Cards, that is, European cards, were, as all are agreed, of an harmless
origin. Charles the sixth, of France, was particularly afflicted with
the hypochondriasis. While in this disordered state, one of his subjects
invented them, to give variety of amusement to his mind. From the court
they passed into private families. And here the same avaricious spirit
fastened upon them, and, with its cruel talons, clawed them, as it were,
to its own purposes, not caring how much these little instruments of
cheerfulness in human disease were converted into instruments for the
extension of human pain.
In the same manner as the spirit of gaming has seized upon these
different institutions and amusements of antiquity, and turned them from
their original to new and destructive uses, so there is no certainty,
that it will not seize upon others, which may have been innocently
resorted to, and prostitute them equally with the former. The mere
prohibition of particular amusements, even if it could be enforced,
would be no cure for the evil. The brain of man is fertile enough, as
fast as one custom is prohibited, to fix upon another. And if all the
games, now in use, were forbidden, it would be still fertile enough to
invent others for the same purposes.
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