August 14, 2007

What Do Horatio Hornblower and Elizabeth Bennett Have In Common?















"Villagers" in a Florida community have taken up whist, a game played by Phileas Fogg, Elizabeth Bennett, Horatio Hornblower and Scarlett O’Hara, writes The Villages Daily Sun. If you're a whist neophyte, the pieces goes on to explain how it works:

Players are paired, male and female for the first round. The winning couple moves on, the man to one table, the woman to another. The male from the losing team moves over a chair, to become the partner of the woman arriving at the table. His former partner becomes the partner for the man who moves to the table.

“Sometimes you cross again,” Davis said.

After each round, which takes about five minutes, the coordinator rings a bell to signal the rotation.

No wonder it was such a popular game--it's the perfect opportunity for a little flirting and witty repartee! For further reading on the card game, wikipedia has a list of literary references to whist.

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