Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/51

Rh 4th. Every candidate for admission as a member shall produce six certificates. Three that he is sane and three others that he is insane.

It has often occurred to me to inquire of my legal friends whether, if the sanity of any member of the club had been questioned in after-life, he would have adduced the fact of membership of the Club of Extractors as an indication of sanity or of insanity.

During the first part of my residence at Cambridge, I played at chess very frequently, often with D'Arblay and with several other good players. There was at that period a fellow-commoner at Trinity named Brande, who devoted almost his whole time to the study of chess. I was invited to meet him one evening at the rooms of a common friend for the purpose of trying our strength.

On arriving at my friend's rooms, I found a note informing me that he had gone to Newmarket, and had left coffee and the chessmen for us. I was myself tormented by great shyness, and my yet unseen adversary was, I understood, equally diffident. I was sitting before the chess-board when Brande entered. I rose, he advanced, sat down, and took a white and a black pawn from the board, which he held, one in either hand. I pointed with my finger to the left hand and won the move.

The game then commenced; it was rather a long one, and I won it: but not a word was exchanged until the end: when Brande uttered the first word. "Another?" To this I nodded assent.

How that game was decided I do not now remember; but the first sentence pronounced by either of us, was a remark by Brande, that he had lost the first game by a certain move of his white bishop. To this I replied, that I thought he was D 2