Paul Morphy V.S Conway

"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 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 the time when the wonderful Paul Morphy was exciting the world.  In July, 1959,  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 the 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 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 a queer as the first electric shock, or the first love, or chloroform, or any entirely novel experience.  As you sit down at the board opposite him,  a certain sheepishness steals over you, ad you cannot rid yourself on an old fable in which a lion's skin plays a large part.  Then you are sure you must 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 around the board,  and presently as you are about to win the game,  a soft voice it  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 beautiful gardens and bowers,  then asked if anything could be more beautiful,.  "Yes, "he replied,  "the chess-playing of El-Zuli."  So having lately sailed,  I told you,  down the Hudson,  having explored Staten Island,  Hoboken,  Fort Hamilton and all the glorious retreats about New York,  I shall say one thing is more beautiful than them all,  -  the chess-play of Paul Morphy."

This was in July, 1959.  I had already received the domestic instruction that it was possible to give too much time to an innocent 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 me a rook and beat me easily,  any ambition in that area might as well be denounced.  Thenceforth I played only on vacations or when at sea."

Other Morphy Muzios: