Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860

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Are not these rare lines? They look to me as wise as hieroglyphics. Who
knows what rhyme and reason are written there,--what subtile wisdom rounded
into this small curve,--repeated on the breasts and backs of the
birds,--their own notes, it may be, photographed on their swelling breasts
like the musical notes on the harp-shell,--written in bright, almost
audible colors on the petals of flowers,--harmonies, melodies, for ear and
eye? Has this language, older than Erse, older than Sanscrit, ever got
translated? I am afraid, dear, the key has been turned in the lock, and
thrown into the well.

The ornithologists tell us that some birds build nicer nests, sing sweeter
songs, than their companions of the same species. Can experience add wisdom
to instinct? or is it the right of the elder-born,--the birthright of the
young robin who first breaks the shell? Who has rightly looked into these
things?

I half remember the story of a beautiful princess who had all imaginable
wealth in her stately palace, itself builded up of rare and costly
jewels. She had everything that heart could desire,--everything but a roc's
egg. Her mind was contracted with sorrow, till she could procure this one
ornament more to her splendors. I think it turned out that the palace
itself was built within the roc's egg. These birds are immense, and take up
three elephants at a time in their powerful talons, (almost as many as
Gordon Cumming himself, on a good day's hunt,) and their eggs are like
domes.

Now, do not you be like the foolish princess, and desire a roc's egg; it
will prove a stone, the egg of a rock, indeed. Be content rather with this
ostrich-egg I send you; with your own slender fingers lift the
lid;--pretty, is it not, the tea-service I send you? The tidy warblers
threw out the emptied shells; one by one I picked them up, and have made
cups and saucers, bowls and pitchers for you: a roc's egg never held
anything one-half so fine.

You will say I am a fairy, as brother Evelyn says, when I relate to him the
fine sights and sounds I have seen and heard in the woods. No, but the
little silent people are very good to me.

Let me, then, go on my bird's-egging and tell you one more fact about our
fairy, our Humming-Bird. Audubon says "that an all-wise Providence has made
this little hero an exception to a rule which prevails almost universally
through Nature,--namely, that the smallest species of a tribe are the most
prolific. The eagle lays one, sometimes two eggs; the small European wren
fifteen; the humming-bird two: and yet this latter is abundantly more
numerous in America than the wren in Europe." All on account of his
wonderful courage, admirable instinct, or whatever it is that guards and
guides him so unerringly.

You see we may well love him whom
Nature herself loves so dearly.

"Ce que Dieu garde est bien garde."

Ah, Estelle! your bonnie birdie, with
his wild whirr, darting back and forth
like a weaver's shuttle weaving fine
wefts, has got into my head; not "bee-bonneted,"
but bird-bonneted, I go. Yes,
this day shall be given to the king, as
our country-folk say, when they go a-pleasuring.
I am off with the little wool-gatherers,
to see what thorn and brier
and fern-stalk and willow-catkin will give
me. Good-day! good-day!

Your own

SUSAN, SUSY, SUE.

P. S. "May our friendship never
moult a feather!"

* * * * *

CHESS.

Schatrenschar, the Persian, who could count the stars one by one, who is
known to have been borne, (by the Simorg, the Eternal Fowl,) at midnight,
first to the evening star, and then to the moon, and then set down safely
in his home,--and Al Kahlminar, the Arabian, who was a mystic seer, and had
conversed face to face with the Demons of the Seven Planets, approaching
also, on one occasion, so nigh unto Uriel that his beard was singed by the
sun, wherein that angel resideth,--these, ten million years ago, lived in
their palaces on adjoining estates and lands. But about the boundary-line
atwixt them they could not agree: Schatrenschar maintaining that he had
lived there longest, and had a right to choose where the wall should be
built between himself and a later comer; Al Kahlminar declaring that the
world was not made for Schatrenschar,--furthermore, that the Astronomer had
paid nothing for the land, and had already more than he could attend to,
since his chief devotion was manifestly to the estates he was reputed to
own in Venus and the moon. They came to no decision; and it was beneath the
dignity of these men, who prided themselves on being confidants elect of
invisible and superior worlds, publicly to wrangle about the gross soil of
this. Nevertheless, Schatrenschar, at last, losing patience, cried,--

"Al Kahlminar, 'tis but by the grace of Yezdan, who hath commissioned me to
watch the sacred stars, which reveal not themselves to the violent, that I
am saved this day from flogging thee!"

