“Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
and that as this could not apply to bumblepuppy, these passages only show that it was unknown when they were written.
Another argument of theirs against the antiquity of bumblepuppy, based on the passage “in all labour there is profit,” is altogether fallacious and unworthy of consideration; they admit the labour but deny the profit. This must have had its origin east of Temple Bar, where it is held there is no profit unless it assumes a pecuniary form. But the repressing your innate tendency to profane swearing, curbing your evil passions generally, and the cultivation—under considerable difficulties—of nearly all the cardinal virtues, as inuring to your moral well-being, are a profit of the most positive kind;[61] to be able to give a definite answer to the long-standing conundrum “is life worth living?” is something.
However, you can draw your own conclusion, the extract from Shakespeare is—I confess—difficult to get over, still, when Solomon makes use of these remarkable words “a time to lose and a time to cast away,” I fail to see what he could have had in his mind, unless it was this very game.
At any rate one thing is clear, bumblepuppy exists now, and is not a pretty game (there can be no two opinions about that); neither—judging from the demeanour and language of its exponents—is it a pleasant game. I append a hand, which is, I think, the finest specimen of it I ever saw. Judge for yourself. I had jotted down a few further remarks on this repulsive subject, but on reading them over, they seem to be not only inconsistent with that extreme reverence which is due to the young, but absolutely unfit for publication.
“Quod factu fœdum est, idem est et dictu turpe.”
R. I. P.
The two games are now before you, let me conclude the lecture with one more extract from my favourite classic.
Utrum horum mavis accipe.
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