Controlled by the hand of beauty, the cue becomes a magic
wand, and the balls are no longer bits of inanimate ivory, but, poked
restlessly hither and thither, circulating messengers of fascination.
I know, for I have been there.
Had Miss Tarlingford turned her thoughts toward the bowling-alley, I
might without difficulty have retained my self-possession; for her sex
are not charming at ten-pins. They stride rampant, and hurl danger
around them, aiming anywhere at random; or they make small skips and
screams, and perform ridiculous flings in the air, injurious to the
alleys and to their game; or they drop balls with unaffected languor,
and develop at an early stage of proceedings a tendency to _gutters_,
above which they never rise throughout; and all this is annoying, and
fit only for Bloomers, who can be degraded by nothing on earth.
But billiards! what statuesque postures, what freedom of gesture, what
swaying grace and vivacious energy this game involves! And then the
attendant distractions,--the pinching together of the hand, to form the
needed notch, the perfect art of which, like fist-clenching, is
unattainable by woman, who substitutes some queerness all her own,--the
fierce grasping and propulsion of the cue,--the loving reclension upon
the table when the long shots come in,--the dainty foot, uprising, to
preserve the owner's balance, but, as it gleams suspended, destroying
the observer's,--all combine, as they did this time, to scatter stern
promptings of duty beyond recalling.
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