"Chess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... done—with what I feel in my bones to be very inferior skill and taste—all the reading, writing, condensing, transcribing and advising that he has been accustomed to do. I have driven with the bonhomme; played chess and cribbage with him; beaten him, bullied him, contradicted him; forced him into going out on the water under my charge. Who shall say, after this, that I haven't done my best to discourage his advances, put myself in a bad light? As yet, my efforts are vain; in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... am speaking of Mr. Dillwyn. I never saw anybody so nice. He is teaching me to play chess, Lois, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... Indeed, it is the only game that I remember. I dislike cards. They bore me to death. So dus chess. People love to call them intellectual pastimes; but, surely, if a man wants exercise for his intellect, there are enough problems in this complicated universe for him to worry his brains over, with more profit to himself and the world. And as for the pastime—I consider that ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... 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 he got the better of it. One was sitting with his knees up, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... something especially piquant in the way in which after Guilford he left Cornwallis to himself. It reminds one of a chess-player who first gets the queen off the board, where she can do no harm, and then wins the game against the smaller pieces. As for Cornwallis, when he reached Petersburg, May 20, he found himself at the head of 5000 men. Arnold had just been recalled to New ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... as the Code Napoleon," cried Aristide. "You can't play without knowing them. You might as well play chess ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... issues, and the day of individual leaders is past. The analogies and precedents that lead one to forecast the coming of military one-man-dominions, the coming of such other parodies of Caesar's career as that misapplied, and speedily futile chess champion, Napoleon I. contrived, are false. They are false because they ignore two correlated things; first, the steady development of a new and quite unprecedented educated class as a necessary aspect of the expansion of science and mechanism, and secondly, the absolute ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... position, where they seemed to be preparing for a fresh attack." The emperor then said to Belliard, "That nothing was yet sufficiently unravelled: that to make him give his reserves, he wanted to see more clearly upon his chess-board." This was his expression; which he repeated several times, at the same time pointing on one side to the old Moscow road, of which Poniatowski had not yet made himself master; on the other, to an attack of the enemy's ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... name of our rook in chess is taken from that of this same bird; though first perverted from ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... penetrating, if not hurried: I can make excellent impromptus at leisure, but on the instant could never say or do anything worth notice. I could hold a tolerable conversation by the post, as they say the Spaniards play at chess, and when I read that anecdote of a duke of Savoy, who turned himself round, while on a journey, to cry out "a votre gorge, marchand de Paris!" I said, "Here is a trait of ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... Andrew Bolkonski, through whom he hoped to obtain a post on the commander in chief's staff. Berg and Boris, having rested after yesterday's march, were sitting, clean and neatly dressed, at a round table in the clean quarters allotted to them, playing chess. Berg held a smoking pipe between his knees. Boris, in the accurate way characteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of chessmen with his delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg's move, and watched his opponent's face, evidently thinking about the game as he always thought only ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... similar vein, he said of his friend George Grote that he would have been an important politician if the world had been a chess-board. Any system, social, political, or philosophical, which did not directly concern itself with the wants and feelings and impulses of human flesh and blood, appealed ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... tell precisely how and when the Oriental influence came into Europe, but that it did come is absolutely certain. The transformation of the Buddha-legend into the Christian legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, the migration of fables and stories, and the introduction of the game of chess furnish ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... ask you if you seriously propose to familiarise Axcester with all the orgies of a Continental Sabbath? Already the prisoners spend Sunday in playing chess, draughts, cards, dominoes; practices which I connive at, only insisting that they are kept out of sight, but from which I endeavour to wean them—those at least who have a taste for music—by encouraging them to, take part ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... much more haughty and stubborn and difficult to deal with than she used to be. Before long others began to notice this as well as the king. In the court there were two young fellows, one of eighteen years old, the other of nineteen, who were very fond of playing chess and often sat long inside playing at it. Their room was next the queen's, and often during the day they ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... obliged to admit that, when Johnson died, they were not on speaking terms. His explanation is that Johnson irritated him by an allusion to his being beaten by Omai, the Sandwich Islander, at chess. Mrs. Piozzi's marginal note on Omai is: "When Omai played at chess and at backgammon with Baretti, everybody admired at the savage's good breeding and at the European's ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... colossal move on the political chess-board the Coronation was. Bedford realized this by and by, and tried to patch up his mistake by crowning his King; but what good could that do? None ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lawns and towering oaks and elms; there were bosky shades at several points, and not far from the house there was a little rill spanned by a rustic bridge with the bark on; there were fruits and flowers, pleasant people, chess, billiards, rides, walks, and fishing. These were great attractions, but none of them, nor all of them together, would have been sufficient to hold me to the place very long. I had been invited for the trout season, but should, probably, have finished ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... open