Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess

by David Lawson

  DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

  “We have met, gentlemen, some of us as members of a local association, some of us as its invited guests, but all of us as if by a spontaneous, unsolicited impulse, to do honor to our young friend who has honored us and all who glory in the name of Americans, as the hero of a long series of bloodless battles, won for our common country. . . . Honor went before him, and Victory followed after. . . .

  “I propose the health of PAUL MORPHY, the world’s Chess Champion: His peaceful battles have helped to achieve a new revolution; his youthful triumphs have added a new clause to the declaration of American Independence!”

  Dr. Holmes’s speech was greeted with frequent applause and at its conclusion the band played “Hail Columbia.” Morphy, upon rising to respond, was greeted with three times three cheers. As soon as he could be heard he replied:

  “Mr. President and Gentlemen: I sincerely thank you. To one and all I tender the expression of my warm and heartfelt acknowledgements. But, gentlemen, on such an occasion as the present, unprepared as you know I am, I must be allowed to say, gentlemen, that I rise with peculiar embarrassment and unaffected diffidence in attempting to speak before an intellectual aristocracy such as I have never before witnessed, whose celebrity and literary achievements are a part of our country’s history. In such an illustrious presence it would ill become me to make a speech. I can only tender my thanks to the committee, with an expression of my sincere acknowledgements for the pleasure of being surrounded by a company so distinguished.”

  The President has spoken of chess. He (Mr. Morphy) had taken occasion in New York to say something upon that subject, and he would not weary the patience of the company by adding anything to these remarks. He would merely say that chess could not form an object of life. At best it was but a relaxation. As a discipline of the mind it was worthy of commendation. As a substitute for cards, chess would go far towards improving the morals of our people. [Applause] But he would not detain the company. He thanked the President most sincerely for the very kind and flattering manner in which his name had been proposed, and the other gentlemen present for the manner in which they had received it. In conclusion he begged leave to propose the following:

  “The Literary and Scientific Men of whom Boston is so justly proud—The stars of the first magnitude that adorn the intellectual firmament of our country.”

  Six cheers were here proposed and given for Mr. Morphy.

  The President then announced the first regular sentiment—

  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts—Proud of her own sons and their eminence in intellectual pursuits, she is eager to welcome surpassing excellence in others.

  A letter from Hon. Edward Everett was read, as a response to this toast:

  Summer Street, 26th May, 1859, Boston

  Gentlemen:

  I have received your very obliging invitation to the dinner to be given by the Boston Chess Club to Mr. Paul Morphy on the 31st inst. It would have given me great pleasure to join you in this mark of respect to your distinguished guest, who has not only evinced the most marvelous skill in the ancient and noble game which you cultivate—having shown himself to be facile princepe among the chess players of the world—but who wears his laurels with a modesty equal to the mastery with which he has won them.

  I deeply regret that an engagement to repeat my address on the character of Washington in a neighboring city, on the 31st inst, will put it out of my power to be present on the interesting occasion.

  With my best wishes for an agreeable festival, I remain, gentlemen

  Very respectfully yours

  Edward Everett

  Charles R. Cadman, Jacob A. Dresser, John Jeffries, Jr. and others.

  Altogether, some eighteen speeches or talks were reported, most of them in the press of Boston and New York. Some papers devoted more than half their first page to the proceedings. James Russell Lowell composed a poem of some one hundred lines for the occasion and the entire evening passed off with great éclat.

  Morphy did play one more game before leaving Boston, giving five of the club members an opportunity to meet him in a consultation game—Messrs. Hammond (probably its strongest member), Ware, Rabuski, Stone, and W. Everett. It was played June 2 and won handily by Morphy.

  On June 3, Morphy and friends (James A. Graham, Jr., W. J. A. Fuller, and others) left Boston. They arrived in New York on Saturday and put up at the Brevoort House. Morphy resumed his Knight-odds match with Thompson on Monday, losing his second game on June 6 at the Morphy Chess Rooms. Now he roused himself and won the next four games in rapid succession. Thompson won the seventh game of the match, the eighth was drawn, and Morphy then won the ninth game and the match on Friday afternoon, June 17, 1859. If the first Knight-odds games (casual) are counted, the final score stood Morphy six, Thompson three.

