"Chess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bond Street "one-man exhibitions," a Board-school chairman, a lecturer, champion chess-player of Surrey, a member of the Rochester Diocesan Council, a Shaksperian student, a Fellow of the Society of Cyclists, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians, and public orator of Noviomagus ... he is surely one of the ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... mud is made into a "pie", the horn is sounded. Many games are variations on pursuit and capture (or escape): tag, hide-and-seek, prisoner's base, blind {488} man's buff, football, and we might include chess and checkers here. Wrestling, boxing, snowballing are variations on attack and defense. A great many are variations on action at a distance, of which instances have already been cited from children's toys; in adult games we find here golf, croquet, bowling, quoits, billiards, shooting. Many games ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... strength: because it can be not only outside rules but outside reason. The man who really cannot see that he is contradicting himself has a great advantage in controversy; though the advantage breaks down when he tries to reduce it to simple addition, to chess, or to the game called war. It is the same about the stupidity of the one-sided kinship. The drunkard who is quite certain that a total stranger is his long-lost brother, has a greater advantage until it comes to matters of detail. "We must have chaos within," said Nietzsche, ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... newly come, and then but Sir Charles Blount (for my Lord William, his elder brother, was then living) had the good fortune to run one day well at tilt, and the Queen was therewith so well pleased, that she sent him, in token of her favour, a Queen at chess in gold, richly enamelled, which his servants had the next day fastened unto his arm with a crimson ribband; which my Lord of Essex, as he passed through the Privy Chamber, espying with his cloak cast under his arm, the ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... Suddenly she remembered Lieutenant Doherty. How dared they tear her away from the man she loved! They had not even consulted her. She flicked her thumb agitatedly on the back of her mother's chair. Let her weep! Did they want to sell her, to exchange her for a castle, as if she were a chess-piece? The thought ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... us remember Retzsch's drawing of destiny in the shape of Mephistopheles playing at chess with man for his soul, a game in which we may imagine the clever adversary making a feint of unintended moves so as to set the beguiled mortal on carrying his defensive pieces away from the true point of attack. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... curious that there is a great similarity between the late Moltke and Heeringen. They have the same aquiline features, tall, thin, dried-up body, the same taciturn disposition, even to their hobbies—Moltke being an incessant chess player, Heeringen using every one of his spare moments to play with lead soldiers. He is reputed to have an army of 30,000 lead soldiers with which he plays the moment he opens his eyes—much in the same manner as Moltke, who used to request his chess-board the first thing in the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... with Grumbach; rather he seemed to be drawn to him more closely than ever. Mad with love. That was the phrase. He conned it over and over; mad with love. That excused many things. How strangely the chess-men were moved! Had Grumbach not assisted in the abduction, her highness would in all probability have grown up as other princesses, artificial, cold, reserved, seldom touched by the fires of animated thought or action. In fact, had things been otherwise, he never would have ridden with her ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... Triumphs in Europe of Paul Morphy, the Chess Champion; including an Historical Account of Clubs, Biographical Sketches of Famous Players, and Various Information and Anecdote relating to the Noble Game of Chess. By Paul Morphy's late Secretary. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... anywhere but over your horse's nose, under the dark roof between the red fir-pillars, in that rich subdued light. Now I plunge into a gloomy dell, wherein is no tinkling rivulet, ever pure; but instead a bog, hewn out into a chess-board of squares, parted by deep narrow ditches some twenty feet apart. Blundering among the stems I go, fetlock-deep in peat, and jumping at every third stride one of the said uncanny gripes, half ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... football a most perilous conflict, and boating breaks the athlete's heart, and billiards can only be played by a bar-spot professional, and tranquil whist itself has developed into a semi-fraudulent system of open rules and secret signs; even so the honest common-sense old game of chess has come to be so encumbered with published openings and gambits and other parasitic growths upon the wholesome house-plant, that I for one have renounced it, as a pursuit for which life is too short and serious (give me a farce or a ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... one with a hundred thousand failures, a gray-haired, neat man, who had been everything and done nothing, and who now said evasively that he was "in the collection business." He read Dickens and played a masterful game of chess. He liked to have it thought that his past was brave with mysterious splendors. He spoke hintingly of great lawyers. But he had been near to them only as a clerk for a large law firm. He was grateful to any one for noticing him. Like most of the failures, he