But though I have forsworn Cartomancy, and hold such occult practices in abhorrence, I will say to every man who has suddenly found that life is one long piece of boredom, dull grey in warp and weft: Go to the cards, and see existence woven madly in black and crimson--The life they present knows nothing of boredom, for no card in all the pack stands for such a thing--Go read the cards! As for myself, I have but one confession to make: I dare not play at cards now, for they are fraught with such significance to me that I could not trifle with them in a mere game. I cannot rid them of their meanings, and while others are thinking of nothing but winning tricks, I see myself, and my unconscious colleagues, playing havoc with the destinies of dark ladies and fair men. I cannot trump an opponent’s Queen, but what I feel that I am probably bringing misfortune upon some unknown innocent woman. If I fling down the Ace of Spades upon the King, it is not unlikely that I am consigning some dark man--a good fellow probably--to his grave. This would be murder, and an odd trick is not worth it. So there is nothing for it but to leave the cards alone. ON BEING KIND TO THE OLD England, it is said, is cruel to the young and kind to the old. The remark usually takes on the tone of an accusation; we who hear it from a critical foreigner find ourselves struggling against a sense of shame; we are quick to denounce something or other, the House of Lords, Sentimentality, Meat-eating, the Educational System, and we uproot and demolish, and are clearly filled with a noble public spirit. If, then, the remark is always construed as a criticism, and if it nearly always succeeds in touching us on the raw, there must be something in it. Apparently, being kind to the old is no excuse for being cruel to the young. Perhaps this kindness itself is wrong. Let us be nice in our ethics, and look a little more closely at the question.