The scene that opened upon us was, to me, a painfully interesting
one. It was a mere hell, without any of those attractive adjuncts
which, in a diseased state of popular refinement, such as exists in
the fashionable atmospheres of London and Paris, provides it with
decorations, and conceals its more discouraging and offensive
externals. The charms of music, lovely women, gay lights, and superb
drapery and furniture, were here entirely wanting. No other arts
beyond the single passion for hazard, which exists, I am inclined
to think, in a greater or less degree in every human breast, were
here employed to beguile the young and unsuspecting mind into
indulgence. The establishment into which I had fallen, seemed to
presuppose an acquaintance, already formed, of the gamester with his
fascinating vice. It was evidently no place to seduce the uninitiate.
The passion must have been already awakened--the guardianship
of the good angel lulled into indifference or slumber--before the
young mind could be soon reconciled to the moral atmosphere of such
a scene.
The apartment was low and dimly lighted. Groups of small tables
intended for two persons were all around. In the centre of the floor
were tables of larger size, which were surrounded by the followers
of Pharo. Unoccupied tables, here and there, were sprinkled with
cards and domino; while, as if to render the characteristics of
the place complete, a vapor of smoke and a smell of beer assailed
our senses as we entered.
There were not many persons present--I conjectured, at a glance,
that there might be fifteen; but we heard occasional voices from
an inner room, and a small door opening in the rear discovered a
retreat like that we occupied, in the dim light of which I perceived
moving faces and shadows, and Kingsley informed me that there were
several rooms all similarly occupied with ours.
An examination of the persons around me, increased the unpleasant
feelings which the place had inspired. With the exception of a few,
the greater number were evidently superior to their employments.
Several of them were young men like my companion--men not yet lost
to sensibility, who looked up with some annoyance as they beheld
Kingsley accompanied by a stranger. Two or three of the inmates
were veteran gamesters. You could see THAT in their business-like
nonchalance--their rigid muscles--the manner at once demure and
familiar. They were evidently "habitues del l'enfer"--men to whom
cards and dice were as absolutely necessary now, as brandy and
tobacco to the drunkard. These men were always at play. Even the
smallest interval found them still shuffling the cards, and looking
up at every opening of the door, as if in hungering anticipation
of the prey. At such periods alone might you behold any expression
of anxiety in their faces. This disappeared entirely the moment
that they were in possession of the victim. That imperturbable
composure which distinguished them was singularly contrasted with
the fidgety eagerness and nervous rapidity by which you could
discover the latter; and I glanced over the operations of the two
parties, as they were fairly shown in several sets about the room,
with a renewed feeling of wonder how a man so truly clever and
strong, in some things, as Kingsley, should allow himself to be
drawn so deeply into such low snares; the tricks of which seemed
so apparent, and the attractions of which, in the present instance,
were obviously so inferior and low. I little knew by what inoffensive
and gradual changes the human mind, having once commenced its
downward progress, can hurry to the base; nor did I sufficiently
allow for that love of hazard itself, in games of chance, which I
have already expressed the opinion, is natural to the proper heart
of man, belongs to a rational curiosity, and arises, most probably,
from that highest property of his intellect, namely, the love of
art and intellectual ingenuity. It would be very important to know
this fact, since then, instead of the blind hostility which is
entertained for sports of this description, by certain classes of
moralists among us, we might so employ their ministry as to deprive
them of their hurtfulness and make them permanently beneficial in
the cause of good education.