"Chess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as finishing his game of chess calmly while the officers of the Terror waited to conduct him to the guillotine. He is exactly—oh, but exactly!—grandmamma's idea of a gentleman. I wish she had ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... lone figures seemed! With her smiling countenance the one upon me beamed; Like the zigzag lightning flashed the other's piercing eye; Terror seized my soul,—yet on I gazed in ecstasy. Proudly upright stands the one, the other leans in weariness On the solitary table, where they play a game of chess. Pawns they barter, or they move them now from place to place;— Then the game is lost and won,—she fades away in space,— She who radiantly smiled, ah, she who lost the game; Instantly the bands of children vanish whence they came. Tumult rises; darkness deepens; ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... 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
... upon his business as a means of support or of material comfort. Business had become for him an intellectual pursuit, a study in enterprise and increment. The field of commerce lay before him like a chess-board; the moves interested him like the manoeuvres of a game. More money was more power, a greater advantage in the game, the means of shaping men and events and markets to his own ends and uses. It was his will that set fleets afloat and determined the havens they were ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... failure, 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
... little table by the fire stood a chess-board, the old carved red and white pieces standing on it in jumbled disarray; for Chloe and her husband, both inveterate chess-lovers, had begun a game which they were unable, through lack of time, ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Taylor's visit has been a very pleasant one to us, and I believe to herself also. She and Mr. Weightman have had several games at chess, which generally terminated in a species of mock hostility. Mr. Weightman is better in health; but don't set your heart on him, I'm afraid he is very fickle—not to you in particular, but to half a dozen other ladies. He ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... 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 ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... headed the Goldwing to the east. As he had predicted, the wind was increasing, and the schooner carried quite a bone in her teeth. It looked a little like a game of chess, where each player has to wait a long time for the other to make his move. The captain and his passenger appeared to be still engaged in the discussion in the bow of the boat. Dory thought he could quicken their movements; ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... reward. Professor Thompson possessed invaluable qualities for this expedition: rare balance of mind, great cheerfulness, and a sunny way of looking on difficulties and obstacles as if they were mere problems in chess. His foresight and resourcefulness were phenomenal, and no threatening situation found him ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... feet, and the wooden balls and "bats"—as racquets are still called in England—were much harder. Cards and dice were passionately played, a game called "triumph" or "trump" being the ancestor of our whist. Chess ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... all right. The next link in the chain was a chap called Cloyster. James Orlebar Cloyster. The Reverend brought him down to teach boxing. For my own part, I don't fancy anything in the way of brutality. The club, so I thought, had got on very nicely with more intellectual pursuits: draughts, chess, bagatelle, and what-not. But the Rev. wanted boxing, and boxing it had to be. Not that it would have done for him or me to have mixed ourselves up in it. He had his congregation to consider, and I am often on duty at the downstairs counter before the very heart ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... Takeefim. Why, them same Takeefim only comes here, in the first place, because they want to see what it looks like in one of the East Side cafes, where they got such good music and such interesting characters, which sits and drinks coffee and plays chess und Tarrok." ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... rattlesnake. Everybody, talking idly or concentrating on writing up the day's observations, stiffened. Luis Gofredo, dozing in a chair, was on his feet instantly and crossing the hut to the instruments. His second-in-command, who had been playing chess with Willi Schallenmacher, rose and snatched his belt from the back of ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... came on by degrees. I used to think of how things might be different; that was the way it began. I tried to work out schemes of life in my head, as I would do a game of chess; not schemes of life for myself, you know, but such as should save other people from being very miserable. I wanted to do some good in the world,"—she paused here to choose her words—"and that kind of thought naturally resolves itself into action, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... more books have been written on chess than on any other individual subject in the world, barring Masonry," she said. "And the next one to it—the yellow-bound one—is a book about old English games; not games of chance, but games for holidays and parties. I was glancing through it in my ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... such were mentioned in his hearing, he seldom failed to point out how necessary it was to arrest the object of your curiosity in its first transit, and to tell his favourite story of Snuffy Davie and Caxton's Game at Chess."Davy Wilson," he said, "commonly called Snuffy Davy, from his inveterate addiction to black rappee, was the very prince of scouts for searching blind alleys, cellars, and stalls for rare volumes. He had the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... honour 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 ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... favourites among the Ildown people, and went out to many cheery Christmas parties; but they enjoyed more the quiet evenings at home when they all sat and talked after dinner round the dining-room fire, and while the two boys played at chess, and Violet and Eva worked or sketched, Julian and Kennedy would read aloud to them in turns. How often those evenings recurred to all ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... opponent's left, center and right in a desperate effort to pierce the wall of gray, and once or twice his heroic veterans almost succeeded in battering their way through. But at every crisis Lee rose to the emergency and moved his regiments as a skillful chess player manipulates his pieces on the board, now massing his troops at the danger point and now diverting his adversary's attack by a swift counter-stroke delivered by men unacquainted with defeat. Both his hands were heavily swathed in bandages and far too painful to admit of his even touching ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... and Uncle Richard were playing chess. Morten, Fanny, and Rachel were talking of to-morrow's ball, and they every now and then addressed themselves to Miss Cordsen, who was sitting by the fireside ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... 4. Exercise Of body and mind, but moderate, as hawking, hunting, riding, shooting, bowling, fishing, fowling, walking in fair fields, galleries, tennis, bar. Of mind, as chess, cards, tables &c., to see plays, masks, &c., serious studies, business, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... shuffle, and perhaps sing a few verses of some jingling rhyme. Out-door recreation is not so easily attainable, in the winter, as the time at your disposal is so short. In-door amusements must, to a great extent, take their place. The gymnasium is a good institution; chess is a game worth learning, and very fascinating to some minds; cards are good as long as gambling is avoided, and many other games readily suggest themselves to ...
