home  > Books By F.W. Boreham  >  1918 The Silver Shadow > Dominoes

I

DOMINOES

What do you say to a game of dominoes? I was never more surprised. He was the last man from whom I should have expected such a suggestion. But that is the best of living in this world. On the other planets things happen according to rote; you can see with half an eye what is coming next. But this world is a box of tricks, a packet of surprises. You never know one minute what the next minute holds in store. Everything is effervescent, full of snap and sparkle. 

‘What do you say to a game of dominoes?’ 

No sooner said than done. The little wooden box appeared from a cupboard in the corner. The black and white tablets were emptied with a clatter on to the table, turned face downwards, and divided between us. We arranged and examined them, and got to business. It is a very old game, and had a great vogue a couple of centuries ago. The sport consists, as everybody knows, in always matching your companion’s piece. You must follow his suit, or you lose your turn. If he plays a six, you must lay a six beside it. If he plays a four, you must match it with a four. If you cannot respond to the challenge of his piece, you hold your hand and he plays again. But to miss your turn is to submit to a heavy handicap, for the player who first gets rid of all his dominoes wins the game. 

And so we played at dominoes, following that first game with a second and a third. It occurred to me whilst we were playing that life itself is but a game of dominoes. Its highest art lies in matching your companion’s pieces. Is he glad? It is a great thing to be able to rejoice with those who do rejoice- Is he sad ? It is a great thing to be able to weep with those that weep. It means, of course, that if you answer the challenge every time, your pieces will soon be gone. But, as against that, it is worth remembering that victory lies not in accumulation, but in exhaustion. The player who is first left with empty hands wins everything. 

I have already confessed that when my host made his abrupt suggestion last night, I was never more surprised in my life. He was the last man whom I should have suspected of a fondness for dominoes. If he had said billiards or bagatelle or draughts or chess, I should not have wondered in the least. But dominoes! I could scarcely imagine him playing dominoes! That is the pity of it. You never know how many people there are who are waiting for a chance of playing dominoes with you. The most unlikely people play at dominoes. Mr. O. Henry, in one of his short stories, tells of a remarkable interview between a burglar and his prey. The unhappy victim was in bed. 

‘Hold up both your hands!’ commanded the burglar, pointing his revolver at the head on the pillows. The man in bed raised his right hand. 

‘Up with the other one!’ ordered the burglar. ‘You might be amphibious and shoot with your left! Hurry up!’ 

‘Can’t raise the other one,’ pleaded the victim. 

‘What’s the matter with it?’ 

‘Rheumatism in the shoulder!’ 

The burglar stood for a moment or two in deepest contemplation. 

‘It’s good for you,’ he observed at length, ‘that rheumatism and me happens to be old pals. I got it in my left arm, too!’

And then the pair proceeded to discuss the nature of their aches and pains ; they debated symptoms, premonitions, and the effect of a change of the weather. Then they compared notes as to the respective merits of opodeldoc, witch-hazel, essence of evergreen, rattlesnake oil, Chiselum’s Pills, Finkleham’s Extract, Omberry’s Ointment, Pott’s Pain Pulverizer, Blickerstaff’s Blood Builder, and a number of similar preparations. By the time they had exhausted the list they were the best of friends, and the burglar sympathetically helped his victim into his clothes.

You would never have suspected that the burglar was eager for a game of dominoes. But as soon as his victim explained that he suffered from rheumatism in the left shoulder, the burglar matched the experience with an identical one of his own, and from that moment the game proceeded merrily enough. The most unlikely people play at dominoes.

