life, nor understands the emotions, unless he is either a poet or a
Miss Nancy, and it is almost equally dangerous to marry either of
those.

Pray, do not be offended, my friends the poets, at being mentioned in
the same paragraph with a Miss Nancy, until you discover the exact
meaning of that effective term of opprobrium. A Miss Nancy is a poet
without genius, one who has a talent for discovering the fineness of
life, but who lacks the wit to keep his views from ridicule. It is not
a step of the seven-league boots between the sublime and the
ridiculous. Sometimes it is only an invisible step of the tiniest
patent-leathers.

I never could understand why a man who plays a good game of whist
should not know how to make love. There are so many points in common.
You can play a game of whist with only enough skill to keep your
partner's hands from your throat, or you can play it for all there is
in it.

Now I am not a whist-player. Ask those who have played with me, and
see the well-bred murder in their eyes as they remember their wrongs.
They will tell you that I can take all the tricks--not just the odd,
but three, four, and five tricks--yet I am not playing whist. I am
just winning the game, that is all. If my partner, in an unthinking
moment, says, "Let's win this game," we win it. But it is like saying
to the cab-driver, "You make that train." We make the train and say
nothing about taking off a wheel or two in the process. Once, after a
game of this kind, my partner said to me, "Allow me to congratulate
you upon a most brilliant game--of cards!"