  Morphy’s defeat of Thompson at Knight odds was considered an outstanding feat because Thompson played so-called close games throughout the match and was himself accustomed to giving the same odds to comparatively strong players. As Lowenthal wrote to Fiske on February 25, 1860:

  I am decidedly of the opinion that his (Morphy’s) winning a match at the large odds of a Knight to a player like Mr. Thompson, is the most marvelous feat which ever a master of his rank has performed. Neither La Bourdonnais, M’Donnell nor Philidor could ever have accomplished a similar task.

  The Thompson match had not interfered with Morphy’s social life. Sunday, June 12, Morphy had dined with Robert J. Walker and a party of friends. On the day before he won the match he had spent the afternoon and evening in Brooklyn. It had been anticipated that Morphy would engage various players at the Brooklyn Chess Club, for Messrs. Stanley, Thompson, Perrin, Frère, Knott, and Tilton, and other prominent players of New York and Brooklyn were present. As reported in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper of June 25, 1859,

  Mr. Morphy accompanied by Mr. Frère, the secretary, Mr. Fiske and other gentlemen, arrived at the club and, after introductions, was solicited to play a game. Mr. Morphy, with that good sense, which, notwithstanding his youth, has characterized his deportment since he has sojourned among us, declined, observing “it was too hot, he played at chess as little as possible; he had to play the great game of life;” and, with many other observations of a similar character, remained passive. Some members of the club seemed disgusted. They had brought the “lion” there, and why should he not be lionized? Why would he not play—show his teeth? Again and again was he solicited. Again and again did he refuse. Mr. Frère at last came to his rescue. Dinner was ready. Mr. Morphy seemed relieved. Mr. Frère asked him to accompany him home and partake of refreshments, which had been provided for himself and friends. Mr. Morphy gladly complied, and to Mr. Frère’s home they went and partook of a right royal dinner. In the evening Mr. Morphy played two games with Mr. Knott and one game with Mr. Marache, in all of which games he gave the large odds of the Queen’s Knight, winning all in a dashing style. Not less than five hundred Chess players and visitors attended during the day and evening.

  As it has already been observed, Morphy did not always wish to be playing chess. It must have become very boring to him—so many people talking only chess with him as though that were all that interested him. As Edge, who was with him as companion and secretary the whole year he was abroad, said:

  I was almost constantly with him, and certainly no subject was less frequently referred to than chess. I have been amused with the conduct of gentlemen on similar occasions, who seemed to think that no other subject than that could interest him, and after pertinaciously confining the conversation to the game, took it upon themselves to declare that it was the single thought of his life.

  On June 22, the Athenaeum Club in New York held a birthday reception for Morphy, for its members had elected him an honorary member. Cards had been issued to announce the event, and a large and brilliant party of guests attended. As the New York Express of June 23, 1859, noted, “The whole building was filled with a dense
crowd, of which at least one-half was made up of ladies.” Morphy’s testimonial chessmen were displayed on the second floor of the clubhouse.

  Now display advertisements appeared in the Boston and New York papers for “The Morphy Hat”; and “The Morphy Cigar,” a special brand ordered from Havana, was copyrighted. Enthusiasts in Brooklyn organized the Morphy Baseball Club, of which he was elected a member. Robert Bonner, the most astute weekly publisher of the period, had become aware of Paul Morphy. As Mary Noel says in Villains Galore, a book about the heyday of the “story weekly,” “When the chess player Paul Morphy achieved world championship and was banqueted and glorified in the most extravagant fashion, Bonner secured him a year’s column for the New York Ledger.” He had approached Morphy through W. J. A. Fuller a few days after the former’s arrival in New York. Sensing Morphy’s potential impact on the public, Bonner offered him $3,000 in advance for a weekly chess column. Morphy’s reply was published in the New York Post of May 28, 1859:

  St. Nicholas Hotel, May 27, 1859

  Robert Bonner, Esq.—

  Dear Sir: The offer you made to me to edit a Chess Department in the New York Ledger is so exceedingly liberal that I do not feel at liberty to decline it. I will commence my contributions some time during the month of June next, and shall furnish chess matter to no other newspaper.