Or, if it be objected that Mr. Henry’s story is merely a frolic of a vivacious and versatile imagination, let us turn from fiction to fact. From Mr. Henry’s pleasant fantasies to the sombre biography of a Lord Chief Justice is a far flight. I am very fond, however, of Barry O’Brien’s great Life of Lord Russell of Killowen. And few things in the book are more striking than the biographer’s story of the way in which his friendship with Lord Russell — then Mr. Charles Russell — began. ‘In the summer of 1875,’ Mr. O’Brien says, ‘my father died, and, in the winter of the same year, poor MacMahon passed away. Within a few months I lost my two best friends in the world. It was a great blow and a great sorrow to me. One evening about six o’clock I went into the “Cock” to dine. I felt very miserable, and, I dare say, I looked it. I had just commenced my chop when in walked Charles Russell. I think there was not a man in London whom I liked less to see at that moment. I shrank from what I conceived to be his cold, hard, unsympathetic nature.’ O’Brien tried to gulp his chop hurriedly in order to get away from his frigid acquaintance. But Russell came and sat at the same table right opposite him.’ He started the conversation. He spoke about MacMahon with a sympathy and a feeling which I did not in the least expect. Indeed, I never, I think, saw so complete a metamorphosis in any man as I saw in Russell that evening. It seemed to me that, while we talked, the whole character of his face changed. The hard, masterful look was gone. The disagreeable combative expression of the mouth had vanished. The eyes were soft and kind. The voice was subdued and low; and now and then a charming smile would play over his features, lighting up what was truly a noble countenance.’ And thus began a friendship which lasted and deepened through many years. Now here was a surprise! It never occurred to O’Brien that Charles Russell could respond to his friend’s sorrow with a sorrow of his own. He never suspected him of sympathy. But O’Brien learned that day, as I learned last night, and as we all learn sooner or later, that the most unlikely people play at dominoes. 

For the beauty of dominoes is that any one can play the game. You have but to grasp two essential principles. You must clearly understand in the first place that, at every turn, you must match your companion’s play, laying a six beside his six, a three beside his three, and so on. And you must clearly understand in the second place that the whole secret of success lies, not in hoarding, but in spending. Victory lies in paying out the little ivory tablets with as prodigal a hand as possible. It is better in dominoes to give than to keep. It is better to play a domino with twelve black dots on it than a domino with only two. Dominoes teaches me to ‘measure my life by loss instead of gain, not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured out.’ Anybody who can firmly grasp these two fundamental principles may become an expert and brilliant domino player. 

One of the most accomplished players that I have ever met was introduced to me by Mrs. Florence Barclay. I refer, of course, to Mrs. O’Mara, the nurse, in The Mistress of Shenstone. Lady Inglesby had received news that her husband had been killed on active service at Targai, and she was being attended by Doctor Sir Deryck Brand. Turning suddenly to the nurse, Sir Deryck caught a strange look of dumb anguish in those quiet eyes.

‘Mrs. O’Mara,’ he said, with a hand upon her shoulder, ‘you have sorrow of your own!’

She drew away in terror. ‘Oh, hush!’ she whispered. ‘Don’t ask! Don’t unnerve me, sir! Help me to think of her only!’ Then, more calmly, ‘Only, only sir, as you are so kind’ — she drew from her pocket a crumpled telegram and handed it to the doctor — ‘Mine came at the same time as hers!’ she said simply.

The doctor unfolded the War Office message.

‘Regret to report Sergeant O’Mara killed in assault on Targai yesterday.’ 

‘He was a good husband,’ said the nurse, ‘and we were very happy.’

The doctor held out his hand. ‘I am proud to have met you, Mrs. O’Mara,’ he said. ‘This seems to me the bravest things I have ever known a woman do!’

She smiled through her tears. ‘Thank God, sir,’ she said tremulously, ‘but it is easier to bear my sorrow when I have work to do for her.’

What does it mean? It means that Mrs. O’Mara had thoroughly mastered the two essential principles of dominoes. She had learned to lay her own experience of anguish beside the experience of Lady Inglesby; and she learned that the secret of life lay, not in saving her heart’s best treasure, but in spending it. She might have worried; but she worked. 

