Hieroglyphics

trace back the trading instinct to that love of a risk—or in other words to the desire for the unknown

risk means uncertainty, and uncertainty connotes the unknown

cardsharping has become impossible to a man of taste

gambling with loaded dice, betting against a horse that he knows is to be made "all right," playing cards with honours up his sleeve

gambling, even under its most sordid aspects, is not altogether sordid; it's the mystery, the uncertainty, the hours of "strange surmise" that the smallest bet gives to the bettor that make the real delight of betting

after all, the office-boy who "puts on" half-a-crown is really only an example of the love of man for the unknown; the half-crown is a venture into mystery

even horse-racing and an interest in "events" are preferable to stagnation, and that there is something august in the universal human passion for gambling

He would speak of stories on which he was engaged, but I have never seen his name on publishers' lists, and I do not think that he had adopted a pseudonym.

he was always ready to defend the thesis that, all the arts being glorious, the literary art was the most glorious and wonderful of all

we held our sessions and talked freely and with enjoyment of many curious things, which, as the Hermit would say, had the huge merit of interesting no one but ourselves