If cards are the Devil’s books, Whist is the edition de luxe of them. Whist-playing is one of the few vices of the upper classes that has not in time descended to the lower, with whom the ingenious and attractive game of ‘All Fours’ has always held its own against it. I have known but two men not belonging to the upper ten thousand who played well at whist. One was a well-known jockey in the South of England, who was also, by the way, an admirable billiard-player. He called himself an amateur, but those who played with him used to complain that his proceedings were even ultra-professional. On the Turf men are almost as equal as they are under it, and this ornament of the pigskin would on certain occasions (race meetings) take his place at the card-table with some who were very literally his betters, while others who had more self-respect contented themselves with backing him. The other example I have in my mind was an ancient Cumberland yeoman, who, having lost the use of his limbs in middle life from having been tossed by a bull, pursued the science under considerable difficulties. A sort of card-rack (such as Psycho uses at the Egyptian Hall) was placed in front of him, and behind him stood his little granddaughter who played the cards for him by verbal direction. Both these men played a very good game of the old-fashioned kind, for though the jockey used subtleties, they were not of the Clay or Cavendish sort. The asking for trumps was a device unknown to him, though there were folks who whispered he would take them under certain circumstances without asking, and of the leading of the penultimate with five in the suit it could be said of him, for once, that he was as innocent as a babe.

Of course, many persons join the ‘upper ten’ who come from the lower twenty (or even thirty), and it need not be said that they are by no means inferior in sagacity to their new acquaintances; yet they rarely make first-rate players. Whist, like the classics, must be learnt young for any excellence to be attained in it. Of this Metternich was a striking example. If benevolent Nature ever intended a man for a whist-player one would have supposed that she had done so in his case, but had been baffled by some malign Destiny which had degraded him to that class by whom, in conjunction with Kings, it was fondly believed, previously to the recent general election, that ’the world was governed.’ Until late in life he never took to whist, when he grew wildly fond of it, and played incessantly, till it is said a certain memorable event took place which caused him never to touch a card again. The story goes that, rapt in the enjoyment of the game, he suffered a special messenger to wait for hours, to whom if he had given his attention more promptly a massacre of many hundred persons would have been prevented. Humanity may drop a tear, but whist had nothing to regret in the circumstance; for in Metternich it did not lose a good player, and, what redeems his intelligence, he knew it. ’I learnt my whist too late,’ he would say, with more pathos and solemnity, perhaps, than he would have used when speaking of more momentous matters of omission.

He must be a wise man indeed who, being an habitual whist-player, is aware that he is a bad one. In games of pure skill, such as chess, and, in a less degree, billiards, a man must be a fool who deceives himself upon such a point; but in whist there is a sufficient amount of chance to enable him to preserve his self-complacency for some time let us say, his lifetime. If he loses, he ascribes it to his ‘infernal luck,’ which always fills his hands with twos and threes; and if he wins, though it is by a succession of four by honours as long as the string of four-in-hands when the Coaching Club meets in Hyde Park, he ascribes it to his skill. ‘If I hadn’t played trumps just when I did,’ he modestly observes to his partner, ‘all would have been over with us;’ though the result would have been exactly the same had he played blindfold. To an observer of human nature, who is not himself a loser ‘on the day,’ there are few things more charming than the genial, gentle self-approval of two players of this class who have just defeated two experts, and proved, to their own satisfaction, that if fortune gives them ‘a fair chance’ or ‘something like equal cards,’ as they term the conditions of their late performance, they can play as well as other people.

Of course, the term ‘good-play’ is a relative one; the player who wins applause in the drawing-room is often thought but little of in places where the rigour of the game is observed; and the ‘good, steady player’ of the University Clubs is not a star of the first magnitude at the Portland. The best players used to be men of mature years; they are now the middle-aged, who, with sufficient practical experience, have derived their skill in early life from the best books. ’It is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks,’ and for the most part the old dogs despise them. When I hear my partner boast that he is ’none of your book-players,’ I smile courteously, and tremble. I know what will become of him and me if fortune does not give him his ‘fair chance,’ and I seek comfort from the calculation which tells me it is two to one against my cutting with him again. How marvellous it is, when one comes to consider the matter, that a man should decline to receive instruction on a technical subject from those who have eminently distinguished themselves in it, and have systematised for the benefit of others the results of the experience of a lifetime! With books or no books, it is quite true, however, that some men, otherwise of great intelligence, can never be taught whist; they may have had every opportunity of learning it have been born, as it were, with the ace of spades in their mouth instead of a silver spoon but the gift of understanding is denied them; and though it is ungallant to say so, I have never known a lady to play whist well.

In the case of the fair sex, however, it may be urged that they have not the same chances; they have no whist clubs, and the majority of them entertain the extraordinary delusion that it is wrong to play at whist in the afternoon. One may talk scandal over kettle-drums, and go to morning performances at the theatre, but one may not play at cards till after dinner. There is even quite a large set of male persons who, ‘on principle,’ do not play at whist in the afternoon. In seasons of great adversity, when fortune has not given me my ‘fair chance’ for many days, I have sometimes ‘gone on strike,’ as it is termed, and joined them; but anything more deplorable than such a state of affairs it is impossible to imagine. After their day’s work is over, these good people can’t conceive what to do with themselves, and, between ourselves, it is my experience, drawn from these occasional ’intervals of business,’ that this practice of not playing whist in the afternoon generally leads to dissipation.

