New Orleans Times-Democrat,
January 25th 1885 (by James D. Séguin,
editor of the Times-Democrat from 1883 - 1917 and later reproduced by
William Steinitz in the ICM, Volume I, page 80)
Mrs. Thelcide Morphy, the mother of Paul Morphy,
died in this city on the 11th inst. having survived her beloved and tenderly
watched over son but a few months. Although living a life of comparative
seclusion for many years past, Mrs. Morphy in former days was a prominent and
much admired member of the highest circles of Creole society. her musical
talents, especially, were of a high order; as a pianist she was a true virtuoso,
and she has, we believe, composed some works of great merit, although these have
never passed beyond manuscript. If Paul Morphy inherited in his chess play the
acute discrimination, the judicial steadiness and accuracy of his father, Judge
Alonzo Morphy, it was undoubtedly from his talented mother that he derived the
extraordinary imaginative force, the unequaled brilliancy of conception that
marked his grandest combinations. Mrs. Morphy was a Miss le Carpentier, one of
our oldest Creole families.
