Wherefore I played the game diligently, torn by the need of its higher
lessons. And at last I was well instructed by it, as all may be who
approach it thus, above a trivial lust for winning.
Two of us played in that provocative June. One was myself, alert for
auspicious falls of the cards, yet stoical and undepressed when a deal
promising to be almost too easy for interest was suddenly blocked by
some trifling card. Thus was I schooled to expectations of a wise
shallowness, not so deep but that they might be overrun by the moderate
flow of human happiness. Thus one learned to expect little under much
wanting, and to find his most certain profit in observing the freshness
of those devices which left him frustrated. Jim, the other player of us,
chased gluttonous robins on the lawn, ever with an indifferent success,
but with as undimmed a faith, as fatuous a certainty, as the earliest of
gods could have wished to see. And between us we achieved a conviction
that the greater game is worth playing, even when one has discovered its
terrific percentage of failures.
I was not unpleased to be alone during this period of discipline when my
soul was perforce purged of its troublesome ferments.
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