Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/6

Rh so congenial to my soul. It was delightful to have something to do. I sometimes passed hours in studying a move, while my antagonist sat with the patience of a hundred Jobs waiting for my decision, and cogitating his own. In process of time Ĭ had a perfect chess board delineated on my sensorium, and completely lost the tedium of too much leisure in playing games as I walked the streets, or sat smoking a cigar in my easy chair. Nay, I sometimes played games in my sleep, which, if I could only remember them, would shame a Philidor. While I considered myself a mere scholar, I suffered myself to be beaten with perfect docility ; but in process of time, as I began to fancy myself a proficient, and my whole soul was absorbed in the game, I did not bear à beating with so much philosophy. I began to be testy, and to revive my old doctrine of chances, insisting upon it, that chance governed this as well as every other game. My master bore all this good humouredly, and even when I grew at length so irritable, as not to bear a defeat, he would slily get up, open the door, and retire on the outside, before he cried check-mate, for fear I should throw the chess board at his head. It is inconceivable what trifles will overcome a man who has no serious business in this world. It happened one hot summer day, we got warmly engaged at a game, and had locked ourselves up, that we might remain undisturbed. It lasted eight mortal hours, at the end of which my antagonist treacherously drew me into a stale mate, when I actually had the game in my power. Unfortunately his retreat was cut off by the door being locked ; the consequence was, that I discharged the chess board, men, castles, elephants and all, at his head, with so unlucky an aim, that it checkmated him flat on the floor. The result of this great move was a duel, which I honestly confess was one of the pleasantest events of my life. I had something to do and something to fear, and the excitement roused me into something akin to actual enjoyment. We exchanged shots without effect, I apologized, and so the affair ended. I invited him to renew our game, but he shook his head, and good-humouredly observed, that much as he loved chess, he feared broken heads and bullets more. The story took wind, nobody would venture to play chess with me after this, and thus I lost my main chance for killing time.

"Too much care will turn a young man grey," as the old song says, and too little is as bad as too much. For want of something else to think about, I began to think wholly of myself. I grew to be exceedingly tenacious of my health, my accommodations, my raiment, and my food. I ate much,