I presented the
below article, written by James M'Cune Smith in a posting on the 19th
century Afro-American Abolishionist newspaper, the
National Era.
I'm including it here for the sake of convenience.The National
Era
September 29,
1859
Vol. XIII No. 665 P. 153
CHESS.
by James M'Cune Smith
In that sad autumn month of 1857, when the commercial panic had reached
its height, and when New York city seemed the central vortex of disaster
not only of the United States, but of the civilized world there were two
occurrences in singular contrast with the frightfully excited state of the
public mind. To the few who had the heart to look out of doors, out of
doors never looked more lovely. The air was balmy and of delightful
temperature, the sky was cloudless, the sunsets beautiful, and never,
since the world began, threw a more gorgeous hue over mountain and forest
of the American landscape. We confess to some sympathy with that gloomy
state of the public mind not that we had any golden argosy in stocks or
shares which went down yet there was the coming winter, and, possibly, wan
cheeks and supperless beds to those dearer than life. But, whatever gloom
we felt was one day suddenly dissipated by the glorious “out of doors,”
which had smiled and beckoned us many a day unheeded, and which, now no
longer to be kept aloof, told us of the goodness as well as the glory of
the Almighty.
We thought then, and we think now, that had the men of God, instead of
improving that dark hour with pictures of darker sins and darker
vengeance, and a more fearful judgment to come, had they simply pointed to
the earth yielding her abundance, and to the air charged with health, and
to the sky filled with the smile of God, and said to their alarmed people,
“Peace, be still!” there would soon have been an end of all panic.
Cheerfulness would have resumed her sway; and many a grave would have yet
remained unfilled, and the sadder gates of our institutions for the insane
would now hold some thousands fewer within their portals.
The other occurrence was in-doors. While men in Wall street surged to and
fro under impulses they no more understood and could no more govern than
the iron waves in the howling storm; while men in Broadway and other
streets adjacentthe masters suddenly arrested in their golden dreams of
enormous profit, and the workmen sadly folding up their implements of
labor; and while the poor, frantic with an unknown dread, rushed to the
savings banks,* or gathered in bread mobs in distant parksin the midst of
this social hurricane, there was one house in Broadway, in which men daily
gathered, and matters went on
“Calm as a summer's
sea,”
the very centre of the vortex, yet calm as a moonlit pool, so deeply
embayed in mountains, that no breath of air could reach it a land-locked
haven, in which whoever entered, however storm riven or care-crushed,
became calm and still, and hung up his votive offerings to the genius
loci; which was neither music, nor dancing, nor dice, nor wine, nor opium,
nor lotus, nor hasheesh, but simply Chess! the immortal game, painted as
played on the inside of the tomb of Nevotp, the Egyptian, 3,000 years
B.C.;** but who can paint it as played at Donadi's rooms in
Broadway, in the year of grace 1857?
We have said that “out of doors” dissipated our gloom at that date; but
in-doors this indoors was an accessory cloud-dispeller. We “got” there
after this wise:
Years ago, in the early months of our still persistent honeymoon, I
purchased a pretty but fragile set of chessmen, and aided by an old copy
of "Walker", and the new frau, made some little progress in chess, until
little fingers grew up round the table, and made a general smash of
knights, pawns, and rooks, and little cares of another kind interfered
with further proficiency. And it is good testimony in favor of the game,
that when knight and pawn so went to the band, no harsh nor unkind word
was uttered against their young destroyers, the chubby fingers were not
rapped, nor their owners punished. It is not always so, however. We read
of a passionate duke, in the middle ages, breaking the chess board on the
skull of his conqueror; and I have seen the wild Fylbel aim a sudden blow
at a little French, man, who recklessly swept the men off the board when
Fyl was about to “mate” an opponent. My description of the game attracted
some friends to buy board and book; and in a little while, Fylbel, the
Downings, one of the Reasons, and an occasional jew-pedlar who insisted on
taking the king, (the atrocious regicide!) with the preliminary
exclamation, “chess de koenig” formed as clumsy a set of chess players as
could be hunted up. The appearance of Staunton's Chess-Players Hand Book
was an era in our progress, although months were wasted in discussing the
laws of the game by that born Causidicus, who now presides over the
Sea-Girt House at Newport. In course of time, we became decent players.
So the year 1857 found us. It was some relief, looking at the daily
papers, to turn from the failure of A, B, & Co., for $150,000, and from
the suspension of specie payments by the banks, except the glorious old
Chemical, to the unruffled proceedings of the first American Chess
Congress, then in session, admission for the week, to lookers on one
dollar. But that dollar? Was it prudent, with bank account at low water,
and slim prospect of a flow, and on the edge of a long winter, with others
dependent, was it prudent so to bestow to throw away a dollar? After
hearing counsel before ourself three whole days, we held a family council
with “die frau,” who at once decided that we must go. And “went” we did.
