Word: backgammon
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...solemnly playing backgammon, last week, in the warm sitting room of a small house at Louveciennes. Several correspondents hovered irritably around the placid players, not quite daring to interrupt. From the bottom of profane hearts they cursed Old Dr. Turner for the maddening deliberation of his moves. Why didn't he lose, or win? A pox on backgammon! They wanted to interview the other venerable player, the grizzled yet roly-poly one, the man with the shrewd smiling eyes, the Marshal of France, Joseph Joffre, 76, famed hero of the Battle of the Marne...
While the old Marshal pondered Mme. Joffre, sitting beside him in a rocking chair, was observed to rock more vigorously. Her husband, with half closed eyes perhaps fixed on things far away, seemed to reflect as ponderously as had Old Dr. Tuffier over backgammon. Suddenly Mme. Joffre stopped her quick rocking, sat up bristling, spoke: "I wonder-I just wonder-how many people would claim they lost the Battle of Marne, if he had lost...
...Mais certainment! But nothing controversial," with a smile, "And now, gentlemen, please, no more questions. I do not excite myself. I take precautions. I find at seventy-six that I must be careful. So I play backgammon...
With the ascendancy of the Medicis, Nicolo lost his job, was accused of plotting against the new rulers, banished to his poverty-stricken country villa. Here he was reduced to the boorish society of the pot-house-backgammon and trie trac with butcher and furnace-makers replaced learned converse with the intellectuals of Florence. Though he filled much of his time with wine, women, and oaths, he was forced out of sheer boredom to pore long hours over his beloved Latin-history, comedy, philosophy (translated from the Greek)-and set down his own political philosophy (The Prince, The Discourses...
...people to get his work done. His love and respect for his children was immense. A keen sportsman in youth, he could hardly bear to dissect pigeons later. The favorite game of his gentle, invalid age is referred to in a letter: "Now the tally with my wife in backgammon stands thus: she, poor creature, has won only 2,490 games while I have won, hurrah, hurrah, 2.795 games!" A pious country Woman, on hearing that he would go to hell for his beliefs, replied: "God Almighty can't afford to do without so good...