She reminds me of Charles Lamb. Charles Lamb knew how to play dominoes. How, at every turn, he matched his sister’s moods, laughing with her when she was in the humour to laugh, and weeping with her when she wept! It is a dramatic and tender story, the story of Lamb’s compassionate ministry to his afflicted sister. Charles had himself known the horrors of insanity, and, after his recovery, he watched over poor Mary with a brooding and vigilant solicitude. He simply lived for her, and tended her until his death with a most affecting and beautiful constancy. ‘Whenever,’ says one who knew them well, ‘whenever an approach of one of her fits of insanity was announced by some irritability or change of manner, Charles would take Mary under his arm and set out for the asylum. It was very affecting to encounter the young brother and sister walking together across the fields, bathed in tears, bent on this painful errand. They used to carry a strait-waistcoat between them.’ Charles and Mary Lamb were playing dominoes, that was all. Against each experience of hers, he set a similar experience of his own. The charm of dominoes is that it always calls out your best. As I have said, it is better to lay down a tablet with twelve dots than a tablet with only two. The more I give, the richer I am. Lady Inglesby’s grief appealed to all that was best in Mrs. O’Mara, and, matching heart-break with heart-break, she gave herself without stint. Mary Lamb’s affliction appealed to all that was best in the gentle Elia, and, matching suffering with suffering, he gave himself without stint to his brotherly ministry. And both Mrs. O’Mara and Charles Lamb were brought nearer to success in life’s great game through squandering the soul’s treasure with such a lavish hand. 

And what about Paul? Was not Paul a past-master at both the principles that govern a game of dominoes? He knew that the secret of success was not to save your pieces, but to get rid of them. 

‘Most gladly, therefore,’ says he, ‘will I spend and be spent for you.’ And was there ever one as clever at matching his companion’s play ? ‘I made myself a slave,’ he says, ‘that I might win the slaves; unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law ; to them that are without law, I became as without law, that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak; I am made all things to all men, that I might by any means save some.’ 

That was the greatest game of dominoes ever played! 

And surely this is the secret of the wonderful appeal that the Cross makes to me. It is divine sorrow exactly matching human sorrow. 

‘Humanity,’ as one of the greatest of our lawyers put it, ‘has been deeply wounded somewhere. ‘So’ He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities.’ He was crucified between two thieves as an emblem of the fact that He laid His anguish beside our human anguish, His heartache and heart-break beside our own. In matching our sorrows He poured out His own divinest treasure without stint and without reserve. He gave everything; and, because He gave everything, He must win everything. Yes, He must win everything! The appeal of the Cross carries all before it. The ‘Lady of the Decoration’ tells how, one Christmas-time, she gave a magic-lantern entertainment to the mothers of the Japanese children who attended the kindergarten. The little Japanese women, who had never seen a piano before, much less a magic-lantern, came in force. But they were unimpressed. ‘I showed them a hundred slides. I explained until I was hoarse. I gesticulated and orated to no purpose. They remained silent and stolid. By-and-by there was a stir, heads were raised and necks craned. A sudden interest swept over the room. I followed their gaze, and saw on the sheet the picture of Christ toiling up the mountain under the burden of the cross. The story was new and strange to them, but the fact was as old as life itself. At last they had found something that touched their own lives and brought the quick tears of sympathy to their eyes.’ They felt that here was One who had suffered just as they had suffered, One who felt exactly as they felt, One whose deep and terrible experience exactly answered to their own. He was the very Saviour they needed; the match was perfect!

How sweet the fitness betwixt Him and me!
My sin needs grace like this, so rich and free;
And weakness, helpless weakness, such as mine,
Is needed to make perfect strength divine. 

These Japanese mothers felt that the story that they heard that night fitted their lives as glove fits hand, as key fits lock, as domino fits domino. When the great wide world makes the same luminous discovery, then, depend upon it, the conflict of the ages is over and the Christ has won! 

– F.W. Boreham