had learned the art of doing nothing ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... came, that releases man from Toil, He play'd the Chess of Social Intercourse; Prepared his Banquet Hall like Paradise, Summon'd his Houri-faced Musicians, And, when his Brain grew warm with Wine, the Veil Flung off him of Reserve. Now Lip to Lip Concerting with the Singer ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to press we hear that Judge Ostrander has been prostrated by this blow. The deceased had been playing chess up at his house, and in taking the short cut home had met with ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... passages are to be found in this address; one the simile of the force behind nature as the hidden chess player; the other the noble description of the end of a ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... manner of life, you dwarf its legs, wings, and general muscular development; but you make its liver grow as large as itself. I have known human beings who practised on their mental powers a precisely analogous discipline. The power of calculating in figures, of writing poetry, of chess-playing, of preaching sermons, was tremendous; but all their other faculties were like the legs and wings of ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... and round these were seated several knots of men, some drinking, some playing at dice, some at that more skilful game called 'duodecim scriptae', which certain of the blundering learned have mistaken for chess, though it rather, perhaps, resembled backgammon of the two, and was usually, though not always, played by the assistance of dice. The hour was in the early forenoon, and nothing better, perhaps, than that unseasonable time itself ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Dickon's life, remembering his head to be of the thickest. Then came into my mind the many romances of chivalry which I had read, wherein the young squire has to flee his country for a chance blow, as did Messire Patroclus, in the Romance of Troy, who slew a man in anger over the game of the chess, and many another knight, in the tales of Charlemagne and his paladins. For ever it is thus the story opens, and my story, methought, was beginning to-day like ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... really master of two. He speaks French tolerably; and his native language is not Italian, but a patois-Genoese. Cavour was called a linguist with almost as little truth; but people repeat the story, just as they repeat that Napoleon I. was a great chess-player. If his statecraft and his strategy had been on a par with his chess, we should never have ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... naturally neither possible nor intended that these diplomatists should never meet on friendly terms, though they are strictly interdicted from issuing official invitations to each other. Their point of contact is another grey square on the chess-board. ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... remorse now for the past; the sense of injustice swallowed all that. Every day seemed to drive that past further off, and to increase the sense of detachment from that other man and his works; yet every night a hand, like the hand of some remorseless chess player, put things back in ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Ptolemy, but with modifications of some interest. He divides the world into seven horizontal strips, known as "climates," and ranging from the equator to the British Isles. These strips are subdivided into eleven sections, so that the world, in Edrisi's conception, is like a chess-board, divided into seventy-seven squares, and his work consists of an elaborate description of each of these squares taken one by one, each climate being worked through regularly, so that you might get parts of France in the ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... was devoted to the prohibition of amusements. The statutes of Peterhouse forbade dogs or falcons, "for if one can have them in the House, all will want them, and so there will arise a constant howling" to disturb the studious. Dice and chess, being forbidden games to clerks, were also prohibited, and the scholars of Peterhouse were forbidden to frequent taverns, to engage in trade, to mix with actors, or to attend theatrical performances. These enactments are repeated in later College statutes, with such ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... to their game of chess, Penhallow followed his wife and Mark Rivers into his library. "Well, Mark," he said, "you have had this boy long enough to judge; it is time I heard what you think of him. You asked me to wait. The youngster is rather reticent, and Leila is ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Shuffle-board, chess, and backgammon, with exercise and pleasant converse, will while away the intervening hours so quickly, that, if you do not keep a bright look-out, you will be surprised by the dinner-bell before you think of your toilet, which, if a luxury to you ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... sweat I dug their advances. They were avoiding my position, trying to encircle me by making long semicircular marches, hoping to get between me and the other side. This was a rough maneuver, sort of like two telepaths playing chess. Both sides knew to a minute exactly what the other had in mind, where he was, and what he was going to do about his position. But they kept shifting, feinting and counter-advancing, trying to gain the advantage ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... with which he has no logical connection, only a veiled, softened interest. Margarita seemed, against the background of the moist, pearly English autumn, like some