Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-07-21
DUTCH DEFENSE.
Who Plays Chest

Mr.. Robert ]. Buckley, writing in the
Manchester City News, has this to say:
'Laymen and clergy, bishops. priests and
deacons. men who doubt the dignity OF
other games, play chess with enthusiasm.
Cardinal Newman and Lord Lyttelton
were inveterate opponents; Mendelssohn
and Moscheles were strenuous Toes, the
latter claiming to be the better player.
though he lost most games. so that Men
delssohn wrote, L admit that he Is the
best player. and he admits that l win the
games, SO each Is satisfied.
1.-THE present Pope occasionally INDUCES
in chess. Pope Leo XIII played as Oft as
the papal duties permitted. Father GiuliO.
master Of games at the Vatican, was MS
most frequent foe, and though 1t was
whispered that he could give the molly
father knight and a beating, yet his
holiness scored most OF the games. and al
ran smoothly in the venerable halls. Some
how this calls to mind an ancient saying
quoted by Scott: The page slew the boar:
The peer had the gloire And Artemus
Ward remarks: There is much human ma
ture in mankind.
"All the crowned heads of Europe play
chess. Queen Victoria used to play for
hours with the king of the Belgians. and
the kaiser's mother never travelled with
out her statu quo board Prince Leopold
Walter Parratt, orgaaist OF ST. Georges
Chapel Royal. when the prince was an
undergraduate OF Oxford and Sir Walter
was plain Mr.. Parraet, organist OF Mag
dalen.
.Sir Walter used to exhibit chessic
gymnastics in those days Of yore. One
feat was the playing of two concurrent
games without sight of the board while he
played a Beethoven sonata.
What of this, We shades of Morphy.
Paulsen, Zukertort, Pil!sbury and
Steinitz? The last named Is cited because
he once played whist and two chess
games sans seeing, concurrently.
Won Moltke thought himself a strate-
sedaned him. at the Berlin court. Bis
marck and the kaisers grandfather look
mig on. The crown prince. the kaiser
father-later emperor-was likewise de-
voured by Germany's Danish ambassa-
dor, and no doubt Bismarck would have
shared a similar fate had he taken q seat
at the board
but the man of blood and iron pre-
ferred to reserve himself for games OF
different character, upon boards with
larger squares. Bismarck declined to enter
into any contest in which he had not an
even chance of emerging victorious. He
would not give to Der LaSa the prestige
of victory over him, the dictator OF Eu-
rope, even in friendly game OF chess.
"Tennyson played chess and so did Rus
kin, who reviled the modern style OF play
as lacking in interest. Gladstone knew
the game. but seldom played. his favorite
relaXat1OnS DelnS easy, ana, dS SOME
would say, frivolous.
"Tennyson, Ruskin, Mohke, Bismarck,
Wellington, Napoleon-whose table is still
to BE seen at the Cafe de la Regence-
kings, queens, saints. sages and martyrs
have played at chess since the chessmen
now In the East Indian museum were
swallowed in the earthquake of Brah-
munabad in Sind !, 90O years ago. and
probably twice in 200 years before. Wise
men of every age have pondered over
,ho ~ rxaJr I4 Snfi y.,r1ca 11r
spirits from their urns.
THE game is favored by the literary
and artistic intellect: popes, emperors.
kings. queens, lords temporal and spir-
itual have played do play, and will con-
time to play chess.
"And what Of all thiS2
"Just so much the better for them
selves. II they did not play. so much the
worse for their reputation. None Of them
have added, or could have added, to the
always been cited as a point In their
favor.
And to conclude, let us say that II the
great ones Of the earth had never played
chess IL the Pope had failed to give 1t
his countenance, II the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the president of the
Wesleyan conference had inveighed
against 1t. our opinion Of the game would
have been none the less favorable, and
we should have continued to play chess
just the same.
THE prestige of chess arising from its
intellectually. it's immense antiquity and
its cosmopolitanism, stands so high that
none can be accepted as highly educated
without a knowledge Of chess, sufficient
at least for the understanding of literary
aliusion to the game"