(71.) It is said of gambling that it makes all ranks equal; but there is often such a strange disparity and such a vast, immense, and profound chasm between this and that condition, that it pains us to see such extremes meet together.[307] It is like discord in music, like colours which do not harmonise, like words that clash and jar on our ears, like those sounds and noises which make us shudder. In a word, it is a subversion of all order and decency. If any one tells me gambling is the custom throughout the whole western hemisphere, I reply that perhaps it is one of the reasons why we are considered barbarians in another part of the globe, and what the Eastern nations who travel this way particularly remark of us in their journals. I have not the smallest doubt that such an excessive familiarity appears to them as disgusting as their zombay[308] and their other prostrations seem to us incongruous.
(72.) An assembly of the provincial states or a parliament[309] meeting to discuss a very important matter of business, presents nothing so grave and serious as a table crowded with gamblers who play very high; a melancholic severity is depicted on every countenance; implacable towards one another, and irreconcilable enemies as long as they are together, they neither regard relationship, connections, birth, or social distinctions. Chance alone, that blind and stern divinity, presides over the assembly, and pronounces her opinions like a sovereign; people show their respect for her by remaining very silent, and by being more attentive than they are elsewhere. Every passion seems in abeyance for a while, to give way to one passion only, during which the courtier neither pretends to be gentle, fawning, polite, nor pious.
(73.) Even the smallest trace of their former condition seems utterly obliterated in those who have made their fortune by gambling; they lose sight of their equals, and associate only with persons of the highest rank. It is true that the fortune of the die or lansquenet[310] often puts them in the same place whence it took them.[311]
(74.) I am not surprised that there are gambling houses, like so many snares laid for human avarice; like abysses where many a manʼs money is engulphed and swallowed up without any hope of return; like frightful rocks against which the gamblers are thrown and perish; that certain men are sent forth to find out the precise time some person has landed with newly got prize-money, or who has gained a lawsuit which has brought him in a goodly sum, or who has received some presents, or who has had a very lucky run at play; what young man of family has just come into a large inheritance, or what desperate clerk will venture the monies of his office on the turn of a card. Truly cheating is villainous and rascally, but it is an old and well-known trade, and practised at all times by the men we call professional gamblers. They have a sign outside their doors, and this may be the inscription: “Here cheating is done fairly;” for I suppose they do not pretend to be blameless. Every one knows that if a man gambles in one of these houses he is certain to lose. What to me is unaccountable, is that there should always be as many fools as gamblers want, to make a living by them.
(75.) Thousands have been ruined by gambling, and yet they tell you very coolly they cannot do without it. What an idle excuse is this! Is there any violent and shameful passion in existence to which we cannot apply the same language? Would any one be allowed to say, he cannot live without stealing, murdering, or rushing into all kinds of excesses? It is allowable to gamble in a frightful manner, without intermission, shame, or limit; to have no other aim but the total ruin of your adversary; to be carried away by a desire for gain, thrown into despair by losing or consumed by avarice; to risk on the turn of a card or die your own future and that of your wife and children; or should we do without it yet? And are there not sometimes worse consequences than these at the gambling-table, when men are entirely stripped, obliged to do without clothes and food, and cannot provide these for their families?
I allow no one to be a knave, but I will allow a knave to play high, but not an honest man, for it is too silly to expose oneself to a heavy loss.[312]
(76.) There is but one sorrow which is lasting, and that is one produced by the loss of property; time, which alleviates all others, sharpens this; we feel it every moment during the course of our lives when we miss the fortune we have lost.
(77.) The man who spends his fortune without marrying his daughters, paying his debts, or lending it out on good security, may be well enough liked by every one except by his wife and children.
(78.) Neither the troubles, Zenobia,[313] which disturb your empire, nor the war which since the death of the king, your husband, you have so heroically maintained against a powerful nation, diminish your magnificence in the least. You have preferred the banks of the Euphrates to any other country for erecting a splendid building; the air is healthy and temperate, the situation delightful; a sacred wood shades it on the west; the Syrian gods, who sometimes visit the earth, could not choose a finer abode; the adjacent country is peopled with men who are constantly busy shaping and cutting, coming and going, rolling or carting away the timber of Mount Lebanon, brass and porphyry; the air rings with the noise of cranes and machinery; and that noise instils a hope in the breasts of those who pass that way to go to Arabia, that, on their return home, they may see that palace finished, with all the splendour you design to bestow on it before you, or the princes, your children, make it your dwelling. Spare nothing, great queen; make use of your gold and of the best workmanship of first-class artists;[314] let the Phidiasses and Zeuxisses[315] of your century display the utmost of their skill on your walls and ceilings; lay out expensive and delightful gardens, so enchanting that they do not seem created by the hand of man; exhaust your treasures and your energy in this incomparable edifice; and, after you have brought it to perfection, one of those herdsmen who dwell in the neighbouring sandy deserts of Palmyra, and who has enriched himself by farming the tolls of your rivers, will purchase one day, with ready money, this royal demesne, and add fresh embellishments to it, so as to render it more worthy of him and his fortune.[316]
(79.) This palace, this furniture, these gardens, those handsome waterworks charm you, and on first beholding such a delightful mansion, you cannot forbear expressing your opinion that its owner ought to be superlatively happy. He is no more, and he never enjoyed it so pleasantly and so quietly as you did; he never knew a cheerful day or a quiet night; he sunk beneath the debts he contracted in adorning it with those beauties which so delight you. His creditors drove him from it, and then he turned round his head and looked upon it for the last time; this affected him so much that it caused his death.[317]