Concerning Chess - Page 2

sweet of chess-playing, the delight of having the
upper hand of a better player. Then to more complicated positions, and
at last back to the formal beginning. You begin to see now to what end
the array is made, and understand why one Gambit differeth from another
in glory and virtue. And the chess mania of your teacher cleaveth to you
thenceforth and for evermore.

It is a curse upon a man. There is no happiness in chess--Mr. St. George
Mivart, who can find happiness in the strangest places, would be at a
loss to demonstrate it upon the chess-board. The mild delight of a
pretty mate is the least unhappy phase of it. But, generally, you find
afterwards that you ought to have mated two moves before, or at the time
that an unforeseen reply takes your Queen. No chess-player sleeps well.
After the painful strategy of the day one fights one's battles over
again. You see with more than daylight clearness that it was the Rook
you should have moved, and not the Knight. No! it is impossible! no
common sinner innocent of chess knows these lower deeps of remorse. Vast
desert boards lie for the chess-player beyond the gates of horn.
Stalwart Rooks ram headlong at one, Knights hop sidelong, one's Pawns
are all tied, and a mate hangs threatening and never descends. And once
chess has been begun in the proper way, it is flesh of your flesh, bone
of your bone; you are sold, and the bargain is sealed, and the evil
spirit hath entered in.

The proper outlet for the craving is the playing of games, and there is
a class of men--shadowy, unhappy, unreal-looking men--who gather in
coffee-houses, and play with a desire that dieth not, and a fire that is
not quenched. These gather in clubs and play Tournaments, such
tournaments as he of the Table Round could never have imagined. But
there are others who have the vice who live in country places, in remote
situations--curates, schoolmasters, rate collectors--who go consumed
from day to day and meet no fit companion, and who must needs find some
artificial vent for their mental energy. No one has ever calculated how
many sound Problems are possible, and no doubt the Psychical Research
people would be glad if Professor Karl Pearson would give his mind to
the matter. All the possible dispositions of the pieces come to such a
vast number, however, that, according to the theory of probability, and
allowing a few thousand arrangements each day, the same problem ought
never to turn up more than twice in a century or so. As a matter of
fact--it is probably due to some flaw in the theory of probability--the
same problem has a way of turning up in different publications several
times in a month or so. It may be, of course, that, after all, quite
"sound" problems are limited in