— Boys - their Work and Influence • Anonymous
... had not, completed their preparations, or whether Dr. Jameson had 1,200 or 500 men. Certainly some such assumption is necessary to account for the fact that Rhodes treated his confederates at Johannesburg as so many pawns on a chess-board. It is equally necessary to account for Dr. Jameson's action. "Twenty years friends, and now he goes in and ruins me," was Rhodes's comment on the news that Dr. Jameson had "ridden in," in spite ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... the President of the Board and his daughter Hope working out a game of football on the billiard table. They had chalked it off into what corresponded to five-yard lines, and they were hurling twenty-two chess-men across it in "flying wedges" and practising the several tricks which young Langham had intrusted to his sister under an oath of secrecy. The sight filled the directors with the horrible fear that ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... angry 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
... nor can it be arranged that the midday express shall convey all the good people safely, while the 4.15, which is wrecked, carries none but undesirable characters. To this it might be replied that the inconceivable complexity of the chess-board of the world exists only in relation to our human faculties; but what is far more to the point is the indubitable fact that many salutary miracles might be wrought which would raise no question whatever as ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... 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 same time La Beale Isoud ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... were safe indoors; Isa working chess problems with another of the lads, Avice keeping Jane company over the putting the little ones to sleep—in Mount Lebanon, as they call the Druce lodging—and Pica preserving microscopic objects. "Isn't she awful?" said one of those ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... But I am not going to-night. The princess of the castle in the air is engaged to his Excellency the Governor of Virginia for a game of chess. In the mean time here comes my father, who shall entertain your Excellency while Betty and I go ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... 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
... state, with little prospect of their coming out. Easterly winds were prevalent, and we were generally at anchor, one half of the ship's company doing nothing, and the other helping them. I soon found that our noble commander was fond of the game of chess and a stiff glass of grog, and I frequently found him en chemise with those companions at daylight on one of the cabin lockers. He was an unmarried man, but a great admirer of the fair sex of all descriptions, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... acquainted with Prince 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 ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... their long night! Their evil stars Deliver them unarmed into our hands, And from their drunken dream of golden fortunes The dagger at their hearts shall rouse them. Well, The duke was ever a great calculator; His fellow-men were figures on his chess-board To move and station, as his game required. Other men's honor, dignity, good name, Did he shift like pawns, and made no conscience of Still calculating, calculating still; And yet at last his calculation proves Erroneous; the whole game is lost; and low! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... be that, Uncle Eric; and I shall always be glad if you will tell me how I can make your time pass more pleasantly. I know this house must seem gloomy enough at best. Let us try a game of chess; we have not played since ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... unintelligible; hence the amazement 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 and ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... 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 ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... us in the dug-out; two are playing chess, but I am reading—the same thing over and over again, for I am tired to death of lying idle, of sleeping and walking. Poor indeed are men's resources, for in three days we had exhausted all we had to say. Yesterday a soldier who had lost his hand ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... required, were converted into differently-tinted reds, by a few hours' immersion in the Kiefel. He also kneaded bread in the hand, until it became as plastic as clay. This he modelled into snuffboxes (with strips of rag for hinges, and a piece of whalebone for a spring), draughts, chess-men, pipe-bowls, and other articles. When dry, they became hard and serviceable; and he sold them among the prisoners and the prison officials. He obtained thus a number of comforts not afforded by the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... occupied now by the offices of the different Labour men, was mostly in darkness, but on the top floor was a big room used as a club and restaurant, and also for informal meetings. Six or seven of the twenty-three were there, but not Fenn. Cross, a great brawny Northumbrian, was playing a game of chess with Furley. Others were writing letters. They all turned around at Catherine's entrance. She held out her hands ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Vidame de Chartres, that Catherine was more unconquered than invulnerable as to love, was paying court to her. The play of all these passions strangely complicated those of politics,—making, as it were, a double game of chess, in which both parties had to watch the head and heart of their opponent, in order to know, when a crisis came, whether the one would ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... Captain Jacob heard the wind as he was playing chess with Lois. Lois was Captain Jacob's wife. And Captain Jacob listened to the wind and forgot about the game of chess that he was playing, so that Lois beat him two games. That made Captain Jacob angry, for Lois didn't care much about chess and ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... time, and that, too, for the worst of purposes. I have kept house for nearly forty years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as most people; and I have never had cards, dice, a chess-board, nor any implement of gaming, under my roof. The hours that young men spend in this way are hours murdered; precious hours, that ought to be spent either in reading or in writing, or in rest, preparatory to the duties of the dawn. Though I do not agree with the base and nauseous flatterers, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... therefore, at George's preference for his own office, whose four walls had never looked down upon anything but innocent young fellows smoking and talking whatever harmless nonsense came into their heads, or playing chess or penny-ante, or upon his own generous thoughts and solitary contemplations, or hard work on some intricate lawsuit. So we aroused the sleeping waiter, and walked back to the Academy of Music ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... of Imagination, with 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
