ZLI. SOME LADIES OF THE OLD SCHOOL. WE are often favored with remarks eulogizing the ladies of the old school at the expense of ladies of the present day. I do not doubt that a vast majority of the. ladies whom our ancestors loved were estimable beings; but, then, folly is of no age; it belongs to all times, to every race, and to both sexes. Ladies of the old school! How old? How far must we go back before we come to those admirable and faultless creatures? Shall we say the last century? People who enjoyed the personal acquaintance of ladies who lived a hundred years ago do not appear to have thought so highly of them as some living persons do who know them only by report. Consider one of their habits. What are we to think of their passionate, reckless, universal gambling? Down to 179,0, gambling was so universal in the higher circles, that we may almost say society and gambling were synonymous terms. There appears to have been high play at every court and mansion every night. It was the regular resource among the idle classes for getting through the evenings. Fox, whom Nature formed to be the foremost Englishman of his time, — Fox, the Prince Hal of politics, — lost two hundred thousand pounds at cards by the time he was of age; and his father had to pay most of it. The card-table was spoken of sometimes as a school for the acquisition of nerve, fortitude, and good temper, since it was required of every one to bear losses with an appearance of cheerfulness. But human nature (518)
