第41章

Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of.Is it the wisest who is always the most successful? I think not.The luckiest whist-player I ever came across was a man who was never QUITE certain what were trumps, and whose most frequent observation during the game was "I really beg your pardon," addressed to his partner; a remark which generally elicited the reply, "Oh, don't apologize.All's well that ends well." The man I knew who made the most rapid fortune was a builder in the outskirts of Birmingham, who could not write his name, and who, for thirty years of his life, never went to bed sober.I do not say that forgetfulness of trumps should be cultivated by whist-players.I think my builder friend might have been even more successful had he learned to write his name, and had he occasionally--not overdoing it--enjoyed a sober evening.All I wish to impress is, that virtue is not the road to success--of the kind we are dealing with.We must find other reasons for being virtuous; maybe, there are some.The truth is, life is a gamble pure and simple, and the rules we lay down for success are akin to the infallible systems with which a certain class of idiot goes armed each season to Monte Carlo.We can play the game with coolness and judgment, decide when to plunge and when to stake small; but to think that wisdom will decide it, is to imagine that we have discovered the law of chance.Let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a smile, leaving our losings with a shrug.Perhaps that is why we have been summoned to the board and the cards dealt round: that we may learn some of the virtues of the good gambler; his self-control, his courage under misfortune, his modesty under the strain of success, his firmness, his alertness, his general indifference to fate.Good lessons these, all of them.If by the game we learn some of them our time on the green earth has not been wasted.If we rise from the table having learned only fretfulness and self-pity I fear it has been.

The grim Hall Porter taps at the door: "Number Five hundred billion and twenty-eight, your boatman is waiting, sir."So! is it time already? We pick up our counters.Of what use are they? In the country the other side of the river they are no tender.The blood-red for gold, and the pale-green for love, to whom shall we fling them? Here is some poor beggar longing to play, let us give them to him as we pass out.Poor devil! the game will amuse him--for a while.

Keep your powder dry, and trust in Providence, is the motto of the wise.Wet powder could never be of any possible use to you.Dry, it may be, WITH the help of Providence.We will call it Providence, it is a prettier name than Chance--perhaps also a truer.

Another mistake we make when we reason out our lives is this: we reason as though we were planning for reasonable creatures.It is a big mistake.Well-meaning ladies and gentlemen make it when they picture their ideal worlds.When marriage is reformed, and the social problem solved, when poverty and war have been abolished by acclamation, and sin and sorrow rescinded by an overwhelming parliamentary majority! Ah, then the world will be worthy of our living in it.You need not wait, ladies and gentlemen, so long as you think for that time.No social revolution is needed, no slow education of the people is necessary.It would all come about to-morrow, IF ONLY WE WERE REASONABLE CREATURES.

Imagine a world of reasonable beings! The Ten Commandments would be unnecessary: no reasoning being sins, no reasoning creature makes mistakes.There would be no rich men, for what reasonable man cares for luxury and ostentation? There would be no poor: that I should eat enough for two while my brother in the next street, as good a man as I, starves, is not reasonable.There would be no difference of opinion on any two points: there is only one reason.You, dear Reader, would find, that on all subjects you were of the same opinion as I.No novels would be written, no plays performed; the lives of reasonable creatures do not afford drama.No mad loves, no mad laughter, no scalding tears, no fierce unreasoning, brief-lived joys, no sorrows, no wild dreams--only reason, reason everywhere.

But for the present we remain unreasonable.If I eat this mayonnaise, drink this champagne, I shall suffer in my liver.Then, why do I eat it? Julia is a charming girl, amiable, wise, and witty; also she has a share in a brewery.Then, why does John marry Ann? who is short-tempered, to say the least of it, who, he feels, will not make him so good a house-wife, who has extravagant notions, who has no little fortune.There is something about Ann's chin that fascinates him--he could not explain to you what.On the whole, Julia is the better-looking of the two.But the more he thinks of Julia, the more he is drawn towards Ann.So Tom marries Julia and the brewery fails, and Julia, on a holiday, contracts rheumatic fever, and is a helpless invalid for life; while Ann comes in for ten thousand pounds left to her by an Australian uncle no one had ever heard of, I have been told of a young man, who chose his wife with excellent care.Said he to himself, very wisely, "In the selection of a wife a man cannot be too circumspect." He convinced himself that the girl was everything a helpmate should be.She had every virtue that could be expected in a woman, no faults, but such as are inseparable from a woman.Speaking practically, she was perfection.He married her, and found she was all he had thought her.Only one thing could he urge against her--that he did not like her.And that, of course, was not her fault.

How easy life would be did we know ourselves.Could we always be sure that tomorrow we should think as we do today.We fall in love during a summer holiday; she is fresh, delightful, altogether charming; the blood rushes to our head every time we think of her.