And the officers of the Chess Congress, with nobler instincts of gentlemen
than the New York Academy of Medicine ***, did not hesitate or
refuse to admit a negro, even with the high-bloods from the South in their
midst, and the danger of the dissolution of the Union before their eyes.
Having seen their portraits in Frank Leslie, we instantly singled out
Paulsen and his great antagonist, and a little skillful elbowing found us
seated beside their board. There was Louis Paulsen, with his vast head,
sanguine temperament, but coarse fibre, indicating his rough, almost pure-Bersekir
blood; and as we gazed at Morphy, with his fine, open countenance,
brunette hue, marvelous delicacy of fibre, bright, clear eyes, and
elongated submaxillary bone, a keen suspicion entered our ethnological
department that we were not the only Carthaginian in the room. It might
only be one drop, perhaps two ,God only knows how they got there but
surely, beside the Tria mulattin who at present writes, there was also a
Hekata-mulattin in that room!
It was the old combat between Coeur de Lion and the Saladin. How
strange that the Orient and the Occident should yet war! Paulsen huge,
massive, ponderous; Morphy slight, elegant, yet swift as lightning.
The game was about half through, so far as the number of moves were
concerned. Paulsen hesitated, clasped his hands, leaving out the two long
fore-fingers, which he laid firmly on the edge of the board counted over
the five or six possible moves of his opponent, and then evidently knew
something more would follow but what? You could almost see him think; at
length, with a peculiar flourish of his arm, he
seizes a pawn, and moves. With scarcely a moment's hesitation, with his
eyes for an instant bent on the board, Morphy raises his arm as if to
strike, and throws a piece right in the way of his antagonist. Another
long, long pause, the hands again clasped: “why, take the piece, man,” is
on everybody's unopened lips; yet Paulsen pauses, again clasps his hands,
and for nearly half an hour pores over the board; he
does not take the proffered piece, but offers one of equal value; then
something skin to electricity flashed through and out of Morphy, the calm
white forehead “pleated up,” his arm raised, he swiftly moves; and, as if
caught with the same impulse. Paulsen moves instantly; then, for a few
seconds, there is a click, click, clicka move each second percussion-caps,
rifles, cannons, grape, canister, the clash of swords and then all is
still. Flushed with the struggle, Paulsen looks up to see why the other
sits calm and cold as an icicle; Paulsen glances again at the board, and
sees mate for himself three or four moves off!
Surely, thought we, chess is a question of magnetism; given, a fair
parity in skill between two players, and the more powerfully magnetic will
sway and conquer the will of the less magnetic, and force him into moves
according to his will. We had tried this often, directly, with the
susceptible engraver, P. H. R., and once, in a reflex manner, with J. S.,
of Providence. In this latter instance, he being the less practiced
player, but of impressible nerves, by fixing our attention on the board at
the same moment with him, and marking out the best move against us, he
invariably made that move, and won; per contra, while, in another game, we
made moves, and then looked away; ignored the board until he had moved;
unmagnetized, the termination of the game was speedily against him.
How, then, did Paulsen, with his superior magnetism, and not very
inferior skill, fail to affect Morphy? The moment that Morphy completed a
move, he threw the whole board away from his attention, brushed away
magnetism, so to speak often went off to the other end of the room, and
had to be summoned thence to reply to Paulsen's move. (4.) And it was very
evident that the study of the former was not at all in relation to what
Paulsen would move, but in regard to the possible moves and combinations,
embracing from twelve to twenty moves, and their twelve times twelve, and
twenty times twenty of possible inter-combinations. This whirl of
permutation, with accurate results in each of thousands of combinations,
evidently passes through Morphy's mind in like manner as in Zerah Colburn
and other arithmetical prodigies, addition, subtraction, multiplication,
and the square root, are performed with the rapidity and accuracy of Mr.
Babbage's machine. So that for any one less gifted in this peculiar power
than Morphy to attempt to play with him, is like one man at the brake of a
fire-engine, striving to play the same against another worked by steam;
or, more accurately, for an ordinary adept to endeavor to count interest
with Zerah Colburn, or the negro prodigy recently announced in Alabama.
