LETTER LXXXIX.

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.