To this the Seer: "O Schatrenschar, thou must have left in some of thy
other worlds, mayhap in Venus, the limbs which can cope with these."

"Nay," replied the Astronomer, discerning some truth in that remark, "but I
am not alone, Al Kahlminar; I have within my palace two valiant knights,
skilled with the steed and the spear, who are ready to go forth in my stead
at a word."

"And I," answered the Mystic, warming, "have two godly priests, men skilled
by the orthodox beheading of heretics into the aim and valor of Arjoon
himself. Your knights cannot stand before these messengers of Heaven; they
will tremble like aspen-leaves, lest Allah be wroth, if they receive harm."

"If thou shouldst bring forth thy priests, Al Kahlminar, then would I
confront them and thee with the two elephants which my brother sent me
lately from Geestan, on each of which I can place a rook with a slave
cunning with the javelin, before which thy priests will flee; for the
animals see no difference between priests and other mortals;--the elephant
is sagacious, neighbor!"

"And I," said the other, "haye riches, which thou hast not. Whatever thou
hast wherewith to extend thy line into my lot, I can oppose with an equal
force,--nay, with a stronger."

Schatrenschar hereupon paused in deep meditation. Presently a subtile
thought struck him. He took a parchment-leaf and drew thereon a diagram;
and after inscribing several hieroglyphic characters, he cried out,--

"Hearken, Al Kahlminar; hast thou not heard it among the sayings of Sasan,
that the battle is not always to him who hath the superior physical force?
Suppose that in our encounter thy forces stood here, as marked on these
squares: by what stratagem couldst thou reach me, who stand here with even
fewer and weaker men? If thou canst tell as much without my assistance, I
will yield the boundary-line; for it will show thee to have a calculation
equal to my own, as well as riches."

Al Kahlminar pondered long, suffered manifold headaches, closed not an
eyelid for a week, but could not give answer. The Mystic was used to seeing
only those things to see which the eyes must be closed. At length
Schatrenschar opened the problem to him, which so delighted his heart that
he clave unto him, and besought him that their estates should be one, and
that he would use his (Al Kahlminar's) riches as his own. A bower was built
midway between their houses, wherein they sat for hours over other
diagrams, contrived first by the Astronomer afterward by the Mystic: and
out of it arose a curious and knightly play which beareth to this day the
name Schatrenschar.

* * * * *

Perhaps this last line of the old Sanscrit story is the only veracious
thing in it. Perhaps it is all true. Who can answer? Was there ever a
great thing whose origin was not in some doubt? If so with the Iliad, with
Platonic Dialogues, with Shakspearian Plays, how naturally so with Chess!
The historic sinew of the above would seem to be, that Schatrenschar, the
Oriental word for Chess, is the name of a very ancient and learned
astronomer of Persia; how much mythologic fat has enveloped said sinew the
reader must decide. Philological inquisition of the origin of the low Latin
_Scacchi_ (whence the French _Echecs_, Ger. _Schach_, and our _Chess,_) has
led to a variety of conclusions. Leunclavius takes it from _Uscoches_,
famous Turkish banditti. Sirmond finds the word's parent in German
_Schaecher_ (robber) and grandparent in _Calculus_! Tolosanus derives
_check-mate_ from Heb. _schach_ (to prevail) and _mat_ (dead). Fabricius
favors the idea we have given above, and says, "A celebrated Persian
astronomer, one Schatrenschar, invented the game of Chess, and gave it his
own name, which it still bears in that country." Nicod derives it from
_Xeque_, a Moorish word for Prince or Lord. Bochart maintains that
_Schach-mat_ is originally Persian, and means "the king is dead." We
incline to accept this last opinion; and believe, that, though the game
must have originated with some person, perhaps Schatrenschar, yet it
reached its present form and perfection only through many touchings and
retouchings of men and generations. Pope's translation of the "Odyssey" has
led many persons to think that chess was known to the ancient Greeks,
because, in describing the sports of Penelope's suitors, the translator
says,--

"With rival art and ardor in their mien,
At Chess they vie to captivate the Queen."

But there can be little doubt that this is an anachronism.