... our interests have for years weighed upon my heart; I ever stand as over a chess-board, and regard no move of my adversary as insignificant; and as men of science carefully investigate the secrets of nature, so I hold it to be the duty, ay, the very vocation of a prince, to acquaint ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the most adroit men in the world. He had the persistence of his race. In spite of the prejudices of eighteen hundred years, he rose to the highest position that can be occupied by a citizen. During his administration England again became a Continental power and played her game of European chess. I have never regarded Beaconsfield as a man controlled by principle, or by his heart. He was strictly a politician. He always acted as though he thought the clubs were looking at him. He knew all the arts belonging to his trade. He would have succeeded ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... 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 on ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... of sunshine and happy leisure, of boating and fishing, of riding upon the long stretch of hard sands, of sweet, silent games of chess in shady corners, of happy communion in song and story, and of conscious conversations wherein so few words meant so much. And perhaps the lovers in their personal joy grew a little selfish, for; one night the Bishop said to Phyllis, "Come and see me in the morning, daughter, ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... we must go, then." He rose and walked the length of the room, stopped a moment at the chess table in the corner, then resumed his chair. "You are wondering, no doubt, what it is to me, ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... command of most of the roads leading to Washington. But he knew that General Jubal A. Early who commanded the Confederate troops was a skilful and tried soldier, and, to begin with, he moved with caution. For some weeks indeed both commanders played as it were a game of chess, maneuvering for advantage of position. But at length a great battle was fought at Winchester in which the Confederates were defeated and driven from the field. Three days later another battle was fought at Fisher's Hill, and once again in spite of gallant ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... When the chess-board is a Florentine palace, and the pieces are fifteenth-century human beings, such complications are likely to occur. The Lady Lisa had more than once given evidence that she was not carved of wood or ivory. But for three years the situation had remained the same—the husband unobservant, ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... took on new speed. Maybe her new brightness meant only that her heart was learning to bear its load; but we hoped that was just what it was unlearning, as she and Ferry sat at chess on ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... matter of unsettled South American loans, dexterously appealing to the much-overworked Monroe Doctrine every time his country was threatened by a French or German or British blockade. But his mind was of no small caliber. He could hold his own not only at his own game of international chess, but in the cultured discussion of polite topics. Orme knew of him as a clever after-dinner speaker, a man who could, when he so desired, please greatly by ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... personage could have sprung from no other soil. In former times his stratagems were of the romantic order. Colin bleated forth his passion in rhyme, and cast sheep's eyes from among his flock, while Phyllis coquetted with her crook and stuck posies in his hat; royal Ferdinand and Miranda played at chess; Ivanhoe upset his fellow-men like ninepins for love of lackadaisical Rowena; and "sweet Moll" turned the pages while her lover, Milton, sang. But in our day the jolly little god, though still a heathen in the severe simplicity of his attire, has become modernized in his arts, and ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... the oldest, Edith, had been married many years. Laura and Deborah lived at home, but they were both out this evening. It was Friday, Edith's evening, and as was her habit she had come from her apartment uptown to dine with her father and play chess. In the living room, a cheerful place, with its lamp light and its shadows, its old-fashioned high-back chairs, its sofa, its book cases, its low marble mantel with the gilt mirror overhead, they sat at a small oval table in front of a quiet fire of ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... genial, though somewhat impulsive, hospitality. It had broad, smooth-shaven 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 my visit early in the summer had ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... staircase, which led to an open gallery, where three or four hundred of the Vizier's Albanian guards were lounging. In an antechamber, which opened from the gallery, a number of officers were smoking, and in the middle, on the floor, two old Turks were seriously engaged at chess. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... at a select party at Lady Delacour's, a Spanish gentleman was amusing the company with some anecdotes, to prove the extraordinary passion which some of his countrymen formerly showed for the game of chess. He mentioned families, in which unfinished games, bequeathed by will, had descended from father to son, and where victory was doubtful ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... cards of king, queen, and knave: allegorical figures of Genius, Liberty and Equality take their places, and since Law alone is above them all, Patriotism, as it flings down its biggest card, shall cry no longer, "Ace of trumps," but "Law of trumps," and "Genius of trumps." Chess terms too were republicanised. Furniture becomes of Spartan simplicity. The people lie down on patriotic beds and eat and drink from patriotic mugs and platters. Lotteries are abolished, regulations ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... xxiv. p. 203., for a valuable article, entitled "Historical Remarks on the introduction of the Game of Chess into Europe, and on the ancient Chessmen discovered in the Isle of Lewis, by Frederick Madden, Esq., F.R.S., in a Letter addressed to Henry ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... Justine's mind as she reached the landing; but the next moment it gave way to a contradictory feeling. Westy Gaines was not alone in the hall. From under the stairway rose the voices of a group ensconced in that popular retreat about a chess-board; and as Justine reached the last turn of the stairs she perceived that Mason