It is horrible,
even at this distance of time, to think of those rapacious beings who
forgot literature, art, friendship, and family affection for the sake
of high play. One weary, witty debauchee said, "Play wastes time,
health, money, and friendship;" yet he went on pitting his skill
against that of unsexed women and polished rogues.
The morality of the fair gamblers was more than loose. It was taken
for granted in the whole set that every female member of it must
inevitably be divorced, if the catastrophe had not occurred already;
and one man asked Walpole, "Who's your proctor?" just as he would have
asked, "Who's your tailor?" An unspeakable society--a hollow,
heartless, callous, wicked brood. Compare that crew of furious
money-grabbers with our modern gentlemen and ladies! We have our
faults--crime and vice flourish; but, from the Court down to the
simplest middle-class society in our provincial towns, the spread of
seemliness and purity is distinctly marked. Some insatiable grumblers
will have it that our girls and women are deteriorating, and we are
informed that the taste for objectionable literature is keener than it
used to be.
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