In short, we may safely conclude that the game is of purely Oriental
origin. The Hindoos claim to have originated it,--or rather, say that Siva,
the Third Person of their Trinity, (Siva, the Destroyer,--alas! of time?)
gave it to them; Professor Forbes has shown that it has been known among
them five thousand years; but words tell no myths, and the Bengalee name
for Chess, _Shathorunch_, casts its ballot for Persia and
Shatrenschar;--though India may almost claim it, on account of the greater
perfection to which it has brought the game, and the lead it has always
taken in chess-culture. India rejoices in a flourishing chess-school. The
Indian Problem is known as the perfection of Enigmatic Chess. And if Paul
Morphy had gone to Calcutta, instead of London and Paris, he would have
found there one Mohesh Ghutuck, who, without discovering that he was a
P. and move behind his best play, and without becoming too sick to proceed
with the match, would have given him a much finer game than any antagonist
he has yet encountered. This Mohesh, who was presented by his admiring king
with a richly-carved chess-king of solid gold nine inches high, not only
plays a fabulous number of games at once whilst he lies on the ground with
closed eyes, but games that none of the many fine native and English
players of India can engage in but with dismay. Fine, indeed, it would have
been, if the world could have seen in the youths of Calcutta and New
Orleans the extreme West matched with the extreme East!

There is no call for any one to vindicate this game. Chess is a great,
worldwide fact. Wherever a highway is found, there, we may be sure, a
reason existed for a highway. And when we find that the explorer on his
northward voyage, pausing a day in Iceland, may pass his time in keen
encounters with the natives,--that the trader in Kamtschatka and China,
unable to speak a word with the people surrounding him, yet holds a long
evening's converse over the board which is polyglot,--that the missionary
returns from his pulpit, and the Hindoo from his widow-burning, to engage
in a controversy without the _theologicum odium_ attached,--the game
becomes authentic from its universality. It is akin to music, to love, to
joy, in that it sets aside alike social caste and sectarian differences:
kings and peasants, warriors and priests, lords and ladies, mingle over the
board as they are represented upon it. "The earliest chess-men on the banks
of the Sacred River were worshippers of Buddha; a player whose name and
fame have grown into an Arabic proverb was a Moslem; a Hebrew Rabbi of
renown, in and out of the Synagogues, wrote one of the finest chess poems
extant; a Catholic priest of Spain has bestowed his name upon two openings;
one of the foremost problem--composers of the age is a Protestant clergyman
of England; and the Greek Church numbers several cultivators of chess
unrivaled in our day." It has received eulogies from Burton,--from
Castiglione,--from Chatham, who, in reply to a compliment on a grand stroke
of invention and successful oratory, said, "My success arose only from
having been checkmated by discovery, the day before, at chess,"--from
Comenius, the grammarian,--from Conde, Cowley, Denham, Justus van Effen,
Sir Thomas Elyot, Guillim, Helvetia, Huarte, Sir William Jones, Leibnitz,
Lydgate, Olaus Magnus, Pasquier, Sir Walter Raleigh, Rousseau, Voltaire,
Samuel Warren, Warton, Franklin, Buckle, and many others of ability in
every department of letters, philosophy, and art. We know of but one man of
genius or learning--who has repudiated it,--Montaigne. "Or if he
[Alexander] played at chess," says Montaigne, "what string of his soul was
not touched by this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it because it
is not play enough,--that it is too grave and serious a diversion; and I am
ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon that as would serve to
much better uses." Looked at simply as a diversion, chess might naturally
impress a man of intellectual earnestness thus. It is not a diversion; a
recreation it may be called, but only as any variation from "the shop" is
recreative. But chess has, by the experiences of many, sufficiently proved
itself to have serious uses to men of thought, and in the way of an
intellectual gymnasium. It is to the limbs and sinews of the
mind--prudence, foresight, memory, combination, analysis--just what a
gymnasium is to the body. In it every muscle, every joint of the
understanding is put under drill; and we know, that, where the mind does
not have exercise for its body, but relics simply on idle cessation for its
reinforcement, it will get too much lymph. Work is worship; but work
without rest is idolatry. And rest is not, as some seem to think, a swoon,
a slumber; it is an active receptivity, a masterly inactivity, which alone
can deserve the fine name of Rest. Such, we believe, our favorite game
secures better than all others. Besides this direct use, one who loves it
finds many other incidental uses starting up about it,--such as made
Archbishop Magnus, the learned historian of Sweden, say, "Anger, love,
peevishness, covetousness, dulness, idleness, and many other passions and
motions of the minds of men may be discovered by it."--But we promised not
to vindicate chess, and shall leave this portion of our topic with the fine
verse of the Oriental bard, Ibn ul Mutazz:--

"O thou whose cynic sneers express
The censure of our favorite chess,
Know that its skill is Science' self,
Its play distraction from distress.
It soothes the anxious lover's care;
It weans the drunkard from excess;
It counsels warriors in their art,
When dangers threat and perils press;
And yields us, when we need them most,
Companions in our loneliness." [1]

[Footnote 1: Translated in that excellent periodical, which no lover of
chess should be without, _The Chess Monthly_, edited by Fiske and Morphy,
New York. (Vol. i. p. 92.)]