Winch, an earnest youth with advanced views on political economy, was engaged, to the diversion of a circle of spectators, in teaching the Telfer ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... man called Anton stood before one of the Indian shops and stared at the window's contents. Carved ivory statuettes from the Far East, cameras from Japan, ebony figurines, chess sets of ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... to shave the boards of the flower press down, or it'll be a sorry burden for a poor, tired botanist. Good night to you, my bouchal boy, and it's a pack you might throw into a corner of your sack." "Cards!" replied Wilkinson; "no sir, but my pocket chess box will be at your service." "Chess be hanged," said the lawyer; "but, see here, are they checkers when you turn them upside down? If they ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Basilio, who was a little bit jolly. "We have a law-suit that has been pending for fifteen years, and there isn't a judge in the Supreme Court in Manila who can decide it. Let us see if we can settle it on the chess ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... 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 source of sore ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... for some of us at the Hall. Rachel and her betrothed sat apart and talked. Grace played chess with Mr. Hill, and, to escape from Captain Tyrrell, I ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... to be seen studying English hard, saying that he was going to be a businessman. He was like a girl by nature, and so "sassy" that we two were never on good terms, and had to fight it out about once every ten days. When we played a chess game one day, he placed a chessman as a "waiter,"—a cowardly tactic this,—and had hearty laugh on me by seeing me in a fix. His manner was so trying that time that I banged a chessman on his forehead which was injured a little bit and bled. He told all about this to father, who ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... however, at Waterloo Napoleon met his conqueror; the great criminal was captured and sent to St. Helena; and then, while he was playing chess and grumbling at the weather, the Brethren met again at Herrnhut in another General Synod {1818.}. At this Synod some curious regulations were made. For the purpose of cultivating personal holiness, ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... And Oliver was considering why, when if as he pressed the bell, he had felt so much like a modern St. George and wholly as if he were doing something rather fine and perilous, he should feel quite so much like a gauche seventeen-year-old now. He thought that he would not enjoy playing chess with Mrs. Severance. She was one of those people who smiled inoffensively at the end of a game and then said they thought it would really be a little evener if they gave ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... dear—the game of chess is nothing to it. Good-night, Polly. I sincerely hope no serious results will accrue from these efforts on my part ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... he's the one. He's been hoverin' 'round, like an old buzzard, for three or four years now, playin' chess with the old man while he lasted, but always with his pop-eyes fixed on Marion. And since she's been left alone he'd been callin' reg'lar once a week, urging her to be his tootsy-wootsy No. 3. He was the main wheeze in some ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... compound, carefully 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? ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... His game of chess was to his cost, Of pawns has he a many lost, And twice[8] his guard is broken; His castles help him not a mite, And see how lonesome stands his knight! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 and ninth squares, ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... all knightly games and exercises by his foster-father, and grew apace in strength and skill. Once a Norwegian vessel arrived upon the coast of Ermonie laden with a freight of hawks and treasure (hawks at that period were often worth their weight in gold). The captain challenged anyone to a game of chess with him for a stake of twenty shillings, and Rohand and his sons, with Tristrem, went on board to play with him. Tristrem moved so skilfully that he overcame the captain, and won from him, in many games, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... Rome. His wife is highly accomplished and his daughter is a beautiful girl, full of vivacity, and speaks English fluently.... During the evening there was music; his daughter played on the piano and others sang. There was chess, and, at a sideboard, a few played cards. The style was simple, every one at ease like our soirees in America. Several noblemen and dignitaries of ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... cause "set down," "reserved," or "put off," because counsel are engaged elsewhere? How often has he heard the same advocate in four or five causes in the same week, in the same court, changing positions like the queen of an active chess-board; profiting his fame and pocket by means of only a hurried glance at the elaborate brief which his junior has "got up" ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... 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 with thorns, plates and saucers of one ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... in any game," Thornly replied. "I rather think it comes from my chess training. When a child begins that pastime, as you might say, in his cradle, with such a teacher as father, it's apt ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... minister 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 ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... 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 ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... contest that point very vigorously; yet I confess that, as usual, my inveterate scepticism leaves me in some doubts. Will you assist me in resolving them?—but not to-night; let us have a little more talk about old college days,—or what say you to a game at chess?" ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... burn half a dozen of candles on the altar of the Virgin Mary. There was one, however, who had wept for me; it was Isabella, a lovely girl of fifteen, and daughter to the old Governor. The General, too, was glad to see me; he liked me very much, because we played chess while smoking our cigars, and because I allowed him to beat me, though I could have given him the queen and the move. I will confess, sotto voce, that this piece of policy had been hinted to me by his daughters, who wished me to find ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... 