ome forth,
like the purified gold from the furnace. And there, look at that old and
weather-beaten man, with grey eyebrows, and moustaches, who throws from
the breast-pocket of his frock ever and anon, a handful of gold pieces
upon the table; he evidently neither knows nor cares for the amount, for
the banker himself is obliged to count over the stake for him--that is
Blucher, the never-wanting attendant at the Salon; he has been an
immense loser, but plays on with the same stern perseverance with which
he would pour his bold cavalry through a ravine torn by artillery; he
stands by the still waning chance with a courage that never falters.

One strong feature of the levelling character of a taste for play has
never ceased to impress me most forcibly--not only do the individual
peculiarities of the man give way before the all-absorbing passion--but
stranger still, the very boldest traits of nationality even fade and
disappear before it; and man seems, under the high-pressure power of this
greatest of all stimulants, resolved into a most abstract state.

Among all the traits which distinguish Frenchmen from natives of every
country, none is more prominent than a kind of never-failing elasticity
of temperament, which seems almost to defy all the power of misfortune to
depress. Let what will happen, the Frenchman seems to possess some
strong resource within himself, in his ardent temperament, upon which he
can draw at will; and whether on the day after a defeat, the moment of
being deceived in his strongest hopes of returned affection--the
overthrow of some long-cherished wish--it matters not--he never gives way
entirely; but see him at the gaming-table--watch the intense, the aching
anxiety with which his eye follows every card as it falls from the hand
of the croupier--behold the look of cold despair that tracks his stake as
the banker rakes it in among his gains--and you will at once perceive
that here, at least, his wonted powers fail him. No jest escapes the
lips of one, that would badinet upon the steps of the guillotine. The
mocker who would jeer at the torments of revolution, stands like a coward
quailing before the impassive eye and pale cheek of a croupier. While
I continued to occupy myself by observing the different groups about me,
I had been almost mechanically following the game, placing at each deal
some gold upon the table; the result however had interested me so
slightly, that it was only by remarking