deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!
But I do not wish to be unjust; so let me remark that it may certainly
be said in defence of card-playing that it is a preparation for the
world and for business life, because one learns thereby how to make a
clever use of fortuitous but unalterable circumstances (cards, in this
case), and to get as much out of them as one can: and to do this a man
must learn a little dissimulation, and how to put a good face upon a
bad business. But, on the other hand, it is exactly for this reason
that card-playing is so demoralizing, since the whole object of it is
to employ every kind of trick and machination in order to win
what belongs to another. And a habit of this sort, learnt at the
card-table, strikes root and pushes its way into practical life; and
in the affairs of every day a man gradually comes to regard _meum_ and
_tuum_ in much the same light as cards, and to consider that he may
use to the utmost whatever advantages he possesses, so long as he does
not come within the arm of the law. Examples of what I mean are of
daily occurrence in mercantile life. Since, then, leisure is the
flower, or rather the fruit, of existence, as it puts a man into
possession of himself, those are happy indeed who possess something
real in themselves. But what do you get from most people's
leisure?--only a good-for-nothing fellow, who is terribly bored and a
burden to himself. Let us, therefore, rejoice, dear brethren, for _we
are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free_.

[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--Card-playing to this extent is now,
no doubt, a thing of the past, at any rate amongst the nations
of northern Europe. The present fashion is rather in favor of a
dilettante interest in art or literature.]

Further, as no land is so well off as that which requires few imports,