——
“With some unmeaning thing, that they call thought.”—Pope.
“Think, and die.”—Shakespeare.
Never think!
Unless you have some remarkably1 good reason for taking your own course, do as you are told. If your partner leads a small trump2, and you win the trick, return it at once:
“Gratia ab officio, quod mora tardat, abest.”
This is a much more simple and satisfactory plan than to proceed to think that he may have no more, or that the fourth player must hold major tenace over him; no one will admit more readily than I do that you are much the better player of the two, still, allow him to have some idea of the state of his own hand.
Don’t think whenever you see a card played that it is necessarily false.—“Nil sapienti? odiosius acumine nimio.”—Seneca.
[94]
As, on the whole, true cards are in the majority, you are more likely to be wrong than right, and the betting must be against you in the long run.
“My business and your own is not to inquire
Into such matters, but to mind our cue—
Which is to act as we are bid to do.”—Byron.
If you are blest with a sufficiently3 sharp eye to the left, you may occasionally know that a card is false, but knowledge acquired in that way I should not describe as thinking; I should use a quite different expression.
With the military gentleman who anathematized intellect I deeply sympathize. Profound thought about facts which have just taken place under your own eye is the bane of whist.
Why imitate Mark Twain’s fiery4 steed? Why, when it is your business to go on, “lean your head against something, and think?”
Whether you have seen a thing or not seen it, there can be no necessity for thought; recondite5 questions—such as whether the seven is the best of a suit of which all the others but the six are out, or whether a card is the twelfth or thirteenth—can be answered by a rational being in one of two ways, and two only; either he knows, or he does not know, there is no tertium quid; the curious practice of gazing intently at the chandelier and looking as intelligent as nature will permit—if not more so—though it is less confusing than going to the last trick for[95] information, and imposes upon some people, is no answer at all;[55] this, in whist circles, is called, or miscalled, thinking. It is not a new invention, for it has been known and practised from the earliest times. “There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes; and their eyelids6 are lifted up.”—Proverbs, chap. 30, verse 13, B.C. 1,000. Pecksniff, who had an extensive acquaintance with the weaknesses of human nature, knew it; you and all other schoolboys are adepts7 at it.
In Greek the very name of man—ανθρωπο?—was derived8 from this peculiar9 method of feigning10 intelligence, and it was by no means unknown to the Romans.
“Pronaque cum spectent animalia c?tera terram,
Os homini sublime11 dedit c?lumque tueri.”
But, however ancient and venerable the practice may be, it is one of those numerous practices more honoured in the breach12 than in the observance; surely, looking on the table is more in accordance with the dictates13 of common sense than attempting to eliminate unknown quantities from a chandelier. In the one you have gas and probably water; on the other—lying open before you—the data required. I have now endeavoured, not to teach you either whist or bumblepuppy, but to point out a few of the differences between them, and to start you on the right[96] road. The first is a game of reason and common sense, played in combination with your partner; the second is a game of inspiration, haphazard14, and absurdity15, where your partner is your deadliest enemy. I have made a few extracts from Mathews—partly because I do not like novelties merely because they are novelties—partly to convince the bumblepuppist (if anything will convince him) that when he tells me the recognised plan is a new invention, introduced by Cavendish for his especial annoyance16, he does not know what he is talking about; and partly to show you that since that book was written—eighty years ago—the main principles of Whist are almost unaltered.
The chapter on etiquette17 is since his time; but, although the game has been cut down one-half, take away from Mathews his slight partiality for sneakers—to be accounted for by the possibility of his partner at that remote period being even a more dangerous lunatic than yours is at present, and the consequent necessity for playing more on the defensive18 (for leading singletons, whatever else it may do, and however it may damage the firm, does not injure the leader)[56] take away from the play[97] of to-day its signal, its echo, and its penultimate of a long suit; (all excrescences of doubtful advantage for general purposes, and the last two more adapted to that antediluvian19 epoch20 when human life was longer)—and the continuity of the game is clear.[57] Whether Whist would gain anything by their omission21 I am unable to say; the attention, now always on the strain in looking for its accidents, would have a spare moment or two to devote to its essentials; whether it would do anything of the kind is another matter.
Those followers22 of Darwin and believers in the doctrine23 of evolution, to whom it is a source of comfort that an ascidian monad and not Eve was their first parent, must find the Whist table rather a stumbling block: they will there see uncommonly24 few specimens25 of the survival of the fittest. A cynic with whom I was once conversing26 on this subject, remarked that they were much more likely to come across the missing link.
The philosopher of Chelsea long since arrived at the unsatisfactory and sweeping27 conclusion, that the[98] population of these islands are mostly fools, and he has made no exception of the votaries28 of Whist. Still, it has the reputation of being a very pretty game, though this reputation must be based to a great extent on conjecture29; for apart from its other little peculiarities—on some of which I have briefly30 touched—its features are so fearfully disfigured by bumblepuppy, that it is as difficult to give a positive opinion as to say whether a woman suffering from malignant31 small-pox might or might not be good looking under happier circumstances. The sublime self-confidence expressed in the distich—
“When I see thee as thou art,
I’ll praise thee as I ought,”
has not been vouchsafed32 to me, but if ever I obtain a clear view of it, I will undertake to report upon it to the best of my ability.
You may have heard that if you are ignorant of Whist you are preparing for yourself a miserable33 old age: it is by no means certain that a knowledge of it—as practised at this particular period—is to be classed with the beatitudes.
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1
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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2
trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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6
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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7
adepts
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| n.专家，能手( adept的名词复数 ) | |
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8
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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9
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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feigning
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| 假装，伪装( feign的现在分词 )； 捏造（借口、理由等） | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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12
breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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13
dictates
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| n.命令，规定，要求( dictate的名词复数 )v.大声讲或读( dictate的第三人称单数 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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14
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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16
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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17
etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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18
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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antediluvian
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| adj.史前的，陈旧的 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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21
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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22
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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25
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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26
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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27
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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28
votaries
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| n.信徒( votary的名词复数 )；追随者；（天主教）修士；修女 | |
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29
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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30
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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31
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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32
vouchsafed
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| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的过去式和过去分词 )；允诺 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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