sonal pique against
the first which he has not towards the last. _Sed haec hactenus._ Chess
is a game I do not understand, and have not comprehension enough to
play at. But I believe, though it is so much less a thing of chance
than science or skill, eager players pass whole nights in marching
and countermarching their men and checkmating a successful adversary,
supposing that at a certain point of the game they had determined upon
making a particular move instead of the one which they actually did
make. I have heard a story of two persons playing at backgammon, one
of whom was so enraged at losing his match at a particular point of the
game that he took the board and threw it out of the window. It fell upon
the head of one of the passengers in the street, who came up to demand
instant satisfaction for the affront and injury he had sustained.
The losing gamester only asked him if he understood backgammon, and
finding that he did, said, that if upon seeing the state of the game he
did not excuse the extravagance of his conduct, he would give him any
other satisfaction he wished for. The tables were accordingly brought,
and the situation of the two contending parties being explained, the
gentleman put up his sword and went away perfectly satisfied. To return
from this, which to some will seem a digression, and to others will
serve as a confirmation of the doctrine I am insisting on.

It is not, then, the value of the object, but the time and pains
bestowed upon it, that determines the sense and degree of our loss. Many
men set their minds only on trifles, and have not a compass of soul to
take an interest in anything truly great and important beyond forms
and minutiae. Such persons are really men of little minds, or may be
complimented with the title of great children,

Pleased with a feather, tickled with a straw.

Larger objects elude their grasp, while they fasten eagerly on the
light and insignificant. They fidget themselves and others to death
with incessant anxiety about nothing. A part of their dress that is awry
keeps them in a fever of restlessness and impatience; they sit picking
their teeth, or paring their nails, or stirring the fire, or brushing
a speck of dirt off their coats, while the house or the world tumbling
about their ears would not rouse them from their morbid insensibility.
They cannot sit still on their chairs for their lives, though if there
were anything for them to do they would become immov