myriad-move problem, of which Society is the Sphinx, given us to solve.

He who masters chess without being mastered by it will find that it
discovers essential principles. In the world he will see a larger
chess-field, and one also shaped by the severest mathematics: the world is
so because the brain of man is so,--motive and move, motive and move: they
sum up life, all life,--from the aspen-leaf turning its back to the wind,
to the ecstasy of a saint. See the array of pawns (_forces_, as the Hindoo
calls them): the bodily presence and abilities, power of persistence,
endurance, nerve, the eye, the larynx, the tongue, the senses. Do they not
exist in life as on the board, to cut the way for royal or nobler pieces?
Does not the Imperial Mind win its experiences, its insight, through the
wear and tear of its physical twin? Is not the perfect soul "perfect
through sufferings" for evermore? For every coin reason gets from Nature,
the heart must leave a red drop impawned, the face must bear its scar. See,
then, the powers of the human arena: here Castle, Knight, Bishop are
Passion, Love, Hope; and above all, the sacred Queen of each man, his
specialty, his strength, by which he must win the day, if he win at
all. Here is the Idea with reference to which each man is planned; it
preexisted in the universe, and was born when he was born; it is King on
the board,--that lost, life's game is lost. By his side stands the special
Strength into whose keeping it is given, making, in Goethe's words, "every
man strong enough to enforce his conviction,"--his _conviction_, mark!
Pawns and pieces form themselves about that Queen; they are all to perish,
to perish one by one,--even the specialty,--that the King may triumph. Over
our largest, sublimest individualities the eternal tide flows on, and the
grandest personal strides are merged in the general success. The old author
dreamed that the heroes of the Trojan War were changed by Zeus into the
warriors of the mimic strife in order that such renowned exploits should be
perpetuated among men forever: rather must we reverse the dream, and