Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — Chess. [ARTICLE]

Chess.

There is some strong, mysterious fascination about chess —a power more captivating to intellectual minds even than lotteries and games of chance are to the ignorant ana superstitious. It overcomes, one like opium-eating. What is the strange charm, exactly, has, perhaps, never been analyzed—perhaps never will be —but it is a mysterious fascination which enthralls men of all stations, ages, nations and professions. Men, not women. The records of ancient and modern chess-playing have alike been searched in vain to And the name of a single woman chess-player. The names of several lady chess-players are mentioned, to be sure, but none of them as being eminent in the game. One lady, indeed, is mentioned in chess annals who was to beat her husband at the game. That remarkable lady was the wife of Ferrand, Count of Flanders. But this skill on the part of the lady wrought almost fatal disaster to the Count of Flanders, in this wise : They played chess together until they hated each other heartily. The Count hated his wife because she always beat him at chess, and treated her badly in consequence; the wife, on the other side, repaid the treatment in kind by hating her husband back just as sincerely. About the year 1242 Ferrand, Count of Flanders, was taken prisoner-of-war, whereupon his affectionate wife, who might have obtained his release by exerting herself a little, refused to do so in the slightest, and left her liegelord to pine and languish in prison until, it is to be hoped, he learned a better temper. Good enough for him, too. But the ladv of Flanders was an exceptional player for a woman. Writers on chess assert that no woman has ever attained eminent skill at the game. Why? A fool may ask questions that a wise man cannot answer.

The muse of Mr. Charles Tomlinson is of opinion that chess, like arithmetic anciently, is not altogether the proper thing for the gauze-like cobweb of a lady’s mind. Says he: Not there, O lady, is thy mission found, Men love the exciting, intellectual life, etc. Just SO. It is eminently the proper time for some lady having the credit of her sex at heart to buckle on her armor and refute and utterly confound the tradition that women cannot play chess. It is always refreshing to see old traditions slaughtered. There is really something very strange and inexplicable in the fascination which chess exercises over the human mind, and it is not to be wondered at that, in the times of medieval superstitioh, all sorts of witch stores and demoniacal legends clustered around this mystic Oriental game. Satan and evil spirits were always connected with the game as players in these legends; never angels or good spirits, except as they piously endeavored to protect mortal chess-players from the lures of the demon antagonists. The stake for which the demon played was usually the soul of the unfortunate mortal, and, unless angels interposed, it is sad to relate that the demon usually won. Chess absorbs the mind as nothing else on earth. Alfred de Musset, the French poet, spent at least half his life at chessplaying. One writer states that a certain old gentleman played chess from four in the afternoon till ten at night every day of his life, for years. There are many modem amateurs who would like to do the same thing. Herr, a German player, and “ a full-habited man” died in a fit of apoplexy after twelve hours’ meditation over the chess problem—“ White to play and force the game in ten moves.” When it is remembered how losing at chess affects the temper it is not to be wondered at that medieval superstition ascribed the.; invention of chess to the devil. In point of fact, not the least strange of the mysteries attending chess is that, of all known games, chess is the one in which it is. the most difficult for a man to keep his 1 temper after being beaten. From time immemorial it has been conceded that losing at chess is at once the most intensely exasperating and the most profoundly humiliating of all earthly circumstances. It puts the soul of man in a fury in spite of himself. William the Conqueror, like most great warriors, was exceedingly fond of chess, and once, being checkmated by a French Prince with whom he was” playing, was so enraged that he seized the chess-board and flung it at his opponent’s head. The incident caused the two Princes to be enemies ever after.

Being a game of skill entirely, and one in which, unlike the game of lite, the element of chance does not enter at all, of course the losing player is denied the convenient and exquisite satisfaction of cursing his “luck,” and has not the shadow of a peg to hang his misfortune upon outside of himself and his own ignorance, rashness or stupidity. Naturally he is enraged in proportion. How his mind runs hither and thither, like a distracted„ ant, trying to make another responsible for his defeat. Somebody talked to him and disturbed his mighty intellect, his opponent didn’t play fairly 01 he had a headache whep’ he began to play; anything, in short, to fix the responsibility where it does not belong. lii my time I have known players, both men and women, otherwise excellent-tempered persons, on being beaten at chess to upset the phess-board and hurl the unhappy little chess-men across the room in a fury. All-flesh is grass, you see, w;.hen it comes to being beaten at chess. Bishop Olans Magnus relates that in the sixteenth, century it was a custom among the most illustrious Goths and Swedes to test the dispositions of suitors wno wished to marry their daughters by betting the young gentlemen to playing at chess. “For," says the Archbishop, “at these games their anger, love; peevishness, covetousness, dullness, idleness and many more mad pranks, passions and motion’s of their minds ... are used to be seen; as whethet the wooer be rudely disposed, that he will indiscreetly rejoice and suddenly triumph wheq he wins, or whether, when he is wronged, he can patiently endqredt and wisely put it off.” Excellent, verily, and nothing better could possibly be'desired at this day. Being beaten at chess is to the soul of man what testing by torsion is to metals —

measuring all the strength, elasticity and toughness in the grain of the man. He who can bear being beaten at chess goodnaturedly needs no other recommendation as a husband. Take" him quickly ! On the wholeTtt appears that there is but one way for a human being ever to be a chess-player with any satisfaction to himself. That way is, before beginning his chess career, to take a solemn vow and keep it that he will never, under any circumstances, permit himself to lose his temper, no matter how great the provocation is. Almost' everything can be said by a chess enthusiast in favor of this beautiful game, and yet it cannot be denied that skillful and long-continued chess-playing subjects the player* to a fearful mental strain. More than one enthusiastic chessplayer has paid for his enthusiasm with his life. This may be the reason that nearly all famous professional chess-play-ers either die young or abandon chessplaying forever. La Bourdomfhis, the French player, was undoubtedly killed by the mental strain of chess at forty-three years old, while his famous British opponent, Alexander McDonnell, died at the early age of thirty-seven. The two are. buried in the same grave-yard. The greatest chess-player the world has produced was young Paul Morphy, the American, and Paul Morphy never touches a chess-board. When in England he played eight games at once, blindfolded, ana lost but one of them. But he has abandoned chess forever. Happily, the recent report of his insanity is pronounced untrue. Staunton, too, I think it is, the veteran English pjayer, has given u]s chess, pronouncing it the breaker of friendship, the destroyer of good temper, and the promoter of selfishness. Overstrain of chess has produced in these cases an infinite disgust for chess. — Cincinnati Commercial.