This leads us to inquire, what is chess? Is it a purely intellectual
exercise, affording scope and improvement and test of the mental
faculties? or is it a physico-intellectual exercise, engaging muscular as
well as brain work? What faculties does it call into exercise? The eye and
fingers, the muscles of the arm, and the muscles of the orbit, the
peculiar power of seeing the men in their places, and of seeing
men that are in their places as if they were not there, but elsewhere, and
others, or blanks, where they actually are a sort of physical reticence
and imagination acting at one and the same moment such is one phase of
chess exercise. Napoleon planned his battles on large maps, with pin-heads
indicating the whereabouts of each corps, division, and even brigade. He
moved the pins about as his thought
required, and thus completed his plan. But your chess-player must go
through this preliminary fight without touching map or pin; he must with
most difficult reticence keep hands off until he makes a complete survey
of the men and the field; and when he once touches a man, it must be moved
beyond recall. This requires a stretch of attention very exhausting, nay,
almost impossible to some minds; it is the faculty which phrenologists
term “continuity,” which is the result, for the most part, of training,
sometimes a gift. We notice, in nearly all the chess - playing friends we
have named, that their failure in play depends on the lack of this
faculty. G. T. D., for example, makes the most vigorous attacks of any of
them, but, after the twelfth or sixteenth move, his attention is
exhausted, and some careless move makes him an easy prey to a less
vigorous opponent. In his case, this failure in attention, or continuity,
is confined to his chess play; in business, or in public movements, in
which he is deeply interested, he is constant, persistent, and steadfast
as a sleuth bound. This would seem to indicate that his perceptive
faculties are deficient, or are easily wearied over the chess-board. Per
contra, among these friends, P. H. R., the engraver, is the only one who
plays an even, unflagging game throughout; indeed, as many have found to
their chagrin, plays the better end game, the worse his chances appear to
be. His perceptive faculties are trained by his employment, and rather
improve than weary by continuity of exercise.
Another amateur, W. C. I., is a most interesting study at the
chess-board. He has fine perceptive faculties, is a splendid boxer, of
quick, strong, combative temperament, and of full physical imagination. He
makes the most beautiful combinations we ever saw on the chess - board;
they seem as brilliant as fireworks; but he loses almost every game, not
from breaking down of his continuity or attention, so much as from an
incurably mercurial disposition, which leads him to forsake a sound move
for one apparently more brilliant, but less safe. This
gentleman bought a mare the other day, which, in twenty four hours, kicked
three wagons to pieces, and threw him out each time; of course, instead of
getting rid of her, he is “bound” to break her, it will be “such a
splendid feat.” From the nature of the faculties which it calls into play,
we regard chess as a physical as well as intellectual exercise, requiring
muscular work as well as brain work. Cricket, billiards, chess, rise from
the physico-intellectual to the intellectuo-physical; and chess,
billiards, cricket, reverse the order. Lookers-on at cricket feel the
blood rush, the muscles clench, and a “hurra” escaping from the lips.
Lookers on at billiards tell me that to see Phelan play affords the
highest possible physical enjoyment (5.). Lookers on at chess feel
their muscles twitching, their fingers clasping and moving imaginary men,
and their heads aching when the game is done. Another reason why we regard
chess less as an intellectual than a physical exercise consists in the
fact, that the highest eminence in chess is attained before the age of
full intellectual development. In our American Chess Congress, the
champions of the champions were very young men: Morphy twenty, and Paulsen
twenty-three or four. McDonnell, Staunton, Harrwitz, Stanley, all won
their laurels in their early
days. The best chess-players on record, in like manner, had attained their
eminence while under thirty years of age; while the human intellect is not
at its full development until between the thirty-fifth and forty-fifth
year of the individual. And if chess-playing maximum occurs before the
intellectual maximum, it follows that chess is not a purely intellectual
exercise. Furthermore, a man's force in chess, like his physical power or
force, diminishes after he is thirty years of age. Yankee Sullivan at
forty three, some eighteen years after he had passed his physical maximum,
was no match for his own equal, aged twenty-five; hence the years told in
Tom Hyer's favor.
In like manner, Mr. Stanley, who, at twenty-two, had won a match
against Mr. St. Amant, in New Orleans, was but a third-rate player at
forty years of age; and the real excuse for Mr. Staunton, in declining to
play with Morphy, was, that he had passed his maximum chess-playing age
some twenty
years ago, and could not be expected, an old man, to acquit himself as if
he had been a young one. “I will take to my work, let the young gentleman
take to his play,” was really a truthful and adequate reason for declining
to play; but “why not say this before?” say the critics. Because, on
practicing, as he doubtless did, in private, Mr. Staunton discovered that
his chess skill was dulled to his own apprehension, his chess muscles had
lost their wonted fire and lubricity in the gambit. Au reste what a stupid
piece of red republicanism it is, in the midst of
the nineteenth century, to expect a king, even of chess, to throw away his
crown wittingly, before an unknown cavalier, however preux!
