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The Romance of Gambling in the Eighteenth-Century British NovelThe Gambling Man of Feeling: Sublime and Sentimental Gambling

The Romance of Gambling in the Eighteenth-Century British Novel: The Gambling Man of Feeling:... [As a group of gentlemen discuss fashionable masculine pastimes in Frances Burney’s third novel, Camilla (1796), an Irishman named Macdersey defends himself against their assumption that because he has expressed superlative passions for women, wine, and hunting (declaring each is “the first pleasure in life”), he doesn’t care for cards, dice, or betting:Why what do you take me for, gentlemen? … Do you think I have no soul? no fire? no feeling? Do you suppose me a stone? a block? a lump of lead? I scorn such suspicions; I don’t hold them worth answering. I am none of that torpid, morbid, drowsy tribe. I hold nobody to have an idea of life that has not rattled in his own hand the dear little box of promise. What ecstasy not to know if, in two seconds, one mayn’t be worth ten thousand pounds! or else without a farthing! how it puts one on the rack! There’s nothing to compare with it. I would not give up that moment to be sovereign of the East Indies! no, not if the West were to be put into the bargain. (480)] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

The Romance of Gambling in the Eighteenth-Century British NovelThe Gambling Man of Feeling: Sublime and Sentimental Gambling

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2011
ISBN
978-1-349-32662-4
Pages
86 –110
DOI
10.1057/9780230307278_4
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[As a group of gentlemen discuss fashionable masculine pastimes in Frances Burney’s third novel, Camilla (1796), an Irishman named Macdersey defends himself against their assumption that because he has expressed superlative passions for women, wine, and hunting (declaring each is “the first pleasure in life”), he doesn’t care for cards, dice, or betting:Why what do you take me for, gentlemen? … Do you think I have no soul? no fire? no feeling? Do you suppose me a stone? a block? a lump of lead? I scorn such suspicions; I don’t hold them worth answering. I am none of that torpid, morbid, drowsy tribe. I hold nobody to have an idea of life that has not rattled in his own hand the dear little box of promise. What ecstasy not to know if, in two seconds, one mayn’t be worth ten thousand pounds! or else without a farthing! how it puts one on the rack! There’s nothing to compare with it. I would not give up that moment to be sovereign of the East Indies! no, not if the West were to be put into the bargain. (480)]

Published: Oct 28, 2015

Keywords: Eighteenth Century; Trade Creditor; Charitable Donation; Private Credit; Happy Ending

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