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 of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... in Latin, Greek, and mathematics so easy that we studied with real pleasure and had more leisure for play. Henry Bayard's chief pleasures were walking, riding, and playing all manner of games, from jack-straws to chess, with the three younger sisters, and we have often said that the three years he passed in Johnstown were the most ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... commonplace in his contemplation; kings were his people—nations were his outposts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were titular dignitaries of the chess-board. Amid all these changes, he stood ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... right to hold the invaded territory which was claimed also by New York. Burgoyne's instructions forbade him to turn aside and strike them a heavy blow. He must go on to meet Howe who was not there to be met. A being who could see the movements of men as we watch a game of chess, might think that madness had seized the British leaders; Burgoyne on the upper Hudson plunging forward resolutely to meet Howe; Howe at sea sailing away, as it might well seem, to get as far from Burgoyne ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... interested in the books he saw and the tale of how they were printed that he purchased some type and, bringing it home, set up a printing press in London not far from Westminster Abbey. The first English book to be printed was dated 1474 and was called 'The Game of Chess.' Then came a Bible which was presented to the king. From this time on there was practically an end to the handwritten books made by the monks in cloisters and monasteries. Occasionally such a volume was made for the very rich because, ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... to chess, and found it a little more soothing. He soon mastered the moves and the chief gambits and commoner closing positions, and began to beat the Vicar. But then the cylindrical contours of the opposite ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... engaged Wade in a fierce battle of chess, with Fuller as an interested spectator. Arcot, too, was watching, but he was ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... boys went into the kitchen again, leaving our tutors playing at chess, which Mr Clare was trying to teach Captain Mugford. That kitchen was a favourite resort of ours in the evenings, and Clump and Juno liked to have us there. There was a famous fire—three or four fresh logs singing over a red mass ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... division, making sixteen in all, each party of four dressed in garments of different colour from those worn by the others. The King and his ministers sat on the slab in the middle, and the game, which was something like chess, commenced. It must have been a glorious game: the prizes were numerous and worth playing for, and one can easily imagine the crafty old King moving his Queen so as to take the lovely slave of one of his ministers, or a handsome and ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostovs' once since the ball. Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and Natasha sat down beside a little chess table with Sonya, thereby inviting Prince Andrew to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... electors, they would have justified that. The stirring excitement of the three months' contest between the great rivals led them to pronounce upon the transaction as a whole, and to leave unnoticed what seemed for the moment to be the minor issues—the moves, if we may borrow a metaphor from the chess-table, which opened the game; and it may be observed that, though, on the 17th of December, Pitt resisted Mr. Baker's resolution with his utmost energy, in the numerous debates which ensued he carefully avoided all allusion to ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... had a governess at all like you. They were old, and cross, and ugly, and didn't love to play chess, and could not sing, and I hated them! But I do like you, and I will ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... the duel Mr. Rogers' secretary arrived with my checks and stock, and while we were verifying these, I had time to study my mental chess-board for the next move. The papers were all passed at last and then I entered into some explanation of my own intentions. I told Mr. Rogers that for the time being I would hold all my stock, but that I intended to borrow a stack of money on it from Stillman through ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... on the walls of Esens. Was it connected with Bensersiel too, or the country between? I searched the ordnance map again, standing up to get a better light and less jolting. There was the road northwards from Esens to Bensersiel, passing through dots and chess-board squares, the former meaning fen, the latter fields, so the reference said. Something else, too, immediately caught my eye, and that was a stream running to Bensersiel. I knew it at once for the muddy stream or drain we had seen at the harbour, issuing through the sluice or siel ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... my friend the 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 to a gravestone at one side, "My old servant lies there, M'sieur; we ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... 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 ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... bagatelle, tivoli, and dolls, a very merry morning might be spent. The young people then dispersed in search of their own peculiar amusements. Some of the young men went into the billiard-room, and a few chess parties were formed. Some began to act charades for the edification of such among the elders as would choose to make an audience. A still larger party adjourned to the school-room to play at houses with their dolls, and two tables were soon spread with ground plans ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... pragmatism. It ranges from systematic doctrines, reminiscent of Fichte, which seek to define practical needs and deduce knowledge from them, to the more irresponsible utterances of those who liken science to "shorthand,"[407:8] and mathematics to a game of chess. In any case pragmatism attributes to nature a certain dependence on will, and therefore implies, even when it does not avow, that will with its peculiar principles or values cannot be reduced to the terms of nature. In short, it would be ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... sport for the rich, it is the resource of those who have nothing to do; I shall be so busy with my pleasures that I shall have no time to waste. I am poor and lonely and I never play, unless it is a game of chess now and then, and that is more than enough. If I were rich I would play even less, and for very low stakes, so that I should not be disappointed myself, nor see the disappointment of others. The wealthy man has no motive for play, and ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... survival, and will soon disappear 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 certain recognised ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... Prebendary of Wells Cathedral, and corresponded a good deal with Anna Seward. Wilberforce’s description of him is worth recalling, viz., “the true picture of a sensible, well-informed and educated, polished, old, well-beneficed, nobleman’s and gentleman’s house-frequenting, literary and chess-playing divine.” ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... up and down, some, squatted Upon their hams, were occupied at chess; Others in monosyllable talk chatted, And some seemed much in love with their own dress; And divers smoked superb pipes decorated With amber mouths of greater price or less; And several strutted, others slept, and some Prepared for supper ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... 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 ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... vulgar notions of Prince Bismarck's incessant wiles, or of Louis Napoleon's base designs against his neighbors may be discarded as relatively subordinate. The incidents that marked the gigantic game of chess played (not in Europe only) from the overthrow of the Orleans dynasty to the death of Friedrich III. and the fall of Bismarck in the winter of last year were neither the outcome of individual Machiavelianism nor entirely attributable ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... most intellectual persons about the court, asked to be invited to meet the Professor the next time he should come. So he had to be invited again; and he was invited, and came, and was charming again; he could even play chess. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... 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
... understand truth,—not for any secondary artifice in handling his ideas. Some of the sharpest men in argument are notoriously unsound in judgment. I should not trust the counsel of a smart debater, any more than that of a good chess-player. Either may of course advise wisely, but not necessarily because he wrangles or ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is happiest in his delicate little pastorals and fantastic comedies, and, for all their slightness, his works bear the test of revival better than those of many of his more learned contemporaries. Philidor (1726-1797) was almost more famous as a chess-player than as a composer. He had the advantage of a sound musical education under Campra, one of the predecessors of Rameau, and his music has far more solid qualities than that of Gretry or Monsigny. His treatment ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... my club with two friends, one of them a young Dutch attache, the other a barrister of my Inn. We did ourselves pretty well, and took our cigars into the smoking-room, which was crowded. Some men in a corner were playing chess; the club bore, decent enough in peace but positively lethal in war, was demonstrating to a group of impatient listeners that the Staff work at G.H.Q. was all wrong, when, catching sight of me, he came up and said, "Hullo, old man, back from the Front? When will the war end?" I returned the ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Rome was the chosen 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 ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... 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 ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 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 each other, and pick and choose, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... not in a day, not in an hour, but in a second. M. Noirtier, who, on the previous night, was the old Jacobin, the old senator, the old Carbonaro, laughing at the guillotine, the cannon, and the dagger—M. Noirtier, playing with revolutions—M. Noirtier, for whom France was a vast chess-board, from which pawns, rooks, knights, and queens were to disappear, so that the king was checkmated—M. Noirtier, the redoubtable, was the next morning 'poor M. Noirtier,' the helpless old man, at the tender mercies ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pretty lively during the passage across the Bay of Biscay; and by this time they had thoroughly settled down and become almost as perfectly at home in the ship as though they had been born on salt water. The gentlemen chatted, smoked, walked the poop, and played chess together, romped with the children, or read aloud to the ladies whilst they reclined in their deck-chairs and pretended to work, and otherwise made themselves generally useful. This was the usual disposition of their day from about nine a.m. to about eight ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... direct hereditary way," H. L. Hollingworth[164] observes, "or as the result of unexplained mutation or deviation from type, are: mathematical aptitude, ability in drawing,[165] musical composition,[166] singing, poetic reaction, military strategy, chess playing. Pitch discrimination seems to depend on structural factors which are not susceptible of improvement by practice.[167] The same may be said of various forms of professional athletic achievement. Color blindness ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... alarming problems, beating out ideas, trying the stuff and mettle of mental capacity. Not always with real knowledge, or a real sense of fact, but always rapid and impetuous, taking in the whole dialectical chess-board at a glance, he gave no quarter, and a man found himself in a perilous corner before he perceived the drift of the game; but it was to clear his own thought, not—for he was much too good-natured—to embarrass another. If the old scholastic disputations had been ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... had just remembered the gold cloak, gold chess-board, and bright gold piece that the King had lost about a ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... boy! for morning after morning their hands would be together tying up the same vines, or clearing out the same flower bed; day after day at the doctor's orders Traverse attended Clara on her rides; night after night their blushing faces would be bent over the same sketch book, chess ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... parlor. Great was the rejoicing in London when Abdul Hamid's "down-and-out" performance carried his trusted friend William along. The glee changed to grief when, within a year—so quickly does the appearance of the chess-board change in "the great game"—Great Britain was once more on the doorstep, and fickle Germany was snuggling close to Young Turkey on the divan in the dimly lighted parlor. Virtuous old Britain professed to be shocked and horrified; he occupied himself with talking scandal about young ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... angry elements without, and save for the gentle rocking of the ship and the occasional splashing of water against its sides, we can easily imagine that we are a thousand miles from the sea. Passengers sit at the long tables, reading or chatting. Other groups are playing cards or chess. In the cushioned corners, young men and maidens are exchanging banter with words and glances. A young lady is playing the piano, and over all this scene of life, and light, and gaiety, the electric lamps gleam ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... her justice, Maud had meant to intrench herself in sullen silence. She saw the attack coming, and prepared to remain on the defensive. Aunt Agatha began quietly enough—to borrow a metaphor from the noble game of chess, she advanced a pawn. