I have always regarded Monte Carlo as an Influence for Good. It helps to keep so many young men off the Stock Exchange.
Let me guard against an obvious but unjust suspicion. These remarks are not uttered under the exhilarating effect of winning at the tables. Quite the contrary. It is the Bank that has broken the Man to-day at Monte Carlo. They are rather due to the chastening and thought-compelling influence of persistent1 loss, not altogether unbalanced by a well-cooked lunch at perhaps the best restaurant in any town of Europe. I have lost my little pile. The eight five-franc pieces which I annually2 devote out of my scanty3 store to the tutelary4 god of roulette have been snapped up, one after another, in breathless haste, by the sphinx-like croupiers, impassive priests of that rapacious5 deity6, and now I am sitting, cleaned out, by the edge of the terrace, on a brilliant, cloudless, February afternoon, looking across the zoned7 and belted bay towards the beautiful grey hills of Rocca-bruna and the gleaming white spit of Bordighera in the distance. 'Tis a modest tribute, my poor little forty francs. Surely the veriest puritan, the oiliest Chadband of them all, will allow a humble8 scribbler, at so cheap a yearly rate, to purchase wisdom, not unmixed with tolerance9, at the gilded10 shrine11 of Fors Fortuna!
For what a pother, after all, the unwise of this world are wont12 to make about one stranded13 gambling14-house, in a remote corner of Liguria! If they were in earnest or sincere, how small a matter they would think it! Of course, when I say so, hypocrisy15 holds up its hands in holy horror. But that is the way with the purveyors of mint, cumin, and anise; they raise a mighty16 hubbub17 over some unimportant detail—in order to feel their consciences clear when business compels them to rob the widow and the orphan18. In reality, though Monte Carlo is bad enough in its way—do I not pay it unwilling19 tribute myself twice a year out of the narrow resources of The Garret, Grub Street?—it is but a skin-deep surface symptom of a profound disease which attacks the heart and core in London and Paris. Compared with Panama, Argentines, British South Africans, and Liberators, Monte Carlo is a mole20 on the left ankle.
"The Devil's advocate!" you say. Well, well, so be it. The fact is, the supposed moral objection to gambling as such is a purely21 commercial objection of a commercial nation; and the reason so much importance is attached to it in certain places is because at that particular vice22 men are likely to lose their money. It is largely a fetish, like the sinfulness of cards, of dice23, of billiards24. Moreover, the objection is only to the kind of gambling. There is another kind, less open, at which you stand a better chance to win yourself, while other parties stand a better chance to lose; and that kind, which is played in great gambling-houses known as the Stock Exchange and the Bourse, is considered, morally speaking, as quite innocuous. Large fortunes are made at this other sort of gambling, which, of course, sanctifies and almost canonises it. Indeed, if you will note, you will find not only that the objection to gambling pure and simple is commonest in the most commercial countries, but also that even there it is commonest among the most commercial classes. The landed aristocracy, the military, and the labouring men have no objection to betting; nor have the Neapolitan lazzaroni, the Chinese coolies. It is the respectable English counting-house that discourages the vice, especially among the clerks, who are likely to make the till or the cheque-book rectify25 the little failures of their flutter on the Derby.
Observe how artificial is the whole mild out-cry: how absolutely it partakes of the nature of damning the sins you have no mind to! Here, on the terrace where I sit, and where ladies in needlessly costly26 robes are promenading27 up and down to exhibit their superfluous28 wealth ostentatiously to one another, my ear is continuously assailed29 by the constant ping, ping, ping of the pigeon-shooting, and my peace disturbed by the flapping death-agonies of those miserable30 victims. Yet how many times have you heard the tables at Monte Carlo denounced to once or never that you have heard a word said of the poor mangled31 pigeons? And why? Because nobody loses much money at pigeon-matches. That is legitimate32 sport, about as good and as bad as pheasant or partridge shooting—no better, no worse, in spite of artificial distinctions; and nobody (except the pigeons) has any interest in denouncing it. Legend has it at Monte Carlo, indeed, that when the proprietors33 of the Casino wished to take measures "pour attirer les Anglais" they held counsel with the wise men whether it was best to establish and endow an English church or a pigeon-shooting tournament. And the church was in a minority. Since then, I have heard more than one Anglican Bishop34 speak evil of the tables, but I have never heard one of them say a good word yet for the boxed and slaughtered35 pigeons.