  Truly yours,

  Paul Morphy

  Edward Everett, who later shared the platform with Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, made the following reference to Morphy in a letter to Bonner:

  Boston, 3 June, 1859

  My dear Sir

  I was much pleased to see that you had engaged Mr. Morphy as a Contributor. His articles will secure you the entire chessplaying Community:—which, taking the Union through, is I suppose a very large body. . . .

  Yours, dear Sir, Sincerely

  Edward Everett

  In his letter to Bonner, Morphy had promised his first contribution to the Ledger in June. However, busy as he was with chess engagements, Morphy did not produce it until August 6, although Bonner placed the following display advertisement in the New York papers on July 25 to announce Morphy’s chess column:

  The Imperial Chess-Player

  PAUL MORPHY

  makes his appearance TO-DAY at 1 O’CLOCK

  before the largest audience

  that ever honored the imperial game.

  Apparently, George N. Cheney of Syracuse (who was to be a casualty of Bull Run just two years later) came to New York at this time, for he played two games with Morphy at Knight odds within a day or two of Morphy’s birthday, one of which he won. Morphy did not reveal the scores of his games unless pressed for them, and so we only know the game he lost to Cheney, not the one he won.

  Many others came to New York to play Morphy, among them the Reverend M. D. Conway of Cincinnati and E. C. Palmer of St. Paul. In his autobiography, Conway describes his encounter with Morphy:

  Despite all my freedom there was a curious survival in me up to my twenty-seventh year of the Methodist dread of card-playing. The only indoor game I knew was chess. There was a flourishing Chess Club in Cincinnati, and I entered into the matches with keen interest. For a time I edited a weekly chess column in the “Cincinnati Commercial,” and wrote an article on Chess which Lowell published in the “Atlantic Monthly.” Whenever in New York I hastened to the Chess Club there, and watched the play of Lichtenhein, Thompson, Perrin, Marache, Fiske (editor of the “Chess Monthly”), and Col. Mead, president of the club. This was at a time when the wonderful Paul Morphy was exciting the world. In July, 1859, I called on him at the Brevoort House, New York. He was a rather small man, with a beardless face that would have been boyish had it not been for the melancholy eyes.

  He was gentlemanly and spoke in low tones. It had long been out of question to play with him on even terms; the first-class players generally received the advantage of a knight, but being a second-class player I was given a rook. In some letter written at the time, I find mention of five games in which I was beaten with these odds, but managed (or was permitted) to draw the sixth. In the same letter I find the following:—

  “When one plays with Morphy the sensation is as queer as the first electric shock, or first love, or chloroform, or any entirely novel experience. As you sit down at the board opposite him, a certain sheepishness steals over you, and you cannot rid yourself of an old fable in which a lion’s skin plays a part. Then you are sure you have the advantage; you seem to be secure,—you get a rook—you are ahead two pieces! three!! Gently as if wafted by a zephyr the pieces glide about the board; and presently as you are about to win the game a soft voice in your ear kindly insinuates, Mate! You are speechless. Again and again you try; again and again you are sure you must win; again and again your prodigal antagonist leaves his pieces at your mercy; but his moves are as the steps of Fate. Then you are charmed all along—so bewitchingly are you beheaded: one had rather be run through by Bayard, you know, than spared by a pretender. On the whole I could only remember the oriental anecdote of one who was taken to the banks of the Euphrates, where by a princely host he was led about the magnificent gardens and bowers, then asked if anything could be more beautiful. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘the chess-play of El-Zuli.’ So having lately sailed, as I wrote you, down the Hudson, having explored Staten Island, Hoboken, Fort Hamilton, and all the glorious retreats about New York, I shall say forever that one thing is more beautiful than them all,—the chess-play of Paul Morphy.”

  This was in July, 1859. I had already received a domestic suggestion that it was possible to give too much time to an inno-cent game, and the hint was reinforced by my experience with Morphy. I concluded that if, after all the time I had given to chess, any man could give a rook and beat me easily, any ambition in that direction might as well be renounced. Thenceforth I played only on vacations or when at sea.

