trace back the trading instinct to that love of a risk—or in other words to the desire for the unknown
risk means uncertainty, and uncertainty connotes the unknown
cardsharping has become impossible to a man of taste
gambling with loaded dice, betting against a horse that he knows is to be made "all right," playing cards with honours up his sleeve
gambling, even under its most sordid aspects, is not altogether sordid; it's the mystery, the uncertainty, the hours of "strange surmise" that the smallest bet gives to the bettor that make the real delight of betting
after all, the office-boy who "puts on" half-a-crown is really only an example of the love of man for the unknown; the half-crown is a venture into mystery
even horse-racing and an interest in "events" are preferable to stagnation, and that there is something august in the universal human passion for gambling
He would speak of stories on which he was engaged, but I have never seen his name on publishers' lists, and I do not think that he had adopted a pseudonym.
he was always ready to defend the thesis that, all the arts being glorious, the literary art was the most glorious and wonderful of all
we held our sessions and talked freely and with enjoyment of many curious things, which, as the Hermit would say, had the huge merit of interesting no one but ourselves
