We can not but notice, as people go on in life—when, as Lord Mansfield said, “The absence of pain is pleasure, just as in youth the absence of pleasure is pain”—that the quiet corner by the fire, or the seat at the library-table with the shaded lamp, and a quiet game or two when reading has fatigued the eyes, becomes almost necessary.

Of all the means of cheating a succession of dull evenings of their tedium, perhaps that little invention called a “Solitaire” board—which is simply a board pierced with thirty-seven holes, which are nearly filled with thirty-six pegs—has proved itself the most eminently successful. It was invented, it is said, by a French Jesuit, in Canada, to help him through the long Canadian winter evenings, and it has proved to be a boon to mankind.

One peg takes another when it can leap over into an empty hole. To get all off but one peg is nearly impossible, but it can be done.

Then comes “Merelles,” or “Nine Men’s Morris,” which can be played on a board, or on the ground, but which finds itself reduced even to a parlor game. This, however, takes two players.

“American Bagatelle,” which can be played alone, or with an antagonist; Chinese puzzles, which are infinitely amusing; and all the great family of the sphinx known as puzzles—are of infinite service to the retired, quiet, lonely people for whom the active business of life is at an end. The guessing of arithmetical puzzles, the solution of enigmas, and the solution of a paradox—these amuse many an evening.

We may give one of these old things as an example. It is called “The Blind Abbot and his Monks,” and is played with counters. Arrange eight external cells of a square so that there may always be nine in each row, though the whole number may vary from eighteen to thirty-six.

A convent in which there were nine cells was occupied by a blind abbot and twenty-four monks, the abbot lodging in the center cell, and the monks in the side cells, three in each, giving a row of nine persons on each side of the building. The abbot, suspecting the fidelity of his brethren, often went out at night and counted them, and when he found nine in each row the old man counted his beads, said an Ave! and went to bed contented. The monks, taking advantage of his failing sight, contrived to deceive him, so that four could go out nightly, yet leave nine in a row. How did they do it?

The next night, emboldened by success, the monks returned with four visitors and then arranged them nine in a row. The next night they brought in four more belated brethren, and again arranged them nine in a row; and again four more. Finally, when the twelve clandestine brothers had departed, and six monks with them, the remainder deceived the abbot again by presenting a row of nine. Try it with the counters, and see how they so abused the privileges of a conventual seclusion.

Then try quibbles—“How can I get wine out of a bottle if I have no corkscrew, and must not break the glass or make any hole in it or the cork?”

The telling of a good story well should be encouraged. The raconteur can be the most delightful of all household blessings. A mother who can tell a story well by the nursery fire is a potent force; and the one who will light up the winter evening by telling stories of adventures—the simplest every-day ones in the street—the little journey, even the round of shopping, becomes very much of a treasure. Some ladies commit to memory the stories of Hans Christian Andersen; Grimm, the fairy-story maker; Charles Kingsley’s short stories, Ouida’s “A Dog of Flanders,” or the poems of Dr. Holmes, or some other benefactor of mankind, and tell these stories and poems in a sort of unpremeditated way by the library-table. This is a charming accomplishment. Some people have the gift of improvising, and will tell a very good bit of ghost story in a very gruesome manner for the entertainment of those who enjoy the night side of nature.

But this talent should never be abused. The man who in cold blood fires off a long poetical quotation at a dinner, or makes a speech in defiance of the goose-flesh which is creeping down his neighbors’ backs, is a traitor to honor and religion, and he deserves the death of a Nihilist. It is only when these extempore talents can be used without alarming people that they are useful or endurable.

We might make our Christmas holidays a little more gay in this country. We might read and study up all the old English and the German customs, beyond the mistletoe, the tree, and the rather faded legend of Santa Claus. There are worlds of legendary lore which would help us to make this time-honored festival even more lively and gay and amusing than it is. We have not yet reached the English jollity at Christmas.

The supper-table has, as an American home festival, rather fallen into desuetude. We sup out, but rarely have that informal and delightful meal which once wound up every evening devoted to Home Amusement. Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, in her delightful letters, talks about the “whisk and the quadrille parties with a light supper” which amused the ladies of her day. We still have the “whisk,” but what has become of lansquenet, quadrille, basset, and piquet, those pretty and courtly games?

Playing-cards made their way through Arabia from India to Europe, where they first arrived about the year 1370. They carried with them the two arts, engraving and painting. They were the avants coureurs of engraving on wood and metal, and of printing.

Cards early began to be the luxuries of kings and queens, the necessity of the gambler, and the consolation of those who innocently like games. Piquet, a courtly game, was invented by Étienne Vignoles, called La Hire, one of the most active soldiers of the reign of Charles VII. This brave soldier was an accomplished chevalier, deeply imbued with a reverence for the manners and customs of chivalry. Cards continued from this time to follow the whim of the court and to assume the character of the period through the regency of Marie de Medicis, in the time of Anne of Austria and of Louis XIV. The Germans are the first people who essayed to make a pack of cards assume the form of a scholastic treatise. The king, queen, knight, and knave tell of English manners, customs, and nomenclature.