Now that the Persian poet has touched his lyre in our pages, we will not at
once pass to any cold geographical or analytical realm of our subject, but
pause awhile to cull some flowers of song which have sprung up on good
English soil, which the feet of Caissa have ever loved to press. No other
games, and few other subjects, have gathered about them so rich a
literature, or been intertwined with so much philological and historical
lore. Not the least of this is to be found in the English classics, from
which we propose to make one or two selections. We begin where English
poetry begins, with Dan Chaucer; and from many beautiful conceits turning
upon chess, we select one which must receive universal admiration. It is
from the "Booke of the Duchesse."

"My boldnesse is turned to shame,
For false Fortune hath played a game
At the Chesse with me.

"At the Chesse with me she gan to play,
With her false draughts full divers
Sho stale on me, and toke my fers:[1]
And when I sawe my fers away,
Alas! I couth no longer play.

"Therewith Fortune said,' Checke here,
And mate in the mid point of the checkere
With a paune errant.' Alas!
Full craftier to play she was
Than Athalus, that made the game
First of the Chesse, so was his name."

[Footnote 1: Mediaeval name for the Queen, (originally
the Counsellor,)--the strength of the
board.]

In the early part of the seventeenth century, Thomas Middleton wrote a
comedy styled "A Game at Chess," which was acted at the Globe
(Shakspeare's) nine times successively. It seems to have been a severe
tirade on the religious aspects of the times. The stage directions are
significant: for example:--Act I., Scene 1. _Enter severally, in order of
the game, the White and Black houses_. Act II., Scene 1. _Enter severally
White Queen's Pawnes and Black Queen's Pawnes_. The Prologue is as
follows:--

"What of the game called Chesse-play can be made
To make a stage-play shall this day be played.
First you shall see the men in order set,
States, and their Pawnes, when both the sides are met;
The houses well distinguished: in the game
Some men entrapt, and taken to their shame,
Bewarded by their play: and in the close
You shall see checque-mate given to Virtue's foes.
But the fair'st jewel that our hopes can decke
Is so to play our game t'avoid your checke."

The play excited indignation in the partisans of the Romish Church, and was
not only suppressed by James I., but at the demand of the Queen its author
was imprisoned, and was relieved only by a witty verse sent to the King.

The last which we have room to quote is anonymous, and of date near
1632. It may have been written by the celebrated divine, Thomas Jackson, of
Corpus-Christi College, whose discourse comparing the visible world to a
"Devil's Chess-board" evidently suggested the familiar etching in which
Satan contends with a youth for his soul. The lines are entitled:

THE PAWNE.

"A lowly one I saw,
With aim fist high:
Ne to the righte,
Ne to the lefte
Veering, he marched by his Lawe,
The crested Knyghte passed by,
And haughty surplice-vest,
As onward toward his heste
With patient step he prest,
Soothfaste his eye:
Now, lo! the last doore yieldeth,
His hand a sceptre wieldeth,
A crowne his forehead shieldeth!

"So 'mergeth the true-hearted,
With aim fixt high,
From place obscure and lowly:
Veereth he nought;
His work he wroughte.
How many loyall paths be trod,
Soe many royall Crownes hath God!"

It is very clear that the pawns in chess represent the common soldiers in
battle. The Germans call them "peasants" (_Bauern_); the Hindoos call them
_Baul_, or "powers" (in the sense of _force_); and that each of these, if
he can pursue his file to its end, should win a crown has always given to
this game a popular stamp. These pawns are doubtless, next to knights, the
most interesting pieces on the board: Philidor called them "the soul of
chess."

At an early period Asiatic chess was divided into two branches,--known
amongst players as Chinese and Indian. They are different games in many
respects, and yet enough alike to show that they were at some period the
same. The Chinese game maintains its place in Eastern Asia, Japan, etc.; in
the islands of the Archipelago, and, with very slight modifications,
throughout the civilized world, the Indian game is played. Indeed, there is
no difference between Indian and European chess, except that in the former
the Bishop is called Elephant,--the Rooks, Boats,--the Queen, Minister: the
movements of the pieces are the same.

