of the mind, and the most
essential parts of the character, destroying every idea of œconomy,
engrossing the whole time, undermining the best principles, perverting
the qualities of the heart, rendering men callous to the ruin of
acquaintances, and partakers, with a savage insensibility, in the spoils
of their unwary friends.
The peculiar instances with which you and I are acquainted, where the
long-continued habit of deep play has had no such effects, are proofs of
the rooted honour and integrity of certain individuals, and may serve as
exceptions to a general rule, but cannot be urged as arguments against
the usual tendency of gaming. If men of fortune and character adopted
the practice of gaming upon any principle of reasoning, there might be
a greater probability of their being reasoned out of it: but most of
them begin to game, not with any view or fixed plan of increasing their
wealth, but merely as a fashionable amusement, or perhaps by way of
showing the liberality of their spirit, and their contempt for money.
I would not be very positive, that some of them have not mistaken for
admiration that surprise which is expressed when any person has lost an
immense sum. And this mistake may have given them less repugnance to the
idea of becoming the objects of admiration in the same day. Afterwards
endeavouring to win back what they had so idly lost, the habit has
grown by degrees, and at length has become their sole resource from the
weariness which those born to great fortunes, and who have not early
in life acquired some faculty of amusing themselves, are more prone to
fall into than others. Men born to no such expectations, whatever their
natural dispositions may be, are continually roused from indolence by
avocations which admit of no delay. The pursuit of that independence, for
which almost every human bosom sighs, and whose value is unknown only
to those who have always possessed it, is thought a necessary, and is
often sound, an agreeable employment to the generality of mankind. This,
with the other duties of life, is sufficient to engross their time and
thoughts, and guard them from _the pains and penalties of idleness_.
As the pursuit of wealth is superfluous in men of rank and fortune, so it
would be unbecoming their situation. Being deprived of this, which is so
great an object and resource to the rest of mankind, they stand in more
need of something to supply its place. I know of nothing which can so
completely, and with so much propriety, have this effect, as a taste for
letters and love of science. I therefore think these are more essentially
necessary to the happiness of people of high rank and great fortune, than
to those in confined circumstances.
If independence be desired with universal ardour by mankind, the road
of science is neither the most certain, nor the shortest way to attain
it. But those who are already in possession of this, have infinite need
of the other to teach them to enjoy their independence with dignity and
satisfaction, and to prevent the gifts of fortune from becoming sources
of misery instead of happiness. If they are ambitious, the cultivation
of letters, by adorning their minds, and enlarging their faculties, will
facilitate their plans, and render them more fit for the high situations
to which they aspire. If they are devoid of ambition, they have still
more occasion for some of the pursuits of science, as resources against
the languor of retired or inactive life.—Quod si non hic tantus fructus
ostenderetur, et si ex his studiis delectatio sola peteretur; tamen,
ut opinor, hanc animi remissionem, humanissimam ac liberalissimam
judicaretis.
This love of letters considered merely as an amusement, and to fill up
agreeably the vacant hours of life, I believe to be more essentially
necessary to men of great fortune than to those who have none;—to men
without ambition, than to those who are animated by that active passion;
and to the generality of Englishmen more than to the natives of either
Germany or France.—The Germans require very little variety. They can
bear the languid uniformity of life always with patience, and often with
satisfaction. They display an equanimity under disgust that is quite
astonishing.—The French, though not so celebrated for patience, are of
all mankind the least liable to despondence. Public affairs, so apt to
disturb the repose of many worshipful citizens of London, never give a
Frenchman uneasiness. If the arms of France are successful, he rejoices
with all his heart;—if they are unfortunate, he laughs at the commanders
with all his soul. If his mistress is kind, he celebrates her goodness
and commends her taste;—if she is cruel, he derides her folly in the
arms of another.
No people ever were so fond of amusement, and so easily amused. It seems
to be the chief object of their lives, and they contrive to draw it
from a thousand sources, in which no other people ever thought it could
be found. I do not know where I met with the following lines; they are
natural and easy, and seem expressive of the conduct and sentiments of
the whole French nation.
M’amuser n’importe comment,
Fait toute ma philosophie.
Je crois ne perdre aucun moment
Hors le moment où je m’ennuie;
Et je tiens ma tâche finie,
Pourvu qu’ainsi tout doucement;
Je me defasse de la vie.
Our countrymen who have applied to letters, have prosecuted every branch
of science as successfully as any of their neighbours. But those of
them who study mere amusement, independent of literature of any kind,
certainly have not been so happy in their researches as the French. Many
things which entertain the latter, seem frivolous and insipid to the
former. The English view objects through a darker medium. Less touched
than their neighbours with the gaieties, they are more affected by the
vexations of life, under which they are too ready to despond. They feel
their spirits flag with the repetition of scenes which at first were
thought agreeable. This stagnation of animal spirits, from whatever cause
it arises, becomes itself a cause of desperate resolutions, and debating
habits.
A man of fortune, therefore, who can acquire such a relish for science,
as will make him rank its pursuits among his amusements; has thereby
made an acquisition of more importance to his happiness, than if he
had acquired another estate equal in value to his first. I am almost
convinced, that a taste of this kind is the only thing which can render
a man of fortune (especially if his fortune be very large) tolerably
independent and easy through life. Whichsoever of the roads of science
he loves to follow, his curiosity will continually be kept awake. An
inexhaustible variety of interesting objects will open to his view,—his
mind will be replenished with ideas,—and even when the pursuits of
ambition become insipid, he will still have antidotes against tædium, and
(other things being supposed equal) the best chance of passing agreeably
through life, that the uncertainty of human events allows to man.