colonnade in front of an enclosed room at the back. The illustration shows the front overlooking the court, while beyond is the Octagon Tower, the residence of the chief Sultana. In the court a portion of the marble pavement is made to represent a pachisi or chess board, and it is said the game was played with slave girls, who were used instead of the customary chessmen. The Octagon Tower is built out over the river Jumna, as will be seen in a ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... life, fortune, and happiness depend on our knowing something of the rules of a game far more complicated than chess, which has been played since Creation; every man, woman and child of us being one of the players in a game of our own. The board is the world, the pieces the phenomena of the universe, while the rules of the game are the laws ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... a very common diversion among them; but in the opinion of Archbishop Peckham, as appears by his letters, there were other diversions of a far more reprehensible character. Actually at the small Priory of Coxford, in Norfolk, the prior and his canons were wholly given over to chess-playing. It was dreadful! In other monasteries the monks positively hunted; not only the abbots, but the common domestic monks! Nay, such things were to be found as monks keeping dogs, or even birds, in the cloister, Peckham denounces these breaches of decorum as grave offences, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... tiny word would get through to them, and anxiety would lift a little from their hearts; for a day or two they would smile. One we had, paralysed in the legs, who would sit doing macram work and playing chess all day long; every relative he had—wife, father, mother, sisters—all were in the power of the German. As brave a nature as one could see in a year's march, touchingly grateful, touchingly cheerful, but with the saddest eyes I ever saw. There was one little reminder ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... this ethnographical chess-board have been for centuries rather tribal than national, and are still rather philosophical than political, rather idealistic than practical, rather dreamy than adventurous. To organize this population ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... and discussed subsequently with keen interest. A 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 as carefully as any work on tactics ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... and "chess rooms" were modifications, in a way, of the "coffee-house," though serving mainly evening refreshment, coffee and a "fine Havana" being ample for the needs of him who would ponder three or four hours over a game ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... more than half-civilised, and with whom we have had indirect communication from the earliest ages. The Lepchas play at quoits, using slate for the purpose, and at the Highland games of "putting the stone" and "drawing the stone." Chess, dice, draughts, Punch, hockey, and battledore and shuttlecock, are all Indo-Chinese or Tartarian; and no one familiar with the wonderful instances of similarity between the monasteries, ritual, ceremonies, attributes, vestments, and other paraphernalia of the eastern and western churches, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... 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 mind ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... promising beginning, I was enormously disappointed, and if only it had been lighter, doubtless my chagrin would have showed on my face. It seemed to me (not knowing) the death-blow to all my hopes. I did not then understand that in all the unending and necessarily eternal game of chess, which men and women play one against the other, there is no better ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... England and Germany. Prince Eugene and Marlborough restored the peace and the political equilibrium of Europe. In England, the different parties in Parliament, the frequenters of the clubs and coffee-houses, were then watching every move on the political chess-board of Europe, and criticising the victories of their generals and the treaties of their ambassadors. In Germany, the nation took but a passive part. It was excluded from all real share in the great questions of the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... the heat and his long march, Fionn could not sleep, and called for a chess-board, and bade Ossian play with him. Fionn was the most skilled, and at length he said, 'There is but one move that can save you the game, O Ossian, and I dare all that are by to show you that move.' And in the top of the tree Diarmid ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... happened to be playing chess with Salter; Roscoe was at pwe; Mee Lay was putting Rosetta to bed, but Ma Chit was present, listening, smiling, and smoking her white cheroot. At the conclusion of a close and hard-fought game, in which Shafto was victorious ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... the sensuous objects of Nature for symbols and Faith—with Love and Pride as the unseen impetus and moving-power of all, make up the curious chess-game of a poem. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... truth, Phineas had heard very little of any settled plan down at Loughlinter. He had played a game of chess with Mr. Gresham, and had shot a stag with Mr. Palliser, and had discussed sheep with Lord Brentford, but had hardly heard a word about politics from any one of those influential gentlemen. From Mr. Monk he had heard much of a coming Reform Bill; but his ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... or saw the device of the golden falcon on his shield would have to do with him, Sir Geraint began to seek ease and pleasure, for there was no one who would joust with him. He began to stay at home and never went beyond his wife's bower-chamber, but sat and delighted in playing chess, or hearing the bards of the court sing songs of glamour and wizardry, or tell him tales of ancient warriors and lovers, ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... end of this flat the rooms both front and back are parlours, with folding doors between, so that while one may be used for conversational purposes or such like, the other may be fitted with a piano and also with games, such as chess, draughts, &c. The upper flat, which contains also very handsome rooms, beautifully finished, is divided into two portions, one to be occupied exclusively by the Secretary, and containing dining and drawing rooms divided ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... have been excavated appear to be parts of dice and chessmen. Chess was popular during the 17th century, and many dice games, including even and odd, hazard, passage, mumchance, ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... nominally, as the law