Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General

by Charles James Lever

It would be sufficient to point to the age when Whist was most in vogue, to show that it flavoured a society second to none in agreeability; and who were the players? The most eminent divines, the greatest ministers, the most profound jurists, the most subtle diplomatists. What an influence a game so abounding in intellectual teaching must have exercised on the society where it prevailed, can scarcely be computed. Blackstone has a very remarkable passage on the great social effect produced upon the Romans by their popular games; and he goes so far as to say that society imbibes a vast amount of those conventionalities which form its laws, from an Tin-conscious imitation of the rules which govern its pastimes. Take our own time, and I ask with confidence, should we find such want of purpose as our public men exhibit, such uncertainty, such feebleness, and such defective allegiance to party, in a whist-playing age? Would men be so ready as we see them to renounce their principles, if they bore fresh in their mind all the obloquy that follows “a revoke”? Would they misquote their statistics in face of the shame that attends on “a false score”? Would they be so ready to assert what they know they must retract, if they had a recent recollection of being called on “to take down the honours”?

Think, then, of the varied lessons—moral as well as mental—that the game instils; the caution, the reserve, the patient attention, the memory, the deep calculation of probabilities, embracing all the rules of evidence, the calm self-reliance, and the vigorous daring that shows when what seems even rashness may be the safest of all expedients. Imagine the daily practice of these gifts and faculties, and tell me, if you can, that he who exercises them can cease to employ them in his everyday life. You might as well assert that the practice of gymnastics neither develops the muscle nor increases strength.

I cannot believe a great public man to have attained a fall development of his power if he has not been a whist-player; and for a leader of the House, it is an absolute necessity. Take a glance for a moment at what goes on in Parliament in this non-whist age, and mark the consequences. Look in at an ordinary sitting of the House, and see how damaging to his party that unhappy man is, who will ask a question to-day which this day week would be unanswerable. What is that but “playing his card out of time”? See that other who rises to know if something be true; the unlucky “something” being the key-note to his party’s politics which he has thus disclosed. What is this but “showing his hand”? Hear that dreary blunderer, who has unwittingly contradicted what his chief has just asserted—“trumping,” as it were, “his partner’s trick.” Or that still more fatal wretch, who, rising at a wrong moment, has taken “the lead out of the hand” that could have won the game. I boldly ask, would there be one—even one—of these solecisms committed in an age when Whist was cultivated, and men were brought up in the knowledge and practice of the odd trick?

Look at the cleverness with which Lord Palmerston “forces the hand” of the Opposition. Watch the rapidity with which Lord Derby pounces upon the card Lord Russell has let drop, and “calls on him to play it.” And in the face of all this you will see scores of these bland whiskered creatures Leech gives us in ‘Punch,’ who, if asked, “Can they play?” answer with a contemptuous ha-ha laugh, “I rather think not.”

To the real player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand’s sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable advantage to the young man entering life, to be privileged to sit down in that little chosen coterie, where sages dropped words of wisdom, and brilliant men let fall those gems of wit that actually light up an era. By what other agency—through what fortuitous combination of events other than the game—could he hope to enjoy such companionship? How could he be thrown not merely into their society, but their actual intimacy?

It would be easy for me to illustrate the inestimable benefits of this situation, if we possessed what, to the scandal of our age, we do not possess—any statistics of Whist. Newspapers record the oldest inhabitant or the biggest gooseberry, but tell us nothing biographical of those who have illustrated the resources and extended the boundaries of this glorious game. We even look in vain for any mention of Whist in the lives of some of its first proficients. Take Cavour, for instance. Not one of his biographers has recorded his passion for Whist, and yet he was a good player: too venturous, perhaps—too dashing—but splendid with “a strong hand!” During all the sittings of the Paris Congress he played every night at the Jockey Club, and won very largely—some say above twenty thousand pounds.

The late Prince Metternich played well, but not brilliantly. It was a patient, cautious, back-game, and never fully developed till the last card was played. He grew easily tired too, and very seldom could sit out more than twelve or fourteen rubbers; unlike Talleyrand, who always arose from table, after perhaps twelve hours’ play, fresher and brighter than when he began. Lord Melbourne played well, but had moments of distraction, when he suffered the smaller interests of politics to interfere with his combinations. I single him out, however, as a graceful compliment to a party who have numbered few good players in their ranks; for certainly the Tories could quote folly ten to one whisters against the Whigs. The Whigs are too superficial, too crotchety, and too self-opinionated to be whist-players; and, worse than all, too distrustful. A Whig could never trust his partner—he could not for a moment disabuse himself of the notion that his colleague meant to outwit him. A Whig, too, would invariably try to win by something not perfectly legitimate; and, last of all, he would be incessantly appealing to the bystanders, and asking if he had not, even if egregiously beaten, played better than his opponents.

The late Cabinet of Lord Derby contained some good players. Two of the Secretaries of State were actually fine players, and one of them adds Whist to accomplishments which would have made their possessor an Admirable Crichton, if genius had not elevated him into a far loftier category than Crichtons belong to. Rechberg plays well, and likes his game; but he is in Whist, as are all Germans, a thorough pedant. I remember an incident of his whist-life sufficiently amusing in its way, though, in relation, the reader loses what to myself is certainly the whole pungency of the story: I mean the character and nature of the person who imparted the anecdote to me, and who is about the most perfect specimen of that self-possession, which we call coolness, the age we live in can boast of.

I own that, in a very varied and somewhat extensive experience of men in many countries, I never met with one who so completely fulfilled all the requisites of temper, manner, face, courage, and self-reliance, which make of a human being the most unabashable and unemotional creature that walks the earth.

I tell the story as nearly as I can as he related it to me. “I used to play a good deal with Rechberg,” said he, “and took pleasure in worrying him, for he was a great purist in his play, and was outraged with anything that could not be sustained by an authority. In fact, each game was followed by a discussion of full half an hour, to the intense mortification of the other players, though very amusing to me, and offering me large opportunity to irritate and plague the Austrian.