  FOOTNOTE

  ______________

  * EDITOR’S NOTE: Buck’s “Paul Morphy: His Later Life” is no longer in print. But its place in the public domain has allowed its reproduction online. See Charles A. Buck,

  “Paul Morphy: His Later Life,” http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy:_His_Later_Life.

  CHAPTER 17

  Morphy and the Ledger

  Morphy’s continuing success—even at the large odds of Queen’s Knight—against the first-class American players, which had interested poets and savants such as Longfellow and Agassiz, as well as chess players and others, continued to accelerate the recognition and practice of chess throughout the country. The United States was aflame with Morphy and chess. In Buffalo, H. M. Clay, and in Cincinnati, D. C. Fabronius, published large portraits of Morphy. Newspapers and weeklies met the public’s interest with chess columns and articles. Even the Musical World felt the need to have a chess column and engaged Sam Loyd to start one in February 1859. By July, the chess column took over the entire front page as though it were a chess magazine, sometimes invading page 2!

  As Fiske wrote in the Chess Monthly of July 1859, “The chess columns of the United States now form a formidable brigade. From as far East as Boston to as far West as San Francisco, from southernmost Texas to north-ernmost Minnesota.”

  Even before Morphy had reached New York, a ground swell had set in for him, and in Missouri the St. Louis Daily Democrat of December 18, 1858, published the following puzzle based on the Knight’s tour:

  A KNIGHT’S TOUR TRIBUTE TO PAUL MORPHY

  It is an eight-line tribute to Paul Morphy. The puzzle is to find where to commence and how to arrange the words so as to read the verse. This puzzle beautifully illustrates the moves of the knight in traversing the board, galloping from square to square with a measured tramp, and although apparently without purpose, yet visiting every spot in the field, and visiting each square but once.

  The solution beginning at QR1 reads as follows:

  Hail! Morphy, bloodless victor, hail!

  Thou mightier than Napoleon;—

  His triumphs
were the price of blood,

  His wars by many generals won,—

  While thou, upon the chequer’d board,

  With never-erring certainty,

  Alone, unaided, leadest on

  Thy troops to glorious victory.

  —G. Grundy

  The London Lancet in 1823 had been the first to have a chess column. C. H. Stanley had started the first one in the United States in the New York Spirit of the Times in 1845, and now Morphy’s column in the New York Ledger was anxiously awaited. And so during July, Morphy was engaged in preparing his weekly series of articles for the Ledger so that he might have a few weeks’ vacation away from New York before returning to New Orleans. As the Chess Monthly of August 1859 states, his Ledger column was to consist mainly of games of the “celebrated Labourdonnais–M’Donnell contest. The long desired commentary upon these remarkable battles, of the want of which so much has been said and felt, will thus be supplied.”

  Perhaps Bonner’s notice in the Ledger of July 25 was his way of prodding Morphy, who was far behind his promised date of June. At last on August 6, 1859, the Ledger had the following:

  CHESS DEPARTMENT

  Conducted by Paul Morphy

  Concerning the game of chess little can now be said that would not be a thrice told tale to the great majority of our readers.

  We do not, therefore, in the present brief introduction, propose to offer any remarks on the history, antiquity, or fascination of that truly royal pastime, but simply to map out, without preface or preamble, the course it has seemed to us most proper to pursue in this new accession to chess periodical literature.

  It will be our endeavor, in the first place, to render this column not only interesting but instructive to the chess student—to make it, not an object of passing curiosity, but a feature possessing a deep and permanent value in the eyes of all who, in the few hurried moments of leisure snatched from the engrossing, and, to some extent, necessarily selfish pursuits of life, delight to turn to a pleasanter field of strife, and fight battles from which cupidity can expect no golden prize. How best to attain such a consummation was the problem presented for our solution. It has occurred to us that an eminently practical chess column was a desideratum in American chess literature; and that an attempt to fill up the void might be received with some little degree of favor. Our attention, then, in the conduct of this department of the Ledger, will be steadily directed to the plan here indicated. Excluding mere speculation we shall aim at laying before our readers none but purely practical matter. A good problem, remarkable for the ingenuity or nice accuracy which unravels its mazy intricacies—one or two standard games, contested by the acknowledged masters of the chequered field, and accompanied by elaborate notes, critical and analytical, will form the staple of our weekly contribution.