gorgeous and unbelievable tropical bird, shooting, all orange and indigo, across a grey cloud. It was impossible that I, a quiet chess-player sitting opposite his friend, the impractical student of Eastern Religions, could have to do with such a vivid anomaly as she must always be. It was unlikely that the silent, moody man strolling for hours ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... throughout this book, the use of the expressive American words loaf and loafer, as the only terms adequate to the description of professional idling in Venice] and the perusal of dingy little journals, drinking small cups of black coffee, and playing long games of chess,—an evening that seemed to me as torpid and lifeless as a Lap's, and intolerable when I remembered the bright, social winter evenings of another and happier land ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... learnedest were even afraid to dispute with him; and he finding his own strength, could not stick to warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in which button he will give the venew, or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint aforehand with which pawn and in what place he will give ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... stone-ladders; a practice unquestionably taken from the original, unsophisticated, domestic defences of this wary and enterprising race. Among a great many of these chevaux-de-frise, I remarked certain iron images, that resemble the kings of chess-men, and which I took, at first, to be symbols of the calculating qualities of the owners of the mansions—a species of republican heraldry—but which the brigadier told me, on inquiry, were no more than a fashion that had descended from the custom of having stuffed images before the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... own reflection in the broad polished rim of a silver fruit-dish that stood near him. Giacomo, the butler, had long ago left the room; we were entirely alone. I thought over my plans for a moment or two; the game was as interesting as a problem in chess. With the deliberation of a prudent player I made ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... altogether. The 'notes' are the characteristic feature of the modern newspaper, and it is in them that the modern journalist displays his fervour, sprightliness, and erudition. 'Note'-writing, like chess, has ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... this separateness from God, which has been described as maya by our philosophers, because the separateness does not exist by itself, it does not limit God's infinity from outside. It is his own will that has imposed limits to itself, just as the chess-player restricts his will with regard to the moving of the chessmen. The player willingly enters into definite relations with each particular piece and realises the joy of his power by these very restrictions. It is not that he cannot move the chessmen just as he pleases, ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... sincere remorse for having assisted Antonio to depose his brother: and Prospero forgave them; and, upon their engaging to restore his dukedom, he said to the king of Naples, "I have a gift in store for you too;" and opening a door, shewed him his son Ferdinand, playing at chess ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... locking both gates behind them, and walked back to the office. Once there, Hanlon said, "I see you have a chess set, sir. Do you play? I love ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... where they entertain each other either with music or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... it happened, Lucy was playing chess with her father; and her heart, though not remorseful, was as heavy as George could have wished. But she did not let Eugene see that she was troubled, and he was pleased when he won three games of her. Usually ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... on one side or the other in the kaleidoscopic jockeying for position which is characteristic of European and Asiatic relations today. For the peace-loving Nations, and there are many of them, find that their very identity depends on their moving and moving again on the chess board ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was he that I could scarcely eat for laughing. Yet when I took courage from his good-nature to ask him concerning his plans for the future, he pretended that he did not hear me, and put an end to questioning by bidding Ulf come and play chess with him in the hut. Whether he is mad, or bewitched, or feigning like Amleth, it is ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Bath is easily grasped. The river throws itself round the city like an elbow, and in the corner of land thus embraced the streets are laid out something in the manner of an irregular chess board. One main thoroughfare runs from the S. gate, and climbs by a gradual ascent northwards; and as it goes, expands into the spacious shopping quarters of Milsom Street. Another good string of streets runs from the Abbey also northwards, and on its course extends a long arm eastwards ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... picture-logic, which some animals likewise have—there is conceptual inference—or Reason—an internal experimenting with general ideas. Even the cleverest animals, it would seem, do not get much beyond playing with "particulars"; man plays an internal game of chess with "universals." Intelligent behaviour may go a long way with mental images; rational conduct demands general ideas. It may be, however, that "percepts" and "concepts" differ rather in degree than ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... if it were God's will," said Sir John emphatically. He