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... been to Turin, by the way? To that city which reminds one of nothing so much as a gigantic chess-board set down upon the banks of the yellow river—that city with never-ending, straight streets, all running at right angles to each other, and whose extremities frame in delicious pictures of wooded hill or snow-capped Alp; whose inhabitants recall the grace and courtesy of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... With him, man-hunting was like a game of chess; and after he had questioned the Indian for a quarter of an hour he saw his opportunity. Pastamoo, the Cree, was made a part of his Majesty's service on the spot, with the promise of torture and speedy execution if he proved ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... 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 on the morrow unless the parents could hide him so cleverly ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... bow, and held the ship from nearing the shore. At last he cried, "Cut away the cable!" A few strokes of the axes were heard, and then the cable flew out of the hawsehole in a blaze of fire, from the violence of the friction, and disappeared under a huge wave, which struck us on the chess-tree, and deluged us with water fore and aft. But we were now on the other tack, and the ship regained her way and we had evidently increased our distance from the land. "My lads," said the captain to the ship's company, "you have behaved ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... "No," said Havelock. "Chess, rather. The game where chance hasn't a show—the game of the intelligent future. That very irregular and disconcerting move of his.... And he got taken, you might say. She's an ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with another army corps, and attacking the Prussians in the rear, thus hemming in part of their army between himself and the troops of Bazaine in Metz; but he seems to have been really in the position of a pawn driven about a chess-board by an ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... men, with long, white beards, were sitting inside playing chess, as quietly as mice, with their eyes ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... 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; ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... century, who substituted imitation leaves of gilt paper for real leaves, which had previously been adopted for playing some kind of game. There are also various games played with chequers, some of great antiquity; and there is chess, that is to say, a game so little differing from our chess as to leave no doubt as to the common origin of both. In all of these the money element comes in; and it is not too much to say that more homes are broken up, and more misery caused by this truly national vice than can be attributed ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... waiting. But days and nights passed without any explanation being sent, or any secret message bidding me be patient. She used to come down to the drawing-room for an hour in the morning; in the evening she was present at dinner, and then would play piquet or chess with her father. During all this time she was so well watched that I could not exchange a glance with her. For the rest of the day she remained in her own room—inaccessible. Noticing that I was chafing at the species of captivity in which I was compelled to live, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... 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 lungs, and lies in a most critical state ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... we had all imbibed, the Earl and Uncle Tooter played chess on the great mahogany table in the center of the room; Holmes and Thorneycroft started a game of checkers, as did Lord Launcelot and myself, sitting on the leather-covered divans in the broad bay-window, ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... the room immediately, but returned the next moment, saying, "I jes looked into de parlor, darlin', an' Mass Horace he mighty busy playin' chess wid Miss Lucy's mamma, an' I didn't say nuffin' to him. Jes you go sleep, my pet, an' tell Mass Horace all ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... Chilian, who had been playing a rather prolonged game of chess with a visitor. But Bentley kept on with them, and said good-night with a polite bow, adding, "She must come again, Mr. Leverett, we had ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... I was more and more struck by the change in the O'Keefe. All flippancy was gone, rarely did his sense of humour reveal itself in any of his answers. He was like a cautious swordsman, fencing, guarding, studying his opponent; or rather, like a chess-player who keeps sensing some far-reaching purpose in the game: alert, contained, watchful. Always he stressed the power of our surface races, ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... romance—and now aimed at edification or instruction. Science in the hands of the clergy must needs be spiritualised and moralised; there were sermons to be found in stones, pious allegories in beast and bird; mystic meanings in the alphabet, in grammar, in the chase, in the tourney, in the game of chess. Ovid and Virgil were sanctified to religious uses. The earliest versified Bestiary, which is also a Volucrary, a Herbary, and a Lapidary, that of Philippe de Thaon (before 1135), is versified from the Latin Physiologus, itself a translation ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... fell, her four-and-twenty ladies would play their games of chess. Many a game had Janet ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... sat all day in the sunshine, studying the week's Paris newspapers with dim, kindly eyes, or played interminable chess games with his wife on ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... long their game of chess, But Jehan's eyes rose oft to Mahal's brow, His ardent love he could not well repress, Nor tried—she was his own ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... another in quick succession. Bismarck was beginning to move the pawns on the chess-board of Europe. He had conciliated Russia by taking sides with her against the Poles in spite of the attitude of London, Paris, and Vienna. He feared the spirit of insurrection would spread to