relating to absolute silence was never actually enforced; and as long as the members amused themselves in a reasonably quiet manner, and without turning the place into a bear-garden, they were allowed to converse over their games of chess or draughts, and exchange their opinions on the news ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... early a chance of offering him my heartiest congratulations on the day. The last time I had met him was when the artillery on both sides were hard at it; he appeared then more like a man playing a game of chess than a game of war, and was not too busy to sympathise with me on the badness of the light when he saw me trying to take snapshots of the Boer shells bursting amongst the Imperial ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... were in many ways, the possession of the latchkey, Dr. Bagby tells us, did not argue an intimate personal relation, as the fancy of the brilliant editor of the Examiner was apparently changeable, and wavered when he discovered that his assistant neither played chess nor talked sufficiently to inspire him to conversational excellence. But the key opened to the younger man, whenever he so willed, the pleasant three-storied brick house on Broad Street where the valiant editor kept bachelor's hall in a ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... had somewhat subsided, Cousin Mary proposed that they should try some games, by way of variety. Chess, checkers, backgammon, Chinese puzzles, dominoes, jack-straws, etc., were mentioned, and each one of them was declared by different members of the group to be exceedingly entertaining; but Charlie Bolton ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... indoors were chess and draughts, both of which people still play. One knight had perhaps many squires, and they were all supposed to love him very much, and to be perfectly obedient to him. The young squires had games among themselves, and the squires of two different knights had little contests, each ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat, 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 ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... end of the day the rain ceased and the wind began to drop perceptibly. Von Koren had already made up his mind that he would not be able to get off that day, and had settled down to play chess with Samoylenko; but after dark the orderly announced that there were lights on the sea and that a rocket had ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... said, "every sin has its antithesis. It's like a chess board—the human mind—with the black men ranged on one side and the white on the other, ready to move, to advance, skirmish, threaten, manoeuvre, attack, and check each other, and the intervening squares represent the checkered battlefield of ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... way. Only just a cycle ride here and there, or a walk, or a concert, or an hour on the church organ, when Reggie would blow and Mr. Gray, who was musical, would play as nobody in the town, not excepting the organist, could play. Or a game of chess in Mrs. Gray's drawing-room, while Elaine played or sang to them and served ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... was right in that, for one person can no more quarrel without an adversary, than one person can play at chess, or fight a duel. 'I hoped you would be glad to shake hands with an old friend. Don't let us rake up bygones,' said Tom. 'If I ever offended ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the rat-faced man talked out every aspect of the Goober case, which was becoming more and more complicated, and bigger as a public issue. New people were continually being involved, and new problems continually arising; it was more fascinating than a game of chess. McGivney had spoken the literal truth when he said that the big business interests of American City had put up a million dollars to hang Goober and his crowd. At the very beginning there had been offered seventeen thousand dollars in rewards for information, and these rewards naturally had ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... smoking and gossiping, we also played games, either chess or backgammon or munkula. This last is an exceedingly primitive and ancient game—it must date almost as far back as jackstones or knucklebones. I have seen the natives in Central Africa and the Indians in the far interior ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... the Arabic language, he spoke with fluency and elegance the Persian and Turkish idioms. It was his delight to converse with the learned on topics of history and science; and the amusement of his leisure hours was the game of chess, which he improved or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... steps, and a reconciliation was determined upon as giving time for reflection. Cassius went to sup with Antony, and Brutus with Lepidus. This shows plainly that the good of the republic was not the cause nearest the hearts of the principal actors; but that each, like a wary player at chess, was only anxious lest some adversary should get an advantage ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... reading matter, a very great luxury to a man in his situation and of his tastes. In his more serious hours he re-read the Bible, and committed to memory daily a portion of "Saint Matthew's Gospel;" and for relaxation read "Napoleon and his Marshals." This with an occasional game at chess, checkers, or dominos, games in which the invalids were permitted to indulge, made the hours pass much more pleasantly than those spent in the convalescent department. It is true their chess-board was made with chalk upon the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... to the south. It may have been a cloud, or it may have been one of those strange reflections of which one reads. The weather is very warm. The mate says that he never knew it so warm in these latitudes. Played chess with Harton ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... about one foot of it, the part attached to the head, was hollow, and the size of my wrist; the remainder was solid, and very heavy, being indeed the exquisite ivory of which the eastern people manufacture their beautiful chess-men. But to return to our sea-combat, which continued a long time, the shark evidently getting worsted. Possibly the bottom, which was clear, was favourable for his enemy; whose blow, if he succeeds in striking ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... situated on a peninsula at the head of Massachusetts Bay. It has three streets: Cornhill, Washington, and Beacon Streets. It has a Common and a Frog-Pond, and many sprightly squirrels. Its streets are straight and cross each other like lines on a chess-board. It has a State-House which is the finest edifice in the world or out of it. It has one church, the Old South, which was built, as its name indicates, before the Proclamation of Emancipation was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... remember Those evenings in the bleak December, Curtained warm from the snowy weather, When you and I played chess together, Checkmated by each other's ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... experience, and I had let the year or two run on to four years before the end came. The offer came to me through the last thing in the world I should have put forward as a qualification for a salaried post, and that was chess.' ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... Strathmore's thoughts floated onward to a piece of statecraft then numbered among the delicate diplomacies and intricate embroglie of Europe, whose moves absorbed him as the finesses of a problem absorb a skilful chess-player, and from thence stretched onwards to his future, in which he lived, like all men of dominant ambition, far more than he lived in his present. It was a future brilliant, secure, brightening in its lustre, and strengthening in its power, with each successive year; a ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... which it is probable that there were at one time altars. Some Early English work may be seen in the heads carved on some of the larger shafts and the caps of the subsidiary pillars, a noticeable figure being "a monk crouched in a caryatidal attitude and holding a chess-board." ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant
... poetry and music, they dedicated much of their leisure time to those elegant pursuits. They taught Europe the game of chess; they gave it its taste for works of fiction—romances and novels. In the graver domains of literature they took delight: they had many admirable compositions on such subjects as the instability of human greatness; the consequences of irreligion; the reverses ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... about little Georgy. How he treasured these papers! Whenever Amelia wrote he answered, and not until then. But he sent over endless remembrances of himself to his godson and to her. He ordered and sent a box of scarfs and a grand ivory set of chess-men from China. The pawns were little green and white men, with real swords and shields; the knights were on horseback, the castles were on the backs of elephants. "Mrs. Mango's own set at the Pineries was not so fine," Mr. Pestler remarked. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... up on Lilias's window-shutter, and we write down every month's invitations—in stormy weather they are not many—and we fulfil them in rotation. You don't often want me in the evenings, for you've quite given me up at chess, and you only condescend to backgammon when it is mid-winter and there has been no curling, and the book club is all amiss. Lilias insists upon the card, because the parties are by no means always merry affairs, and she says that otherwise we would slip them off on ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... with that chess-playing private from New Zealand of whom Barry Whalen told Ian Stafford. He told it a few days after Rudyard Byng had won that fight at Hetmeyer's Kopje, which had enabled the Master Player to turn the flank of the Boers, though there was yet grim frontal work to do ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... thing and memorising an illogical system of visual images—for that is what reading ordinary English spelling comes to—is quite another. A man can learn to play first chess and then bridge in half the time that these two games would require if he began by attempting simultaneous play, and exactly the same principle ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... subjects; sometimes rows of heroes on steeds appear, standing under windows, from which, in a most wholesale way, whole nunneries or boarding-schools seem to be descending to fly with them. One of these mirrors shows Huon of Bordeaux playing at chess with the king's daughter: another represents a castle, which occupies the upper centre of the circle, and under the window is a drawbridge, across which passes a procession of mounted knights. One of these has ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... at Cupid's chess-board! do not you see the next move? Check with your new knight, and the game is your own. Now, if your aunt Stanhope saw your look at this instant, she would give you up for ever—if she have not done that ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... being acquainted with its primary rules, any more than for ignorance of grammar or of spelling, which are both of them far more difficult sciences. Far less trouble than is necessary to learn how to play chess, or whist, or golf, tolerably,—far less than a school-boy takes to win the meanest prize of the passing year, would acquaint you with all the main principles of the construction of a Gothic cathedral, and I believe you would hardly find the study less amusing. But be that ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... peasant were playing a game together one day (probably a game of chess, which was a favourite winter pastime with the Northern vikings). They of course had determined to play for certain stakes, and the giant, being victorious, won the peasant's only son, whom he said he would come and claim ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... look up from the fleshless and skeleton perfection of the problemed forms, which start at your slightest touch from the formal squares of the chess board,—forms which confuse me with their complexity, bewilder me in the mazes of their ceaseless combinations, dazzle me with their chill erudition, and appal me with want of life,—and smile acceptance on the glowing gifts here ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... beautiful flowers on a white ground) into drawing-room doors, and also into walls which, being panel papered, offer opportunities of introducing centre pieces of the same character as the doors; elegant chess and work-tables, folding and cheval-screens, panels for cabinets, chiffoniers and book-cases, slabs for pier and console-tables, glove-boxes, covers for books, music, albums, &c. The most common cause of failure is, that the drawings inside are ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... 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 eighth ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... amongst the trout on the Chess! I wrote for permission to spend one afternoon only upon certain private waters, and the noble owner by return of post sent me an order for two days. It was June. The meadows, hedgerows—ay! and even the prosaic ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... 