It is sometimes advanced by this unhappy class, by way of apology, that they play at night; which may very possibly be the case, but they don’t play well. There is no such thing, except in the sense in which after-dinner speaking is called ‘good,’ as good whist after dinner. It may seem otherwise, even to the spectators; but having themselves dined like the rest, they are not in a position to give an opinion. The keenness of observation is blunted by food and wine; the delicate perceptions are gone; and what is left of the intelligence is generally devoted to finding faults in your partner’s play. The consciousness of mistakes on your own part, which he is in no condition to discern, instead of suggesting charity, induces irritation, and you are persuaded, till you get the next man, that you are mated with the worst player in all Christendom. Moreover, that ‘one more rubber’ with which you propose to finish is generally elastic (Indian rubber), and you sit up into the small hours and find them disagree with you. If I ever write that new series of the ‘Chesterfield Letters’ which I have long had in my mind, and for which I feel myself eminently qualified, my most earnest advice to young gentlemen of fashion will be found in the golden rule, ‘Never sit down to whist after dinner;’ it is a mistake, and almost an immorality. If they must play cards, let them play Napoleon.

With regard to finding fault with one’s partner, I have no apology to offer for it under any circumstances; but it must be remembered that this does not always arise from ill-temper, or the sense of loss that might have been gain. There are many lovers of whist for its own sake to whom bad play, even in an adversary, excites a certain distress of mind; when a good hand is thrown away by it, they experience the same sort of emotion that a gourmand feels who sees a haunch of venison spoilt in the carving. In such a case a gentle expression of disapproval is surely pardonable. And I have observed that, with one or two exceptions (non Angli sed angeli, men of angelic temper rather than ordinary Englishmen), the good players who never find fault are not socially the pleasantest. They are men who ‘play to win,’ and who think it very injudicious to educate a bad partner who will presently join the ranks of the Opposition.

What is rather curious and I speak with some experience, for I have played with all classes, from the prince to the gentleman farmer the best whist-players are not, as a rule, those who are the most highly educated or intellectual. Men of letters, for example (I am speaking, of course, very generally), are inferior to the doctors and the warriors. Both the late Lord Lytton and Charles Lever had, it is true, a considerable reputation at the whist-table, but though they were good players, they were not in the first class; while the author of ’Guy Livingstone,’ though devoted to the game, was scarcely to be placed in the second. The best players are, one must confess, what irreverent persons, ignorant of the importance of this noble pursuit, would term ’idlers’ men of mere nominal occupation, or of none, to whom the game has been familiar from their youth, and who have had little else to do than to play it.

While some men, as I have said, can never be taught whist, a few are born with a genius for the game, and move up ‘from high to higher,’ through all the grades of excellence, with a miraculous rapidity; but, whether good, bad, or indifferent, I have not known half a dozen whist-players who were not superstitious. Their credulity is, indeed, proverbial, but no one who does not mix with them can conceive the extent of it; it reminds one of the African fetish. The country apothecary’s wife who puts the ivory ‘fish’ on the candlestick ’for luck,’ and her partner, the undertaker, who turns his chair in hopes to realise more ‘silver threepences,’ are in no way more ridiculous than the grave and reverend seigneurs of the Clubs who are attracted to ’the winning seats’ or ‘the winning cards.’ The idea of going on because ‘the run of luck’ is in your favour, or of leaving off because it has declared itself against you, is logically of course unworthy of Cetywayo. The only modicum of reason that underlies it is the fact that the play of some men becomes demoralised by ill-fortune, and may, possibly, be improved by success. Yet the belief in this absurdity is universal, and bids fair to be eternal. ’If I am not in a draught, and my chair is comfortable, you may put me anywhere,’ is a remark I have heard but once, and the effect of it on the company was much the same as if in the House of Convocation some reverend gentleman had announced his acceptance of the religious programme of M. Comte.

With the few exceptions I have mentioned, whist-players not only stop very far short of excellence in the game, but very soon reach their tether. I cannot say of any man that he has gone on improving for years; his mark is fixed, and he knows it though he is exceptionally sagacious if he knows where it is drawn as respects others and there he stays till he begins to deteriorate. The first warning of decadence is the loss of memory, after which it is a question of time (and good sense) when he shall withdraw from the ranks of the fighting men and become a mere spectator of the combat. It was said by a great gambler that the next pleasure in life to that of winning was that of losing; and to the real lover of whist, the next pleasure to that of playing a good game is that of looking on at one.

Whist has been extolled, and justly, upon many accounts; but the peculiar advantage of the game is, perhaps, that it utilises socially many persons who would not otherwise be attractive. Unless a player is positively disagreeable, he is as good to play whist with as a conversational Crichton. Moreover, though the poet has hinted of the evanescent character of ‘friendships made in wine,’ such is not the case with those made at whist. The phrase, ‘my friend and partner,’ used by a well-known lady in fiction, in speaking of another lady, is one that is particularly applicable to this social science, and holds good, as it does, alas, in no other case, even when the partner becomes an adversary.