Chapter XVII Be Cautious of Baneful Amusements
Introduction to Chapter XVII
The youth who bathes in pleasure’s limpid stream
At well-judged intervals, feels all his soul
Nerved with recruited strength; but, if too oft
It chills his languid virtue.
—Mason.
My boy and my son, I advise you not to touch a card. Don’t learn the game or watch one. One of my companions fell dead in a gambling house by a pistol shot from his own gun. His name was “Ben” Miller. His partner “Froom” Featherly, said to me, “I wish I lay there with poor Ben. When I learned to play cards at mother’s dining room table she never thought it would come to this. Gambling is so fixed in my mind that I cannot stop.” Drunkenness is insanity of the stomach, gambling is insanity of the morals.