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 her first embarrassed ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... any professional skill. He was a capital linguist; at fencing, leaping, running, and other manly exercises, he found few rivals; and his dabblings in architecture and botany were at least as notable as his mastership of chess and his skill as a musician. But when it came to a scientific test of his surgical and anatomical pretensions, his failure was lamentable indeed. The unquenchable thirst for notoriety—which he may have mistaken for fame—was perpetually leading him into questionable positions, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... cousins 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 about the ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... city guarded and controlled, With towering Sal trees belted round,(65) And many a grove and pleasure ground, As royal Indra, throned on high, Rules his fair city in the sky.(66) She seems a painted city, fair With chess-board line and even square.(67) And cool boughs shade the lovely lake Where weary men their thirst may slake. There gilded chariots gleam and shine, And stately piles the Gods enshrine. There gay sleek people ever throng To festival and dance and song. A mine is she of gems and sheen, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... deeds were but as filthy rags." I didn't believe it and I didn't like it. The staid pastor had but little recreation, and I am afraid I was always glad that Ulrica Schumacher, the frisky sister of the gunsmith, almost always beat him at chess. ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... has the illusion of freewill. Doubtless the pieces in that chess game, which Eastern monarchs are said to play with human figures, come to think they move of themselves. The knight chuckles as he makes his tortuous jump at the queen, and the bishop swoops down on the castle with ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... industrious pursuits, Harry was unfitted alike by nature and training. He could sing romantic ditties, and accompany himself with discretion on the piano; he was a graceful although a timid cavalier; he had a pronounced taste for chess; and nature had sent him into the world with one of the most engaging exteriors that can well be fancied. Blond and pink, with dove's eyes and a gentle smile, he had an air of agreeable tenderness and melancholy and the most submissive and caressing manners. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whatever his name was), understood that, for a fable, all the persons must be impersonal. They must be like abstractions in algebra, or like pieces in chess. The lion must always be stronger than the wolf, just as four is always double of two. The fox in a fable must move crooked, as the knight in chess must move crooked. The sheep in a fable must march ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... cold-blooded; it was as passionless as chess. And it was about then that Cecille began to draw nearer and nearer in spirit, like a bird hypnotized by a snake. The simile is hectic, I know. But it was ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... absence,—one on the part of the local doctor, a very clever and excellent fellow named James Forsyth, who was familiarly called 'Jimmy' by the villagers, and who often joined Walden of an evening to play a game of chess with him,—and another bearing the neat superscription 'Mrs. Mandeville Poreham. The Leas. At Home Thursdays,'—whereat he smiled. Mrs. Mandeville Poreham was a 'county' lady, wife of a gentleman-at-ease who did nothing but hunt, and who ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... well-informed and clever people, I spent an idle month. I dined at one or two Corporation dinners; spent a few days at the old Mansion of Mr. Buller of Morval, the patron of West Looe; and during the rest of the time, read, wrote, played chess, lounged, and ate red mullet (he who has not done this has not begun to live); talked of cookery to the philosophers, and of metaphysics to Mrs. Buller; and altogether cultivated indolence, and developed the faculty of nonsense with considerable pleasure ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... there was his father. To Opdyke's certain knowledge, the good professor curtailed by hours and hours and hours his more congenial occupations for the sake of helping his son to work out the chess problems in which they both were taking a perfunctory delight. Reed did unfeignedly enjoy his father's company; but that was no reason he should reduce him to a captivity akin to his own. How long had it lasted, anyhow? May, June—nine months. And, in all that ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... CHESS PATTERN.—Work a square in cross stitch, with three stitches, making three of a dark shade and six of white, working as many squares as you require, and leaving spaces equal to those occupied by cross stitch, which you must fill up ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... brute courage, for as soon as I get excited or hurt I never think of being afraid, but go it half-mad-like, wanting to do all the mischief I can to whoever it is that has hurt me; but what I shall always want will be the cool, calm chess-player's head that helps a man to take advantage of every move the enemy makes, and check him. I shall always be the fellow who shoves out his queen and castle and goes slashing into the adversary till he smashes him or gets too far to retreat, and ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... been stated by careful students that the original stories in the world number but two hundred and fifty; but we have not forgotten our arithmetic, and we have learned chess, so we know something of the manifold combinations of ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... brought with him three children and a washed-out, subdued-looking wife, and who spoke magnanimously of Norton as "a clever fellow, of course, but deplorably casual officially." With such haphazard shifting of pawns on the chess-board is the momentous game of Empire played. Yet long after Dudley Norton's name had been almost forgotten by the overtasked, fluctuating world of Anglo-India, it still remained a household word among the Mahsud Waziris, whose brothers in blood had so treacherously ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Obliged by the civil wars of the conquistadores to flee from the Pizarros, they were glad enough to find a welcome in Uiticos. To while away the time they played games and taught the Inca checkers and chess, as well as bowling-on-the-green and quoits. Montesinos says they also taught him to ride horseback and shoot an arquebus. They took their games very seriously and occasionally violent disputes arose, one of which, as we shall see, was to have fatal consequences. They were kept informed ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... a pleasing fiction, which adorns the nakedness of truth, and 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 ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... old men, with long, white beards, were sitting inside playing chess, as quietly as mice, with their ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... running over, but in a tone of gentle raillery and heart's love she said severely: "Nonsense, grandfather, you'll forget all about Glory going to London before the day after to-morrow. Every morning you'll be making rubbings of your old runes, and every night you'll be playing chess with Aunt Rachel, and every Sunday you'll be scolding old Neilus for falling asleep in the reading desk, and—and everything will go on just ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... headquarters of the Society, the nucleus of their growth, and the fulcrum of their energy. From Rome, as from a center, Ignatius moved his men about the field of Europe. We might compare him under one metaphor to a chess-player directing his pieces upon the squares of the political and ecclesiastical chessboard; under another, to a spider spinning his web so as to net the greatest number of profitable partisans. The fathers were kept in perpetual motion. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... orchards, and living waters and fish ponds and plough lands, and many ships were in its haven, for that castle stood above the sea. It was well fenced against all assault or engines of war, and its keep, which the giants had built long ago, was compact of great stones, like a chess ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... slightly, but not so noticeably that the puzzle-maker could see, Eric obeyed. It seemed very silly to him. But as the knight went from square to square in the peculiar move which belongs to that piece in chess, the boy was amazed to find a wonderful and fascinating geometrical ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... more than any other place I can think of. It is on a level plain, with the exception of the portion to the north where the ground rises a little, and the streets are laid out at right angles, as though a chess-board had been taken as a model for the place. We have wondered why it was called Adelaide instead of Mary Ann, Betsy, or some other feminine name; Dr. Whitney has just told us that the city was laid out in 1837 and named in honor of the ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... passed in chess, music and conversation, and after an early tea Dr. and Mrs. Peters bade good-by to their entertainers ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... "you won't play chess, you won't eat things. You just drive a chap to study!" As spring came in the school talk turned to baseball and rowing. For the former Joel had little desire, but rowing attracted him, and he began to ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... girls and boys and a thousand pimps, who will testify that the bag is my bag." When the Kurd heard my words, he wept and wailed and said, "O my lord the Cadi, my bag is known and what is in it is renowned; therein are castles and citadels and cranes and beasts of prey and men playing chess and draughts. Moreover, in this my bag is a brood-mare and two colts and a stallion and two blood-horses and two long lances and a lion and two hares and a city and two villages and a courtezan and two sharking ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... at midnight he found his wife and his old friend Willoughby Crane playing chess in ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... his guest, Arkhipov, were playing chess in his study. Vera Lvovna was minding the infant; she talked with Alena for a while; then went into the drawing-room, and rummaged among the ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... hesitate to acknowledge that they have been the subjects of similar protection. The peculiar feature about it all is that the agents used are so often entirely unconscious of the influence which they are exerting. An unseen hand seems to be guiding our moves on the chess-board of life, so as to check us every time that we are inclined to play falsely. I do not mean that all are persuaded toward virtue, but I do mean that enough are protected from moral evil and spiritual peril to justify the belief that such ministries ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... to the nobility by divine right—as much as did Disraeli. Both had an inward contempt for titles, but they knew the hearts of the owners so well that they simply played a game of chess, and the "men" they moved were live knights, bishops, kings and queens, with rollers under the castles. The pawns they pushed here and there were the literary puppets ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... audience were disappointed, but waited. The Governor, prompted by Isaacs, said, "The Honorable Mr. Delafield will address you." Delafield had forgotten the knives and forks, and was playing the Ruy Lopez opening at the chess-club. "The Rev. Mr. Auchmuty will address you." Auchmuty had promised to speak late, and was at the school-committee. "I see Dr. Stearns in the hall; perhaps he will say a word." Dr. Stearns said he had come to listen and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... credit for the manner in which he extricated the remains of the czar's army. Oyama did not feel safe in following up the pursuit. His game was that of a skillful chess player. First make sure of the result with mathematical precision, then strike. The Japanese were deaf to ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... 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 side by side with ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... had taken, the reader will recognise the "clever [geistreiche], musical Dr. Hermann Franck," the friend of many musical and other celebrities, the same with whom Mendelssohn used to play at chess during his stay in Paris. From Hiller I learned that Franck was very musical, and that his attainments in the natural sciences were considerable; but that being well-to-do he was without a profession. In the fifth ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... first discovered the meaning of this word by hearing one of the natives apply it to the castle on the chess board: he used the same term when drawings of towers and castles were shewn ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... widely shared and recognized as going with the culture: science fiction, music, medievalism (in the active form practiced by the Society for Creative Anachronism and similar organizations), chess, go, backgammon, wargames, and intellectual games of all kinds. (Role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons used to be extremely popular among hackers but they lost a bit of their luster as they moved into the mainstream and became heavily commercialized.) Logic puzzles. Ham radio. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... angels of Heaven Each wear a long white dress, And in the tall arcadings Play ball and play at chess; ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... amusement of the period, compared with which the German duel, the Mexican bullfight, or the American game of football are mild sports. The other diversions of the knights and nobles were hunting, hawking, feasting, drinking, making love, minstrelsy, and chess. Intellectual ability formed no part of their accomplishments, and a knowledge of reading and writing was commonly regarded ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... at chess with Bjorn when Hilding arrived. He pretended not to hear the message, and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... years when he entered as office-boy into the employment of Briggs & Livingstone—the firm at the time of which I am now writing was Lynde, Livingstone & Co. Mr. David Lynde lived in a set of chambers up town, and dined at his club, where he usually passed the evenings at chess with some brother antediluvian. A visit to the theatre, when some old English comedy or some new English ballet happened to be on the boards, was the periphery of his dissipation. What is called society saw nothing of him. He was a ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... One, for example, is a member of the school orchestra; another, perhaps the son or the grandson of an immigrant from Germany, leads the cheers at the track meet; another, himself an immigrant from Russia, plays on the chess team and is one of the brilliant scholars in his class. This last does, at present, have something of the stranger about him, but before long, no doubt, his speech will have become more smooth, his trousers will have begun ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... a London merchant who went to Holland to purchase cloth, bought a few books and some type, and established a printing-office in Westminster Chapel, where he issued, in 1474, "The Game of Chess," the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... believed, as we did, in the righteousness of their cause. But like the dead bodies of the Frenchmen and the Englishmen who lay quite close, they had been done to death by the villainy of statecraft and statesmen, playing one race against another as we play with pawns in a game of chess. The old witchcraft was better than this new witchcraft, and not so fraudulent in its power of duping ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... my dear sir. That's all. Absolute common sense. If you are a chess-player, you know that the man who can foretell what move his opponent is going to make usually wins. Here, let's find a quiet Piccadilly tea-shop and I'll tell you all ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... 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
... and converse, on one thing and another, with dowager lady Chia, or have a chat with madame Wang; while Pao-ch'ai came together, day after day, with Tai yue, Ying-ch'un, her sisters and the other girls, either to read, to play chess, or to do needlework, and the pleasure which they ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... abilities: he read aloud very well; and played at chess amazingly, like a master, like a downright genius, defeating first-class players in jest. His attack was always impetuous and rigorous; his defense wise and cautious, preferably in an oblique direction; his concessions to his opponent full of refined, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... near the dictionaries. A thick book, opened at the frontispiece, lay before him on the wooden rest. He leaned back in his chair, inclining his ear like that of a confessor to the face of the medical student who was reading to him a problem from the chess page of a journal. Stephen sat down at his right and the priest at the other side of the table closed his copy of THE TABLET with an angry ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... la milicia del Peru, says Garcilasso de la Vega, who compares Carbajal to an expert chess-player, disposing his pieces in such a manner as must infallibly secure him the victory. Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... of course very different when there is question of a foreign market, even if it be only indirectly. Thus, for instance, there are in the Hartz mountains, persons who are simply post-makers, trough-makers, chess-wood-makers, block-hewers, shingle-makers etc. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... freely, because he was her father and it was her duty to bear with him; but she felt the injustice deeply, for all that. Then, when she went up into the nursery, Alick and Betty made a frantic uproar, merely because she insisted on teaching them the moves in chess, when they perversely wanted to play Halma! So, feeling baffled and sick at heart, she had put on her hat and run out all alone to a quiet lane near her home, where she could soothe her troubled mind by thinking ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... and blank wonder of the public at some of the finest passages of Turner, which look like a mere meaningless and disorderly work of chance; but, rightly understood, are preparations for a given result, like the most subtle moves of a game of chess, of which no bystander can for a long time see the intention, but which are, in dim, underhand, wonderful way, bringing out their foreseen ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... ordinary striker, no. In a strike of bank-clerks, or—or chess-players, or professional skeletons, I should be a lion among the blacklegs; but there is something about the very word coal-porter which——You know, I really think this is a case where the British Army might help us. We have been very good ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... she sat all the time with down-dropped eyes and a pretty sacred smile on her lips, and now, when she spied on the other side of the street the figure of the vicar, she tripped slantingly across the road to him, as if by the move of a knight at chess, looking everywhere else, and only perceiving him with glad surprise at the very last moment. He was a great frequenter of tea parties and except in Lent an assiduous player of bridge, for a clergyman's duties, so he very properly held, were not confined to visiting the poor and ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... immense difference to him. When after tea he said he would walk to the parsonage to see how the debate had gone, and we knew we should not see him till half-past ten, we could not but be glad; it must have been so much pleasanter than playing at chess, listening to our old music, or reading even the new books ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... full of people grouped in little knots, fighting the battles of the day o'er again, playing backgammon and chess, or ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 lustrous with purple light, shining through ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... euchre, or hearts, or parchesi; Susan and Philip struggled with chess; there were talks about the fire, and they all straggled upstairs at ten o'clock. Anna, appreciative and affectionate and brave, came home for almost every Saturday night, and these were special occasions. Susan and Betsey wasted their best efforts upon the dinner, and filled ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... 