The Hell

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.