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Although all the motives of human action have long been known-- although psychology, or the science of soul and sentiment, has ceased to present us with any new facts--it is quite certain that our edifice of Morals is not quite built up. We may rest assured that as long as intellectual man exists the problem will be considered unsolved, and the question will be agitated. Future generations will destroy what we establish, and will fashion a something according to their advancement, and so on; for if there be a term which, of all others, should be expunged from the dictionaries of all human beings, it seems to be Lord Russell's word finality. Something new will always be wanted. 'Sensation' is the very life of humanity; it is motion--the reverse of 'death'--which we all abhor.

The gamester lives only for the 'sensation' of gambling. Menage tells us of a gamester who declared that he had never seen any luminary above the horizon but the moon. Saint Evremond, writing to the Count de Grammont, says--'You play from morning to night, or rather from night to morning. All the rays of the gamester's existence terminate in play; it is on this centre that his very existence depends. He enjoys not an hour of calm or serenity. During the day he longs for night, and during the night he dreads the return of day.'

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Being always pre-occupied, gamesters are subject to a ridiculous absence of mind. Tacitus tells us that the Emperor Vitellius was so torpid that he would have forgotten he was a prince unless people had reminded him of it from time to time.[8] Many gamesters have forgotten that they were husbands and fathers. During play some one said that the government were about to levy a tax on bachelors. 'Then I shall be ruined!' exclaimed one of the players absorbed in the game. 'Why, man, you have a wife and five children,' said the speaker.

[8] Tanta torpedo invaserat animum Vitellii, ut si principem eum fuisse non meminissent, ipse oblivisceretur. Hist., lib. iii.

This infatuation may be simply ridiculous; but it has also a horrible aspect. A distracted wife has rushed to the gambling table, imploring her husband, who had for two entire days been engaged at play, to return to his home.

'Only let me stay one moment longer--only one moment. . . . . I shall return perhaps the day after to-morrow,' he stammered out to the wretched woman, who retired. Alas! he returned sooner than he had promised. His wife was in bed, holding the last of her children to her breast.

'Get up, madam,' said the ruined gambler, 'the bed on which you lie belongs to us no longer!' . . .

When the gamester is fortunate, he enjoys his success elsewhere; to his home he brings only consternation.

A wife had received the most solemn promise from her husband that he would gamble no more. One night, however, he slunk out of bed, rushed to the gambling table, and lost all the money he had with him. He tried to borrow more, but was refused. He went home. His wife had taken the precaution to lock the drawer that contained their last money. Vain obstacle! The madman broke it open, carried off two thousand crowns--to take his revenge, as he said, but in reality to lose the whole as before.

But it is to the gambling room that we must go to behold the progress of the terrible drama--the ebb and flow of opposite movements--the shocks of alternate hope and fear, infinitely varied in the countenance, not only of the actors, but also of the spectators. What is visible, however, is nothing in comparison to the secret agony. It is in his heart that the tempest roars most fiercely.

Two players once exhibited their rage, the one by a mournful silence, the other by repeated imprecations. The latter, shocked at the sang-froid of his neighbour, reproached him for enduring, without complaint, such losses one after the other. 'Look here!' said the other, uncovering his breast and displaying it all bloody with lacerations.

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