In relation to the higher faculties which it calls into exercise,
chess affects less the pure reasoning powers than is usually taken for
granted. Classed as a division of mathematical study, it belongs to the
arithmetical rather than the transcendental department of mathematics; it
is no higher than permutation. All possible moves of a given number of
pieces can be summed up in an intelligible line of figures less than a
yard long. The objection, therefore, of the great Scotch metaphysician to
mathematics, as a means of mental development that they lead to only
positive results, as in a grooved track applies with double force to
chess, which calls into exercise one of the lower branches of mathematics
only.
A great deal has been said about invention in relation to
chess-playing, and a London newspaper especially lands the inventive
genius of Mr. Morphy. If our view of his peculiar power be the correct
one, then there is no invention in his play. All the possible combinations
of the moves before him appear to his mind as clearly as K. p. to K.'
to an ordinary player; and from what he sees, he selects the best play. It
is about as much invention as is exercised by a natural arithmetician, in
announcing, in a minute, a difficult result in interest for days no more.
Besides, this gentlemant, he very best of known living chess-players seems
singularly deficient in even the moderate degree of invention which can be
predicated of chess. We have the Evans Gambit, the Scotch Gambit, the
Muzio Gambit, &c., &c., but we have not yet the Morphy Gambit, nor is
there in print more than one very
commonplace problem by our modern chess king.
But the problems! Do not they require invention! If they do, it is
invention of no higher character, and requiring no greater powers, than to
construct certain figures with a Chinese puzzle; and a first-rate
problem-composer is seldom, if ever, a first-class player. These views of
the status of chess-playing receive confirmation from the fact that
first-class chess-players have seldom, if ever, distinguished themselves
in the higher departments of thought or invention. Mr. Buckle, the author
of “Civilization in England,” may be adduced as an exception; he was,
fifteen years ago, among the most eminent chess-players in Europe; he
suddenly gave up chess-playing, betook himself to study, and his admirable
volume is the first fruits of fifteen years of intense application. Yet,
while, he betrays an
extent of reading wider than that so pompously announced by Gibbon, and
while strong common sense and keen observation are abundantly manifest in
his work, there is lacking the bold grasp and deep insight which we find
in Hume and Sir James Mackintosh, and even in Dumas. Mr. Buckle lets us
into the secret of his shortcomings, moreover, in the following sentence:
“Whoever will take the pains
fairly to estimate the present condition of mental philosophy must admit
that, notwithstanding the influence it has always exercised over some of
the most powerful minds, and through them over society at large, there is,
nevertheless, no other study which has been so zealously prosecuted, so
long continued, and yet remains so barren of results!” Barren of results!
Shades of Locke, Malebranche, Berkeley, Dugald Stewart, Reid, Brown,
Cousin, and Sir William Hamilton! Of course, Mr. Buckle is an ardent
admirer of Auguste Compte, and fifteen
years of purely literary labor has not raised him above the intellectual
level of the chess-board.
Yet chess-playing is an amusement worthy of cultivation, especially
for the young. It is better in-door entertainment than cards, or dice, or
lager-bier; it has been well said that it does not lead to gambling. It
has the positive merit of improving the tone of manners and of cultivating
the power of attention. In looking at Morphy and Paulsen, in 1857, we were
struck with the evident purity of both these young men. Neither presented
the bleared eyes, shaking hands, nor nervous tremor, which a four-hours
sitting would betray in nine-tenths of our young men of the city; they
were plainly in perfect physical condition, and all their faculties were
clear and in full honest exercise. And so must the devotees of chess keep
themselves, or they will inevitably lose rank as chess-players.
* It was a marked instance of “faith,” that while the
colored people of New York had over a million of dollars in savings banks,
scarce one of them was seen in the crowd who made this “run” on those
institutions.
** Bunsen, Egypt's Place in Universal History,
vol. ii, p. 288.
*** A month or two after the organization of
the New York Academy of Medicine, the writer of this, at the request of
the late Dr. Bliss, and Dr. Tones, sent his name, with these gentlemen as
vouchers, as an applicant for membership. It was duly referred to the
proper committee, who sent their chairman, the venerable Dr. Francis, with
a letter, acknowledging the fullness of the credentials, and even passing
as encomium on the applicant, yet respectfully requesting him to withhold
his application for the present, lest it might interfere with the
“harmony” of the young institution. This be did on conditions which the
committee and the Academy took the earliest opportunity flagrantly to
violate.
(4*) Morphy, on meeting a new antagonist of first
class, generally loses the first game. He then sits by the board, and is
under the magnetism of his opponent. Ten minutes reflection, after the
game is over, shows him his own false play, and the strength of his
adversary; in after games he deserts the board and play as soon as he has
moved and wins.
(5*) Probably that sense of pleasure from muscular
movement announced by Brown, in his Lectures on the Philosophy of the
Human Mind; pages 134-186. Glasg. 1830. |