Let me take a more striking because a less hackneyed case—one that still fewer people would think of. Everybody who visits Monte Carlo gets there, of course, by the P.L.M. If you know this coast at all you will know that P.L.M. is the curt36 and universal abbreviation for the Paris, Lyon, Méditerranée Railway Company—in all probability the most gigantic and wickedest monopoly on the face of this planet. Yet you never once heard a voice raised yet against the company as a company. Individual complaints get into the Times, of course, about the crowding of the train de luxe, the breach37 of faith as to places, and the discomforts38 of the journey; but never a glimmering39 conception seems to flit across the popular mind that here is a Colossal40 Wrong, compared to which Monte Carlo is but as a flea-bite to the Asiatic cholera41. This chartered abuse connects the three biggest towns in France—Paris, Lyon, Marseilles—and is absolutely without competitors. It can do as it likes; and it does it, regardless—I say "regardless," without qualification, because the P.L.M. regards nobody and nothing. Yet one hears of no righteous indignation, no uprising of the people in their angry thousands, no moral recognition of the monopoly as a Wicked Thing, to be fought tooth and nail, without quarter given. It probably causes a greater aggregate42 of human misery43 in a week than Monte Carlo in a century. Besides, the one is compulsory44, the other optional. You needn't risk a louis on the tables unless you choose, but, like it or lump it, if you're bound for Nice or Cannes or Mentone, you must open your mouth and shut your eyes and see what P.L.M. will send you. Our own railways, indeed, are by no means free from blame at the hands of the Democracy: the South-Eastern has not earned the eternal gratitude45 of its season-ticket holders46; the children of the Great Western do not rise up and call it blessed. (Except, indeed, in the most uncomplimentary sense of blessing47.) But the P.L.M. goes much further than these; and I have always held that the one solid argument for eternal punishment consists in the improbability that its Board of Directors will be permitted to go scot-free for ever after all their iniquities48.
I am not wholly joking. I mean the best part of it. Great monopolies that abuse their trust are far more dangerous enemies of public morals than an honest gambling-house at every corner. Monte Carlo as it stands is just a concentrated embodiment of all the evils of our anti-social system, and the tables are by far the least serious among them. It is an Influence for Good, because it mirrors our own world in all its naked, all its over-draped hideousness49. There it rears its meretricious50 head, that gaudy51 Palace of Sin, appropriately decked in its Haussmanesque architecture and its coquettish gardens, attracting to itself all the idle, all the vicious, all the rich, all the unworthy, from every corner of Europe and America. But Monte Carlo didn't make them; it only gathers to its bosom52 its own chosen children from the places where they are produced—from London, Paris, Brussels, New York, Berlin, St. Petersburg. The vices53 of our organisation54 begot55 these over-rich folk, begot their diamond-decked women, and their clipped French poodles with gold bangles spanning their aristocratic legs. These are the spawn56 of land-owning, of capitalism57, of military domination, of High Finance, of all the social ills that flesh is heir to. I feel as I pace the terrace in the broad Mediterranean58 sunshine, that I am here in the midst of the very best society Europe affords. That is to say, the very worst. The dukes and the money-lenders, the Jay Goulds and the Reinachs. The idlest, the cruellest: the hereditary59 drones, the successful blood-suckers. But to find fault with them only for trying to win one another's ill-gotten gold at a fair and open game of trente-et-quarante, with the odds60 against them, and then to say nothing about the way they came by it, is to make a needless fuss about a trifle of detail, while overlooking the weightiest moral problems of humanity.