Of Chinese chess some description will be more novel. Their chess-board,
like ours, has sixty-four squares, which are not distinguished into
alternate black and white squares. The pieces are not placed on the
squares, but on the corners of the squares. The board is divided into two
equal parts by an uncheckered space, which is called the River. There are
nine points on each line, and forty-five on each half of the board. They
have the same number of pieces with ourselves. Each player has a king, two
guards, two elephants, two knights, two chariots, two cannon, and five
pawns. Each player places nine pieces on the first line of the board,--the
king in the centre, a guard on each side of him, two elephants next, two
knights next, and then the two chariots upon the extremities of the board;
the two cannons go in front of the two knights and the pawns on the fourth
line.

The king moves only one square at a time, but not diagonally, and only in
an _enceinte_, or court, of four squares,--to wit, his own, the queen's,
queen's paw and king's pawn's. Castling is unknown. The two guards remain
in the same limits, but can move only diagonally; thus we have in our king
both the Chinese king and his guard. The elephants move diagonally, two
squares at a time, and cannot pass the river. Their knight moves like ours,
but must not pass over pieces; he can pass the river, which counts as one
square. The chariots and cannon move like our castles, and can cross the
river. The pawns always move one step, and may move sidewise as well as
forward,--taking in the same line in which they move; they cross the
river. The cannon alone can pass over any piece; indeed, a cannon can take
only when there is a piece between it and the piece it takes,--which
intervening piece may belong to either player. The king must not be
opposite the other king without a piece between. All this certainly sounds
very complex and awkward to the English or American player; and our game
has the preferable tendency of increasing the power of the pieces, (as
distinct from pawns,) rather than, with theirs, limiting their powers and
multiplying their number. However, it is probable, whatever may be the
respective merits of the two games, that neither of them will ever be
altered; the Chinese, who can roast his pig only by burning the sty,
because the first historic roast-pig was so roasted, will be likely to
continue his chess as nearly as possible in the same form as the celestial
Tia-hoang and the terrestrial Yin-hoang played it a million years ago. In
Europe and America we have all complacently concluded, that, when David
said he had seen an end of all perfection, it only indicated that he was
unacquainted with chess as played in accordance with Staunton's Handbook.

But it is only the Indian game which has had a development equal to the
development of the civilized arts. This has been chiefly through what are
called by the Italian-French name of _gambits_. There is much prejudice,
amongst a certain class of chess-players, against what is called
"book-chess," but it rarely exists with players of the first rank. These
gambits are as necessary to the first-rate player as are classifications to
the naturalist. They are the venerable results of experience; and he who
tries to excel without an acquaintance with them will find that it is much
as if he should ignore the results of the past and put his hand into the
fire to prove that fire would burn. If he should try every method of
answering a special attack, he would be sure to find in the end that the
method laid down in the gambit was the true one. An acquaintance,
therefore, with these approved openings puts a player at an advanced
starting-point in a game, inexhaustible enough in any case, and where he
need not take time in doing what others have already done. Although we
design in this article to refrain, as much as possible, from technical
chess, it may be well enough to give a list of the usual openings, and
their key-moves.

PHILIDOR'S DEFENCE.
(_Philidor_, 1749.)

White. Black.
1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th.
2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. P. to Q. 3d.

GIUOCO PIANO.
(_Italian_.)

1. P. to K. 4th 1. P. to K. 4th.
2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to Q.B. 3d.
3. B. to Q.B. 4th. 3. B. to Q.B. 4th.
4. P. to Q. 3d or Q.B. 3d.

RUY LOPEZ'S KNIGHT'S GAME.
(_Lopez_, 1584.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th.
2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to Q.B. 3d.
3. B. to Q.Kt. 5th.

PETROFF'S DEFENCE.
(1837.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th.
2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to K.B. 3d.

Q. PAWN OR SCOTCH GAME.
(_So named from the great match between London
and Edinburgh in_ 1826, _but first analyzed
as a gambit by Ghulam Xassitrt, Madras,_
1829.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th.
2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to Q.B. 3d.
3. P. to Q. 4th.

SICILIAN GAME.
(_Ancient Italian MS_.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to Q.B. 4th.

EVANS'S GAMBIT.
(_Captain Evans_, 1833.)

1. P. to K. 4th. 1. P. to K. 4th.
2. Kt. to K.B. 3d. 2. Kt. to Q.B. 3d.
3. B. to Q.B. 4th. 3. B. to Q.B. 4th.
4. P. to Q.Kt. 4th.

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