the Poles in Prussia, and had no sympathy with the aspirations ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... Marney, followed somewhat reluctantly by his brother, advanced to the other end of the drawing-room, where his wife was employed with her embroidery-frame, and seated next to her young friend, Miss Poinsett, who was playing chess with Captain Grouse, a member of the chess club, and one of ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Juliana's, as day after day rolled heavily on, and found her still an inmate of Glenfern Castle. Destitute of very resource in herself, she yet turned with contempt from the scanty sources of occupation or amusement that were suggested by others; and Mrs. Douglas's attempts to teach her to play at chess and read Shakespeare were as unsuccessful as the endeavours of the good aunts to persuade her to study Fordyce's ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... from that wheel! And get outen this pilot-house!" yelled Brown. "You ain't fitten to become no pilot!" An order that Sam found welcome enough. The other pilot, George Ealer, was a lovable soul who played the flute and chess during his off watch, and read aloud to Sam from "Goldsmith" and "Shakespeare." To be with George Ealer was to forget the persecutions ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... nervous 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 of number or position ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... 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 clearest proofs ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... by had been cut into square patches like a chess-board, (a square of turf of about eighteen inches being removed, and a hollow made,) and all were filled with ducks. A windmill was infested, and so were all the out-houses, mounds, rocks, and crevices. The ducks were everywhere. Many of them were so ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... from the rudest materials, and many were the games with which some of our comrades sought to beguile the weary hours. Capt. Frank H. Mason of the 12th Cavalry had the reputation of being our best chess player and young Adjutant Putnam was ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... a great game of chess. Doubtless the politicians believed they were moved from their own true and noble motives. The fact was that the pickets had moved the Democrats a step. The Republicans ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... when cleared of its gambling details, as good a domestic game for three players as cribbage or piquet is for two. My "Court Gamester," which was in its fifth edition in 1728, after devoting its best energies to ombre, contented its readers in fewer pages with the addition only of piquet and chess. ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... been written regarding the remarkable feats of Zuckertort and Blackburn who can play as many as sixteen to twenty games of chess at once, and blindfolded. Of course the only way they can do this is by having in the mind a clear picture of each chess-board, with all the figures arranged ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... Doctor Keene's making himself specially entertaining in an old-family-history way, with a view to keeping his patient within doors for a safe period. He had conceived a great liking for Frowenfeld, and often, of an afternoon, would drift in to challenge him to a game of chess—a game, by the way, for which neither of them cared a farthing. The immigrant had learned its moves to gratify his father, and the doctor—the truth is, the doctor had never quite learned them; but he was one of those ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... note has just been given me calling me to Earl, who is ill, but not seriously. Barbara has prescribed for him a game of chess. The desire to see you again has got into my blood. I think I shall be in the new West ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... part, I prefer the daylight and the glass, without any daubing. What does science discover in the universe? Precision, accuracy, reliability—any amount of it; but as to pity, mercy, love! The fact is, that famous simile of the angel playing at chess was a mistake. Very smart, I grant you, but altogether misleading. Why! the orthodox quote it as much as the others—always a bad sign. It tickles these anthropomorphic fancies, which are at the bottom of all their creeds. Imagine ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... 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 ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... to start playing Life another way. It would be like chess, where you can see the opponent's every move. But in all human history there has never been a social analogue for chess. That's why Paul Wendell and his group had to be stopped—for a while ...
— Suite Mentale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... say: We could have done no worse than these chess players of Europe and we might have done better. Assuredly if we grasp and hold the reins of the world there will never be another war. We are not, in the first place, as greedy as men; we will divide the world ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Behind the house stretched the garden; and in its midst, mounted on a stone arch, stood a dismal sun-dial with hearts and spades painted between its figures; while the trees around it were trimmed into the shapes of confessionals and chess-pawns. To the right, a labyrinth of young trees, similarly clipped in the fashion of the time, led by a thousand devious turns to a mysterious valley, where one heard continually a low, sad murmur. This proceeded from a nymph ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... converse with a soldier, who had been in the battle of Marengo. He gave me a very lively account of the conduct of that extraordinary man, the French Emperor, in this grand event of his life. His expression was, that he looked over the battle as if looking upon a chess-board: that he made it a rule never to engage personally, till he saw the whole plan of the battle in execution; that he would then ride alternately to each division, and encourage them by fighting awhile with them: that he visited all the sick and wounded soldiers the day after the ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... singing songs of triumph as they came, "which, in our ears," says one of the Conquerors, "sounded like the songs of hell"! *10 Then followed other bodies of different ranks, and dressed in different liveries. Some wore a showy stuff, checkered white and red, like the squares of a chess-board. *11 Others were clad in pure white, bearing hammers or maces of silver or copper; *12 and the guards, together with those in immediate attendance on the prince, were distinguished by a rich azure livery, and a profusion of gay ornaments, while the large pendants attached ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott |
