[Alexander] played at chess," says Montaigne, "what string of his soul was
not touched by this idle and childish game? I hate and avoid it because it
is not play enough,--that it is too grave and serious a diversion; and I am
ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon that as would serve to
much better uses." Looked at simply as a diversion, chess might naturally
impress a man of intellectual earnestness thus. It is not a diversion; a
recreation it may be called, but only as any variation from "the shop" is
recreative. But chess has, by the experiences of many, sufficiently proved
itself to have serious uses to men of thought, and in the way of an
intellectual gymnasium. It is to the limbs and sinews of the
mind--prudence, foresight, memory, combination, analysis--just what a
gymnasium is to the body. In it every muscle, every joint of the
understanding is put under drill; and we know, that, where the mind does
not have exercise for its body, but relics simply on idle cessation for its
reinforcement, it will get too much lymph. Work is worship; but work
without rest is idolatry. And rest is not, as some seem to think, a swoon,
a slumber; it is an active receptivity, a masterly inactivity, which alone
can deserve the fine name of Rest. Such, we believe, our favorite game
secures better than all others. Besides this direct use, one who loves it
finds many other incidental uses starting up about it,--such as made
Archbishop Magnus, the learned historian of Sweden, say, "Anger, love,
peevishness, covetousness, dulness, idleness, and many other passions and
motions of the minds of men may be discovered by it."--But we promised not
to vindicate chess, and shall leave this portion of our topic with the fine
verse of the Oriental bard, Ibn ul Mutazz:--

"O thou whose cynic sneers express
The censure of our favorite chess,
Know that its skill is Science' self,
Its play distraction from distress.