Similarly in athletic sports there is almost invariably present a good share of rant and swagger and ostensible mystification--features which mark the histrionic nature of these employments.

In all this, of course, the reminder of boyish make-believe is plain enough.

The slang of athletics, by the way, is in great part made up of extremely sanguinary locutions borrowed from the terminology of warfare.

Except where it is adopted as a necessary means of secret communication, the use of a special slang in any employment is probably to be accepted as evidence that the occupation in question is substantially make-believe.
A further feature in which sports differ from the duel and similar disturbances of the peace is the peculiarity that they admit of other motives being assigned for them besides the impulses of exploit and ferocity.

There is probably little if any other motive present in any given case, but the fact that other reasons for indulging in sports are frequently assigned goes to say that other grounds are sometimes present in a subsidiary way.