looked again at the pair by the piano, and then across the long room to Colonel Sharston. Colonel Sharston was absorbed in a game of chess with Bertha Keys. He was noticing nothing but the intricacies ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... you could come with us, Mr Knowles. We shall miss you very much. Father, when he looked at his chess-board yesterday, heaved such a tremendous sigh, and I knew that he was thinking of you, and wondering if he will ever find any such ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... face into a most shrunken, and wooden posture; as needs it must; for in bashfulness, the spirits do a little go and come; but with bold men, upon like occasion, they stand at a stay; like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir. But this last were fitter for a satire than for a serious observation. This is well to be weighed; that boldness is ever blind; for it seeth not danger, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... bewildered. Was it possible, he asked himself, for a man to have two natures, quite distinct in tastes? He worried himself almost to distraction over the question; but as there was no one to answer it, he drove it from his mind by spending the evening at the Hamiltons' teaching Jessie to play chess. ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... must have a plan of operations. Napoleon said that war is like a game of chess, and that a commander must make his game. He must think it out beforehand, and in such a manner that the enemy will be compelled to play it in his way and be defeated. The general-in-chief must see the end ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Armagnac. Saint-Pol, Constable of France, perished on the scaffold. Besides these a score of the greater nobles of France had fallen, nor could the scarlet of the Cardinalate shield Balue from its vengeance. If these, the great ones of the chess-board, were beyond the pale of mercy, what hope would there be for a simple pawn like Stephen La Mothe, if once he fell beneath that inflexible ban? And yet to the courtier the King's question could ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... observer cannot fail to notice that China has no national game. Fencing, rowing, and cricket, are alike unknown; and archery, such as it is, claims the attention chiefly of candidates for official honours. Within doors they have chess, but it is not the game Europeans recognise by that name, nor is it even worthy of being mentioned in the same breath. There is also another game played with three hundred and sixty black and white pips on a board containing three hundred and sixty-one squares, but this is ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... this country, and many from abroad. All about the room sit or stand the readers, many, for the time, at home again as they gather the local news of their own town or village. The room beyond is called the "game-room." At each little table sit the chess or draught-players, while many interested ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... great undertaking, but his application and perseverance were equal to the task. He began with French, and was soon able to read books in that language. Then he took Italian. A friend, who was studying it also, tempted him to play chess. He played a little, and finding that it consumed time, he refused to play any more, unless on the condition that "the victor in every game should have a right to impose a task, either of parts of the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations, which ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... father sues: see how you stand Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maimed, I trust that there is no one hurt to death, For our wild whim: and was it then for this, Was it for this we gave our palace up, Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, Ere you were born to vex us? Is it kind? Speak to her I say: is this not she of whom, When first she came, all flushed you said to me Now had you got a friend of your own age, Now ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... at which every one is willing to play? one wins and another loses: why there have been as many moves among titled persons, Kings, Queens, Bishops, Lords and Knights, within the last century, as there are in a game at chess. Pawns have been taken and restored in all classes, from the Sovereign, who pawns or loses his crown, to the Lady whose reputation is in pawn, and becomes at last not worth half a crown. Shuffling, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... passions. That average humanity which she favors is very borne in intellect, but very genial in heart, as a glance at its representatives in her pages will convince us. In "Adam Bede," there is Mr. Irwine, the vicar, with avowedly no qualification for his profession, placidly playing chess with his mother, stroking his dogs, and dipping into Greek tragedies; there is the excellent Martin Poyser at the Farm, good-natured and rubicund; there is his wife, somewhat too sharply voluble, but only in behalf of cleanliness and honesty and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... criticism till later, and then too often for my comfort. Memory holds a picture, more vivid than most, of a small boy reading the "Midsummer Night's Dream" by firelight, in a room where candles were lit, and some one touched the piano, and a young man and a girl were playing chess. The Shakespeare was a volume of Kenny Meadows' edition; there are fairies in it, and the fairies seemed to come out of Shakespeare's dream into the music and the firelight. At that moment I think that I was happy; it seemed an enchanted glimpse of eternity in Paradise; nothing resembling ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... was Mother and Helen at their wheels, and Aunt Joyce and my Lady Stafford a-sewing, and Mistress Martin and Milisent and me at the broidery,— and Father had but just beat Sir Robert in a game of the chess, and Mynheer, one foot upon his other knee, was deep in a great book which thereon rested,—and fresh logs were thrown of the fire by Kate, which sent forth upward a shower of pleasant sparkles, and methought as I glanced around the ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... their centre, and stationing their cannon, which our gunners had begun to dismount, higher up the hill. But the remainder of their line did not change; they had squares of red and squares of black touching each other at the corners like the squares of a chess-board, in the rear of the deep road; and in attacking them we would come under their crossfire. Their artillery was in position on the brow of the hill, and in the hollow on the hill-side toward Mont-St.-Jean ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... said Lavender: "you'll find me in the next room on the left when you get tired of your music and want a cigar. I think you used to beat me at chess, didn't you?" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... can play at chess, as well as his nephew the ape, he shall know what it is for a scaddle pawn to cross a Bishop in his own walk. Such diedappers must be taken up, else they'll not stick to check the king. Rip up my life, discipher my name, fill thy answer as full of lies as ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... morning Mass in church or chapel, taking their meals in common, riding, hunting, hawking, playing at bowls, tennis, or stool-ball, or any other pastime, in such parties as suited their inclinations; and spending the evening in the great hall, in conversation varied by chess, dice, and cards, recitals of romance, and music, sometimes performed by the choristers of the Royal chapel, or sometimes by the company themselves, and often by one or other of the two kings, who were ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... board of the Bronx. In the ship's company were at least two officers on the other side of the great question of the day, both of them doubtless men of great experience in their profession, more mature in years than their opponent on this chess-board of fate, and they had come on board of the steamer to accomplish some important purpose. The game at which they were engaged had already become quite exciting, especially as it looked as if the final result was to be determined by strategy rather ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... the worst roar I ever heard. It would start in with a lot of foreign words an' end up with Rah! Rah Rah! The voice sounded something like Chess; but when I called him he didn't answer, an' I feared ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... of playing a game of chess with this great man. It was during the Christmas holidays, and I had come down to Roughborough for a few days to see Alethea Pontifex (who was then living there) on business. It was very gracious of him to take notice of me, for if I was a light of literature at all it was ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... mechanics, and good nature, made me a sort of wide bench, which, covered with a neat plaid, looks quite sofa-like. A little pine table, with oilcloth tacked over the top of it, stands in one corner of the room, upon which are arranged the chess and cribbage boards. There is a larger one for dining purposes, and as unpainted pine has always a most dreary look, F. went everywhere in search of oilcloth for it, but there was none at any of the bars. At last, "Ned," the Humboldt Paganini, remembered two old monte-table covers which had ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... and deliberately walked out of the front door. "Tell him," said I to Jemima, "that I'm not at home." And so I went away direct to Fisher's, meaning to send him back to Lupex as my friend; but Fisher was at his chess-club. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... to the needs of the three parts of man—body, mind, and soul. At the bar which stands at one end of the hut men buy food, drink (strictly non-alcoholic), and tobacco. In the body of the room men play draughts, chess, anything except cards, read papers and write letters. Often there are concerts and lectures. Sometimes there are classes which very few men attend. So the ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... always his flies and rods to keep in order against the season when he and the rector started on long fishing tramps; and in the evenings, when Willie had gone to bed, and his cook was reading "The Death Beds of Eminent Saints" by the kitchen fire, Mr. Denner worked out chess problems by himself in his library, or read Cavendish and thought of next Saturday; and besides all this, he went once a week to Mercer, and sat waiting for clients in a dark back office, while he ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... of the Scottish nation to surrender him, was brought to the king; and he happened, at that very time, to be playing at chess.