Whoever allows red herrings like these to be trailed across the path of his moral consciousness, to the detriment61 of the scent62 which should lead him straight on to the lairs63 of gigantic evils, deserves little credit either for conscience or sagacity. My son, be wise. Strike at the root of the evil. Let Monte Carlo go, but keep a stern eye on London ground-rents.
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1 persistent | |
adj.坚持不懈的,执意的;持续的 | |
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2 annually | |
adv.一年一次,每年 | |
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3 scanty | |
adj.缺乏的,仅有的,节省的,狭小的,不够的 | |
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4 tutelary | |
adj.保护的;守护的 | |
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5 rapacious | |
adj.贪婪的,强夺的 | |
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6 deity | |
n.神,神性;被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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7 zoned | |
adj.划成区域的,束带的v.(飞机、汽车等)急速移动( zoom的现在分词 );(价格、费用等)急升,猛涨 | |
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8 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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9 tolerance | |
n.宽容;容忍,忍受;耐药力;公差 | |
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10 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
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11 shrine | |
n.圣地,神龛,庙;v.将...置于神龛内,把...奉为神圣 | |
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12 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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13 stranded | |
a.搁浅的,进退两难的 | |
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14 gambling | |
n.赌博;投机 | |
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15 hypocrisy | |
n.伪善,虚伪 | |
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16 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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17 hubbub | |
n.嘈杂;骚乱 | |
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18 orphan | |
n.孤儿;adj.无父母的 | |
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19 unwilling | |
adj.不情愿的 | |
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20 mole | |
n.胎块;痣;克分子 | |
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21 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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22 vice | |
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的 | |
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23 dice | |
n.骰子;vt.把(食物)切成小方块,冒险 | |
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24 billiards | |
n.台球 | |
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25 rectify | |
v.订正,矫正,改正 | |
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26 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
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27 promenading | |
v.兜风( promenade的现在分词 ) | |
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28 superfluous | |
adj.过多的,过剩的,多余的 | |
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29 assailed | |
v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 );困扰;质问;毅然应对 | |
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30 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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31 mangled | |
vt.乱砍(mangle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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32 legitimate | |
adj.合法的,合理的,合乎逻辑的;v.使合法 | |
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33 proprietors | |
n.所有人,业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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34 bishop | |
n.主教,(国际象棋)象 | |
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35 slaughtered | |
v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36 curt | |
adj.简短的,草率的 | |
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37 breach | |
n.违反,不履行;破裂;vt.冲破,攻破 | |
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38 discomforts | |
n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 );不愉快,苦恼 | |
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39 glimmering | |
n.微光,隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光,发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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40 colossal | |
adj.异常的,庞大的 | |
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41 cholera | |
n.霍乱 | |
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42 aggregate | |
adj.总计的,集合的;n.总数;v.合计;集合 | |
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43 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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44 compulsory | |
n.强制的,必修的;规定的,义务的 | |
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45 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
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46 holders | |
支持物( holder的名词复数 ); 持有者; (支票等)持有人; 支托(或握持)…之物 | |
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47 blessing | |
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿 | |
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48 iniquities | |
n.邪恶( iniquity的名词复数 );极不公正 | |
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49 hideousness | |
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50 meretricious | |
adj.华而不实的,俗艳的 | |
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51 gaudy | |
adj.华而不实的;俗丽的 | |
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52 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
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53 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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54 organisation | |
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休 | |
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55 begot | |
v.为…之生父( beget的过去式 );产生,引起 | |
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56 spawn | |
n.卵,产物,后代,结果;vt.产卵,种菌丝于,产生,造成;vi.产卵,大量生产 | |
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57 capitalism | |
n.资本主义 | |
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58 Mediterranean | |
adj.地中海的;地中海沿岸的 | |
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59 hereditary | |
adj.遗传的,遗传性的,可继承的,世袭的 | |
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60 odds | |
n.让步,机率,可能性,比率;胜败优劣之别 | |
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61 detriment | |
n.损害;损害物,造成损害的根源 | |
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62 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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63 lairs | |
n.(野兽的)巢穴,窝( lair的名词复数 );(人的)藏身处 | |
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