Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/173

Rh of that day. Play was a passion with them; it was a social enjoyment; they loved its excitement, and they played whenever and wherever they met; not for the purpose of winning money of one another, which is the gambler's motive, but for the pleasure it gave them. They bet high as a matter of pride and to give interest to the game.” But Clay himself felt that his habits in that respect had been unfavorably noticed. Soon afterwards, in a speech in the House, he referred by way of illustration to games of chance, as “an amusement which in early life he had sometimes indulged in, but which years and experience had determined him to renounce.” To a man of Clay's standing before the country there was a keen self-humiliation in a remark like this, and he would hardly have made it, had he not thought something like a promise of better conduct urgently called for. The promise referred, however, only to “games of chance,” for whist seemed to maintain an almost irresistible charm over him, except in his own house at Ashland, where no card playing was allowed.

Clay's political standing was so much shaken that about the time of the opening of the sixteenth Congress, in December, 1819, several members of the House went to President Monroe to consult with him as to whether it would be advisable to displace Clay as Speaker. Adams says in his Diary that Monroe advised against it, partly because such a movement would increase Clay's im-