[**] Such command of temper did he possess, that he continued his game without interruption; and none of the bystanders could perceive that the letter which he perused had brought him news of any consequence. The English ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... The moral, mental, and social qualities of my fellow-passengers are of a high order, and since the hurricane we have been rather like a family circle than a miscellaneous accidental group. For some time our days went by in reading aloud, working, chess, draughts and conversation, with two hours at quoits in the afternoon for exercise; but four days ago the only son of Mrs. Dexter, who is the only lady on board besides myself, ruptured a blood vessel on ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Johannes Passeratius made a Latin poem on the same subject, which is quoted at full length by Dr. Johnson at the end of his Life of Rochester. The Jeffreidos were written to commemorate the perils to which Sir Jeoffrey Hudson was exposed; Sir William Jones thought Chess worthy of the epopee; and at the foot of this list of egregious triflers, we place Dr. Raphael Thorius, who wrote a much and often praised Latin poem ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... long ladder, which had been left in the hall, leaning against the wall, was a perfect treasure to those who most craved active exercise. They practiced all sorts of gymnastics on this ladder, and cooled the fever in their blood with fatigue. Chess finally became the standard amusement, and those who did not understand the game watched it nevertheless with as much apparent relish as if they understood it. Chess books were bought and studied ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... been written of the origin of chess, and many countries contend for the honour of its inception. According to my encyclopaedia, China, India, Persia, and Egypt have each a claim, but it is probable that the game existed, in some form or other, before history. ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... must have come upon the reef together; but by his presence of mind on this occasion, the Bridgewater weathered the breakers and escaped the impending danger. When the Cato struck the reef, it was upon the point of a rock, under the larbord chess tree; and she fell over to windward, with her decks exposed to the waves. In a short time the decks and holds were torn up, and every thing washed away; and the sole place left, where the unfortunate people could hope to avoid the fury of the sea, was ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... mingled in the conversation, in the quiet tone of an unobserving and uninterested third party, led them into their former habits of easy chat, and, after having served awhile as the channel of communication through which they chose to address each other, set them down to a pensive game at chess, and very dutifully went to tease papa, who was still busied with his drawings. The chess-players, you must observe, were placed near the chimney, beside a little work-table, which held the board and men, the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... illumination flooded the other end of the parlor a minute after, and the chess board came into requisition. If Miss Morris found little skill necessary to discomfit her opponent, and wondered thereat, she could not see, as he saw, a dark face, bowed on tropic blooms, flushed with unwonted glad color, lips apart and aquiver, wide eyes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thy disgrace Fill every place, Thy falsehood ne'er be hid, But round the world Be tossed and hurled, From Seville to Madrid. If, brisk and gay, Thou sitt'st to play At ombre or at chess, May ne'er spadille Attend thy will, Nor luck thy movements bless. Though thou with care Thy corns dost pare, May blood the penknife follow; May thy gums rage, And naught assuage The pain of tooth that's hollow. Since, fugitive knight, to no purpose I woo thee, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... night, to ask me questions concerning my parents, and prospects in life; besides obtaining from me some anecdotes touching my great-uncle, the illustrious senator; or give me a slate and pencil, and teach me problems in navigation; or perhaps engage me at a game of chess. I even thought he might invite me to dinner on a sunny Sunday, and help me plentifully to the nice cabin fare, as knowing how distasteful the salt beef and pork, and hard biscuit of the forecastle must at first be to a boy like me, who had always ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... in the camp, whether one wished to go hawking, or wanted a hand at fencing, or only asked for a quiet game of chess by the leaping firelight. Her ringing laugh, her frank glance, and her beautiful glowing face made all other maidens seem dull and lifeless. Alwin dimly felt that hating her was going to be no easy task, and he dared not raise his ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... the head of a game of chess. The generals of the Danes were beaten at it, and they were vexed; and Cennedigh was killed on a hill near Fermoy. He put the Holy Gospels in his breast as a protection, but he was struck through them with a reeking dagger. It was Brodar, that the Brodericks are descended from, that put ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... alleviates, perhaps, to a royal ear, the harshness of instruction. With a similar design, to admonish kings that they are strong only in the strength of their subjects, the same Indians invented the game of chess, which was likewise introduced into Persia under the reign of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... observed that some people are naturally commercial. We have seen a boy take a penny to school, buy a slate pencil or a lead pencil with that penny, and trade that for an old pocket knife, the knife for something else, and keep on swapping until he had a gun, a set of chess, a bag of marbles, and several other important boys' acquisitions, all from that one penny. Another boy takes penny after penny to school and he never has anything to show for it You know such boys—and grown people, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... nothing that is so fascinating to a boy in camp as