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 could you share your thought; ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the dice: "and he who loses submits to servitude, though younger and stronger than his antagonist, and patiently permits himself to be bound and sold in the market; and this madness they dignify by the name of honour." Chess and backgammon were also favourite games with the Anglo-Saxons, and a large portion of the night was appropriated to the pursuit of these sedentary amusements, especially at the Christmas season of the year, when the early ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... not yet developed in France, as it was in England; all social order was unsettled and changing, and well Mazarin knew it. He knew the pieces with which he played his game of chess: the king powerless, the queen mighty, the bishops unable to take a single straightforward move, and the knights going naturally zigzag; but a host of plebeian pawns, every one fit for a possible royalty, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... surely within my 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 denial of facts, (or coming to an issue,) ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... having got so many necessaries into so small a compass. She would need the extra clothing if she stayed at Ganado with the missionaries for a week on her return from the trip, and the book and chessmen would amuse them all by the way. She had heard Brownleigh say he loved to play chess. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... times. A few husbands and fathers joined us at lunch; but at dinner we were nearly always a company of bachelors, dropping in an hour or so before we wished to dine, and ordering from a bill of fare what we liked. Some dozed away the intervening time; some read the evening papers, or played chess; I preferred the chance society of the Turkish room. I could be pretty sure of finding Wanhope there in these sympathetic moments, and where Wanhope was there would probably be Rulledge, passively willing to listen and agree, and Minver ready to interrupt and dispute. ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... be worth doing. Oh! I should hate to be extinguished. But to change one existence for another, if the fancy takes you—that seems to me the greatest proof of real independence that anybody can give. It's tremendous. You're playing chess with fate and fate's winning, and you knock up the chess-board and fate has to begin all over again! Can't you see how tremendous it is—and how tempting it is? The temptation ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... rested. Perhaps it had no name! Soldiers on active service seldom walk by sight. It is theirs always "to trust and obey." Even regimental officers seldom know precisely where their next stopping-place will be, or what presently they will be called upon to do. They often resemble the pieces on a chess board, which cannot see the hand that moves them and cannot tell why this piece instead of that is taken. To keep our adversaries if possible in the dark, we have ourselves to dwell in darkness; but it is a ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... it was fair," said a lady's voice. "I firmly believe, and I've said it all along, that you let me beat you. Why, you taught me chess yourself, and how is it possible that I could catch up to my master in so short ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Murdock—respectively, a silly, flirtatious, little gadfly of a widow; a callow, love-struck, lap-dog, young naval officer, with a budding moustache and a full-blown idea of his own importance; a dour Scotchman of middle age, with a passion for chess, a glowering scorn of frivolities, a deep abiding conviction that Scotland was the only country in the world for a self-respecting human being to dwell in, and that everything outside of the Established Church was ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... after the manner of a chess-player looking several moves ahead. Could the conversation become more explicit, sufficiently so to be of use, and yet no clue be given which would reveal ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... sole ambition is to make it end the rest. Much better to work for your opening. Try to imagine where your opponent will be after taking a certain stroke, and then according to this position determine which is the best stroke to play next. It is similar to playing chess. You should think a move or sometimes two moves in advance. Length, variety of stroke, and direction are the chief factors in success when playing a single. Very often when the place to send the ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... past, and it was the time of fires and warm drawn curtains. One evening, after dinner, I was sitting alone in my study, puzzling over a chess problem, when the servant brought me a card ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... inference or Intelligence—a sort of 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 in kind, and that the passage from one to the other meant a higher ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... squares was exactly similar. Along the two opposite walls there were narrow carpets spread on the floor, covered with cushions and low stools. Before every occupant there was an oblong on the bare floor, traced also with chalk, and divided, like a chess board, into small quadrangles which were destined for dishes and plates. Both the latter articles were made of the thick strong leaves of the butea frondosa: larger dishes of several leaves pinned together ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... Tartary. But the Comanians chased him out of the country, and did him much sorrow, and made one of themself soldan, that had to name Lachin. And he made him to be clept Melechmanser, the which on a day played at the chess, and his sword lay beside him; and so befell, that one wrathed him, and with his own proper sword he was slain. And after that, they were at great discord, for to make a soldan; and finally they accorded to Melechnasser, that Guytoga ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... yourself quite at home here," said his Lordship, as they rose from table. "I am not a good host, nor a very genial man, I believe. I can do little to entertain you; but here is the house and the grounds at your disposal,—horses in the stable,—guns in the hall,—here is Father Angelo, good at chess. There is the library. Pray make the most of them all; and if I can contribute in any way to your ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
