Cards

Have I not here the best cards for the game? 

King John V.2

To those puny objectors against cards , as nurturing the bad passions, she would retort, that man is a gaming animal. He must be always trying to get the better in something or other :-that this passion can scarcely be more safely expended than upon a game at cards: that cards are a temporary illusion; in truth, a mere drama; for we do but play at being mightily concerned, where a few idle shillings are at stake, yet, during the illusion, we are as mightily concerned as those whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. They are a sort of dream-fighting; much ado; great battling, and little bloodshed; mighty means for disproportioned ends: quite as diverting, and a great deal more innoxious, than many of those more serious games of life, which men play without esteeming them to be such.

Charles Lamb




BEHOLD, four Kings in majesty rever'd,
With hoary whiskers and a forky beard;
And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flow'r,
The expressive emblem of their softer pow'r;
Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band,
Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand;
And parti-colour'd troops, a shining train,
Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain.

Alexander Pope

I read these this morning in Bowyer Nichol's Words and Days: A Table-book of Prose and Verse (1897)