listening to the patter of the rain drops upon the roof of his canvas house, especially at night, if he is snug and warm in his blankets and the tent is waterproof. A rainy day is the kind of a day when the chess and checker enthusiasts get together. Games are rescued from the bottom of the trunk or box. Ponchos and rubber boots are now in popular favor. Thunder and lightning but add to the boys' enjoyment. What indescribable excitement there is in the shivers and shudders ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... looked very happy—which villains have no right to be, but often are, meseemeth—they were sitting in a niche of rock, with the lanthorn in the corner, quaffing something from glass measures, and playing at push-pin, or shepherd's chess, or basset; or some trivial game of that sort. Each was smoking a long clay pipe, quite of new London shape, I could see, for the shadow was thrown out clearly; and each would laugh from time to time, as he fancied ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... of 'em," replied St. Clair. "And it's a strange thing, too. They were sitting in a wagon, having resumed that game of chess which they began in the Valley of Virginia, but they were so exhausted that both fell sound asleep while playing. They are sitting upright, as they sleep, and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire's thumb and forefinger rest upon a white pawn that ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... by Can Grande, at Vicenza, on the 18th September 1314. See G. Villani, 1. ix. c. 62. v. 48. One.] She predicts also the fate of Ricciardo da Camino, who is said to have been murdered at Trevigi, where the rivers (Sile and Cagnano meet) while he was engaged in playing at chess. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... See "Mabinogion," by Lady C. Guest, pp. 279-284. This beautiful story is told in the language of the romance period, and yet has a certain Celtic colouring in it, which shows its origin. The ballad opens with a description of Helen watching a game of chess, clothed in white and gold, seated on a chair of gold, when Maxentius finds her in ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... to M. Fouquet in the midst of a thousand enthusiastic guests who surround him, and say, 'In the king's name, I arrest you.' But to go up to him, to turn him first one way and then another, to drive him up into one of the corners of the chess-board in such a way that he cannot escape; to take him away from his guests, and keep him a prisoner for you, without one of them, alas! having heard anything about it; that, indeed, is a real difficulty, the greatest ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... consent to the Nineteen Propositions would be satisfactory, and that, unless he made his peace with the English, he could not be received in Scotland. When the letters with this news reached Charles at Newcastle, he was playing a game of chess. He read them, it is said, and went on playing. He had a plan of escape on hand about the time, and the very ship was at Tynemouth. But it could not be managed. [Footnote: Rushworth, VI. 389-393; Burnet's Hamiltons, 389-393; Baillie, III. 4, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... expense of domestic or family ties; the same may be said of Havana, and both cities in this respect are like London. It is forbidden to discuss politics in these Cuban clubs, the hours being occupied mostly in playing cards, dominoes, chess, and checkers, for money. Gambling is as natural and national in Cuba as in China. Many Chinese are seen about the streets and stores of Matanzas, variously employed, and usually in a most forlorn and impoverished ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... limit, sometimes of four minutes, sometimes of five minutes, to the interval for adjustment and deliberation after one move is finished and before the next move begins. This further removes the game from the chess category, and approximates it to the likeness of active service. Most of a general's decisions, once a fight has begun, must be made in such brief intervals of time. (But we leave unlimited time at the outset for ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... sons of the Kuru race, ye bulls among men, hear what I shall do on appearing before king Virata. Presenting myself as a Brahmana, Kanka by name, skilled in dice and fond of play, I shall become a courtier of that high-souled king. And moving upon chess-boards beautiful pawns made of ivory, of blue and yellow and red and white hue, by throws of black and red dice, I shall entertain the king with his courtiers and friends. And while I shall continue to thus delight the king, nobody will succeed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... can say of the English. They are a grave, honest, benevolent people, but not remarkable for their industry. Their favorite amusements, when assembled together, consist in reading history or poetry, in singing, or playing at chess, in which game they take great delight, priding themselves on their skill. They are refined enough to admire poetry and music: I think I need say no more. ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... miles off. It has battlemented walls and great gates like a fairy-tale city. The bazaar part of it is mostly in ruins, but the royal part is perfectly preserved and could be lived in comfortably now. There is Akbar's Council Chamber, the houses of his wives, the courtyard where they played living chess, the stables, waterworks, the palaces of his chief ministers, the mosque and cloisters, the Gate of Victory. The carving in marble and red sandstone is wonderful. Akbar must have been a broad-minded man, for we found paintings of the Annunciation ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... however, in details. Sometimes the outline of the ancient town was square or almost square, the house-blocks were of the same shape, and the plan of the town was indistinguishable from a chess-board. Or, instead of squares, oblong house-blocks formed a pattern not strictly that of a chess-board but geometrical and rectangular. Often the outline of the town was irregular and merely convenient, but the streets still kept, so far as they could, to a rectangular plan. Sometimes, lastly, ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... of access unto them that do know the way." So he buried all the books at which offence could be taken, leaving only his own law-books, and Isoult's "Romaunts" that she had when a girl, and Dr Thorpe's "Game of the Chess," and Robin's "Song of the Lady Bessy," and the "Little Gest of ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... and measures, of dice, and of the game of chess are attributed to him, also that of four ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... they can take shelter under trees. In winter they ought to stay at home in the evenings, and enjoy reading aloud to their families. I would even go so far as to allow an occasional game at draughts. Chess is too exciting, and of course backgammon is out of the question, because of the deadly dice-box. For the frivolously inclined, "Puss in the Corner" is a harmless indoor game. I throw out these observations for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... Tristram was all this while in a turret at the commandment of La Beale Isoud, and when she might she came unto Sir Tristram. So on a day King Mark played at the chess under a chamber window; and at that time Sir Tristram and Sir Kehydius were within the chamber over King Mark, and as it mishapped Sir Tristram found the letter that Kehydius sent unto La Beale Isoud, also he had found the letter that she wrote unto Kehydius, and at that ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... know that I am all fair and above-board, and no hole-and-corner gambling for me. And what tale has he to tell? Why that "Another night, not using his special light at the time, two other passengers began a game of chess under its rays." Which they had no right whatever to do. But I winked at it, and when the first officer was coming his rounds I winked at them; but this friendly act on my part they did not heed, and consequently to save them from being put in irons and confined in the deepest ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 25, 1891 • Various
... toward them, but the iron bolts tore their way through the grove, although much nearer the house than before. The reason soon became apparent. On that ridge, and within the gloomy shadows of the trees, were officers as coolly observant as if playing a game of chess. They gave no more heed to the terrific peals of thunder than they would have done to so many Chinese gongs. While watching the attack upon his centre and providing against it, General Marston was also seeking to penetrate, by means of a powerful glass, the mask of the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... a far corner and showed her a set of wonderful carved chess-men that he had bought that morning; and photographs of his friends at Eton, and of the school, and of some of the masters. He talked very earnestly and elaborately about these dull matters, and passed by the opportunities which ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... notaire comes to play chess with me, you should see him eye my antiques, ah, so covetously; I see him, but I never let on. Such a collection of antiques as we all are, M'sieur." Then he became serious, and lifting his cane he pointed ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... competence to deny or qualify as much as within his to assert. But, in reality, the law of the contest between us, as suggested by some instinct of propriety in my own mind, would not allow me to proceed in such a method. What he said was like a move at chess or draughts, which it was childish to dispute. The move being made, my business was—to face it, to parry it, to evade it, and, if I could, to overthrow it. I proceeded as a lawyer who moves as long as he can, not by blank ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... its name implies, is devoted to chess. Germans patronize it to a great extent. Politics do not enter into the ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... everything that is counted unclean. You will find neither silk in my dress, nor gold on my fingers. My ablutions are esteemed the most complete of any man's in the capital, and the mode of my abstersion the most in use. I neither smoke nor drink wine before men; neither do I play at chess, at gengifeh (cards), or any game which, as the law ordains, abstracts the mind from holy meditation. I am esteemed the model of fasters; and during the Ramazan give no quarter to the many hungry fellows who come to me under various pretexts, to beg a remission of the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... the adversary's is removed. It resembles the Bornou game, played with beans and holes in the sand. Citizens and the more civilised are fond of "Bakkis," which, as its name denotes, is a corruption of the well-known Indian Pachisi. None but the travelled know chess, and the Damal (draughts) and Tavola (backgammon) of ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... you're dead, if you call yourself a Whig. You couldn't be a live one, for the party's in pieces, blown to the winds. The country was once a chess-board for Whig and Tory: but that game's at an end. There's no doubt on earth ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
