Ολλυντων τε, και ολλυμενων.
"As you say gaming is an image of war, the sudden turns of success are easily discernible; the advances of victory or ill luck, make a strange revolution in the blood. The countenance takes its tincture from the chance, and appears in the colours of the prospect. With what anxiousness is the issue expected. You would think a jury of life and death was gone out upon them. The sentence for execution is not receiv'd with more concern, than the unlucky appearance of a cast or a card. Thus some people are miserably ruffled, and thrown off the hinges; they seem distress'd to an agony; you'd pity them for the meanness of their behaviour; others are no less foolishly pleas'd; break out with childish satisfaction, and bring the covetousness of their humour too much into view.
"Now since play is thus arbitrary over the passions, who would resign the repose of his mind, and the credit of his temper, to the mercy of chance? Who would stake his discretion upon such unnecessary hazards? And throw the dice, whether he should be in his wits or not?"
On Dolomedes, the other speaker in the dialogue, observing, that this does not always follow; that some people play without the least offensiveness or ruffle, and lose great sums with all the decency and indifference imaginable, the author, in the character of Callimachus, thus proceeds:
"Alas! this is often but a copy of the countenance: things are not so smooth within, as they seem without. Some people when they bleed inwardly have the art to conceal the anguish; and this is generally the most of the matter; but if they are really unconcern'd; if so heavy a blow brings no smart along with it, the case is still worse: these men have no sense of the value of money, they won't do the least penance for their folly, they have not so much as the guard of a remorse. This stoicism is the speediest dispatch to beggary; nothing can be more dangerous than such a stupid tranquillity. To be thus becalm'd presages Short allowance. This sedateness makes the man foolhardy, renew the combat, and venture a brush for the remainder; for he that can be beaten at his ease, and feels no pain upon a wound, will fight, most likely, as long as his legs will bear him.
"But this insensibleness is rarely met with: very few are proof against a shrewd chance to this degree. When misfortune strikes home, 'tis seldom decently receiv'd; their temper goes off with their money. For, according to the proverb, Qui perd le sien, perd le sens. And here one loss usually makes people desperate, and leads to another: and now the gentlemen of your function are extremely vigilant to improve the opportunity, and observe the current of the passions. You know very well when a man's head grows misty with ill luck, when the spleen comes over his understanding, and he has fretted himself off his guard, he is much the easier conquest: thus, when your bubbles are going down the hill, you manage accordingly, lend them a push, tho' their bones are broken at the bottom. But I forget myself; there's neither mercy nor justice in some people's business.
"To return: you know I may take it for granted, that your gaming sparks are horribly ruffled when things with a promising face sicken, and sink on the sudden, when they are surprizingly crossbitten, and success is snatch'd from their grasp; when this happens, which is not unfrequent, the spirits are up immediately, and they are a storm at the first blast: the train takes fire, and they kindle and flash at the touch like gunpowder. And when the passions are thus rampant, nothing is more common than oaths, and execrable language: when instead of blaming their own rashness, and disciplining their folly, they are cursing their stars, and raging against their fate. [347]
"These paroxysms of madness run sometimes so high, that you would think the Devil had seiz'd the organs of speech, and that they were possess'd in every syllable: and to finish farther, these hideous sallies are sometimes carry'd on to quarrelling and murther. The dice, it may be, are snatch'd too quick, the cast is disputed, the loading and legerdemain is discover'd.
"Jamque faces et saxa volant:—
Upon this, they run to arms, and after some artillery discharg'd in swearing, come to a close encounter. And thus one of them is run through the lungs, and left agonizing upon the place: or, as it happen'd not long since, the gamester is knocked down with a pint-pot, and his skull broken: he is forced to be trepan'd, and then relapsing into play and drinking, dies of a frenzy.