John Brougham on Gambling. I am not about to defend gambling, but to prove that all the world are gamblers. The most reckless ambler of all is the legislator, who spec niates on human interest, and often stakes national prosperity against some petty interest. Life itself is a game of chance. The very axiom, "Nothing is certain," disproves even the certainty of nothing being certain. The very machinery of the firmament is a sublime game of billiards, in which the stars are the balls, and the cues the centrifugal and centripetal forces. Every dinner is a game of chance it may choke you on the spot, or else you may never live to digest it. What matters it if a man be killed by an active mad bull or a bit of passive beef? But gambling reaches its climax in marriage. Rouge et noir is never so dangerous as when they represent the cheeks and eyes of beauty. Marriage is dipping in the lucky bag in which, out of a hundred, ninety-nine are snakes to one eel. Even agriculture is gambling; it is risking one potato in that great faro bank (the earth) to gain a bushel. Grains of wheat are dice, and the farmer who reaps a good harvest is an enormous gambler. Commerce comes under the same penalty-every mercantile firm is illegal, whether it gains or loses. Even the drama is a gambler. What manager can be sure that his new tragedy may not be a broad farce, and kill half the audience with laughter? On Whipping Children. If there is one of you here, said Col. Ingersoll, who ever expect to whip your child again, let me ask you something. Have your photograph taken at the time, and let it show your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes swimming in tears. If that little child should die, I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn afternoon than to take that photograph and go to the cemetery, where the maples are clad in tender gold, and when little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth; and sit down upon that mound, I look upon that photograph, and think of the flesh, made dust, that you beat. Just think of it. I could not bear to die in the arms of a child that I had whipped. I could not bear to feel upon my lips, when they are withering beneath the touch of death, the kiss of one that I had struck. Stanley Huntley's Story of Affection. Husband (traveling).-Scene I-Room in hotel. Spittoon full of cigar stumps. Bourbon whisky. All hands equipped for a night's spree. Husband in a hurry to be off, writing home: DEAREST SUSIE: My time is so occupied with business that I can hardly spare a moment to write to you. Oh ! darling, how I miss you! and the only thing that sustains me during my absence is the thought that every moment thus spent is for the benefit of my dear wife and children. Take good care of yourself, my dear. Feed the baby on one cow's milk. Excuse haste, etc. Wife (at home).-Scene II-Parlor. All the gas lit. Thir teen grass-widows; Fred, from around the corner, with his violin; Jim from across the way, with his banjo; Jack, from above, with his guitar; Sam, from below, with his flute; lots of other fellows, with their instruments. Dancing and singing; sideboard covered with nuts, fruits, cake, cream, wine, whisky, etc. Wife, in a hurry to dance, writing to her hus band: DEAR HUBBY: How lonesome I feel in your absence! The hours pass tediously. Nobody calls on me, and I am constantly thinking of the time when you will be home, and your cheerful countenance light up the routine of every-day life. My household duties keep me constantly employed. I am liv. ing as economical as possible, knowing that your small income will not admit of frivolous expense. But now, dear, I will say good-bye, or I will be too late for the monthly concert of prayer. In haste, yours, etc. God Made us to Laugh. God made us to laugh as well as to cry. O, weird musician, thy harp The laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. Strike with hand of fire. strung with Apollo's golden hair! with symphonies sweet and dim, deft teacher of the organ keys! Blow, bugler, blow until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, charming the wandering lovers on the vine-clad hills; but know your sweetest strains are discords all compared with childhood's happy laugh-the laugh that fills the eyes with light, and dimples every check with joy. Oh, rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beast and man, and every wayward wave of time doth drown some fretful fiend of care. WIT OF EXAGGERATION. Wonderful Stories and Awful Exaggerations. Much of our wit is made up of pure Baron-Munchausen exaggeration. The story teller exaggerates, the actor exag gerates, the writer exaggerates and the witty artist exaggerates. Gil Blas, Gulliver's Travels, Don Quixote and the Tale of a Tub are instances of pure imagination, pure fancy, pure exaggeration. There is no special genius displayed in reporting a scene close to life. Dickens only becomes great when he lets his imagination play in the speech of Buzfuz. Herein differs the wit from the humorist, as will be seen in other chapters of this book. The humorist is a faithful photographer. He tells just what he hears and sees, while the wit lets his imagination and fancy play. I believe the wit is as far beyond the humorist as the ideal picture is beyond the humdrum portrait. A witty sketch is as much beyond a humorous sketch as Raffaelle's ideal Sistine Madonna is beyond Rubens' actual portrait of his fat wife. One is ideal, the other is real. Any patient toiler can write humor, while it is only the man with brain and imagination who can write wit Many of the exaggerated stories in this chapter are instances of pure wit, pure fancy and imagination. Baron Munchausen's Best Stories Baron Munchausen told in all two hundred large stories. His two best are his wolf and church stories. "Speaking of wolves," said the Baron, "I will tell you how I managed these savage beasts in Russia. One day I was walking along utterly defenseless, without gun or pistol, when a frightful wolf rushed upon me so suddenly, and so close, that I could do nothing but follow mechanical instinct, and thrust my fist into his open mouth. For safety's sake I pushed on and on, till my arm was fairly in up to the shoulder. How should I disengage myself? I was not much pleased with my awkward situation with a wolf face to face, our ogling was not of the most pleasant kind. If I withdrew my arm, then the animal would fly the more furiously upon me; that I saw in his flaming eyes. What do you think I did! Why I reached my arm through the wolf, laid hold of his tail, turned him inside out like a glove, and flung him to the ground, where I left him. * "At another time," continued the Baron, "when I was riding along in a sledge, in the midst of a dreary Russian forest I spied a terrible wolf making after me, with all the speed of ravenous winter hunger. He soon overtook me. There was no possibility of escape. What do you think I did? Why, I just laid myself down flat in the sledge, and let my horse fly. But soon the wolf caught up, and leaping straight over me, caught the horse in the rear and began instantly to tear and devour the hind part of the poor animal, which ran the faster for his pain and terror. Thus unnoticed and safe myself, I lifted my head slyly up, and with horror I beheld that the wolf had ate his way into the horse's body; it was not long before he had fairly forced himself into it, when I took my advantage, and fell upon him with the butt end of my whip. This unexpected attack in his rear frightened him so much, that he leaped forward with all his might the horse's carcase dropped to the ground, but in his place the wolf was in the harness, and I drove that woif straight into St. Peters burgh!" |