'
We talked of gaming, and animadverted on it with severity. JOHNSON.
'Nay, gentlemen, let us not aggravate the matter. It is not roguery to
play with a man who is ignorant of the game, while you are master of it,
and so win his money; for he thinks he can play better than you, as you
think you can play better than he; and the superiour skill carries it.'
ERSKINE. 'He is a fool, but you are not a rogue.' JOHNSON. 'That's much
about the truth, Sir. It must be considered, that a man who only does
what every one of the society to which he belongs would do, is not a
dishonest man. In the republick of Sparta, it was agreed, that stealing
was not dishonourable, if not discovered. I do not commend a society
where there is an agreement that what would not otherwise be fair,
shall be fair; but I maintain, that an individual of any society, who
practises what is allowed, is not a dishonest man.' BOSWELL. 'So then,
Sir, you do not think ill of a man who wins perhaps forty thousand
pounds in a winter?' JOHNSON.
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