Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess

by David Lawson

  Morphy’s plan was excellent as far as it went, but publishers asked that he enrich the collection (mentioned by Reichhelm in Chess in Philadelphia) with new games. This Morphy would not do. He refused to enter tournaments, play matches or casual games in public, even though it meant abandonment of the project. He refused to reenter the chess arena. No longer would he be a chess player as far as the public was concerned. On his first return from Europe, undoubtedly he and his mother had agreed that now chess would be put aside, except for leisure hours. He had accomplished his purpose with chess, to test his strength against the world, and now was ready for his profession. Chess was no career for a gentleman at that time in history. Yet the question remains, could he have turned the intuitive insight he had used in chess as successfully in other directions?

  Not much of the work on that Morphy game book remains. A few diagrams that Gilberg had prepared for the first games (usually more than one diagram for Games I, II, III, etc.) are all that is left.

  Morphy left New York in mid-October and arrived in New Orleans about the first week of November. He continued to show some interest in the game, and the chess players of the city reorganized the chess club, electing Paul Morphy its president and Charles A. Maurian secretary. Inauguration of the officers took place on November 14, 1865. The New Orleans Star was the first to publish three of Morphy’s games—two with Maurian and the third a blindfold game. Two of these games are unknown to the chess world. The blindfold game adds a new name to the list of Morphy’s opponents, Paul Capdevielle, and reveals that soon after Morphy’s arrival in New Orleans, in May, he had taken on four players blindfolded simultaneously. About this same time Whitelaw Reid toured the South, and he gives us a glimpse of a gentleman’s evening in the New Orleans of that time in After the War: A Southern Tour. He describes in this book an evening at the home of Christian Roselius, Professor of Civil Law and Dean of the Faculty at the University of Louisiana, who conferred the degree of L.L.B. on Paul Morphy in 1857:

  One noticed here, as at most of the formal dinner parties given during our stay, and at my subsequent visits to the city, the absence of all ladies save those of the host’s household. Indeed, except in peculiar cases like this, the prevailing idea of a dinner in New Orleans seems to have for its leading feature copious libations of a great many kinds of the choicest wines—to be licensed by the earliest possible retiracy of the hostess.

  Among Mr. Roselius’s guests that evening was a modest-looking little gentleman, of retiring manners, and with apparently very little to say, though the keen eyes and well-shaped head sufficiently showed the silence to be no mask for poverty of intellect. It was Mr. Paul Morphy, the foremost chess-player of the world, now a lawyer, but, alas! by no means the foremost young lawyer of this his native city. “If he were only as good in his profession as he is at chess-playing!” said one of the legal gentlemen, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he spoke in an undertone of the abilities of the elder Morphy, and the hopes that had long been cherished of the son. They evidently looked upon the young chess-player as a prosperous banker does upon his only boy, who persists in neglecting his desk in the bank parlor and becoming a vagabond artist.

  Whatever activity Morphy engaged in other than chess during the years 1865 through 1866, we know not. Nothing is known of his legal work for clients, if he engaged in any. But we do know of private games Morphy played with Maurian in both years, as the latter disclosed in his notebooks. It would appear that time passed for Morphy without other outside interests, except the opera, of which he was a confirmed lover, and his mother grew concerned about his monotonous and melancholy life. Maurian says that Morphy’s mother, knowing what Paris meant to him, decided that a sojourn there might be good for all of them, and by July 1867, Paul, Helena, and herself were en route for Paris.

  CHAPTER 23

  Paris, Frustration, and Obsessions

  In the Paris of July 1867, a Grand International Chess Congress was in progress. There had been rumors even before Morphy left for France that he might enter. In March, the Paris correspondent of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican had reported, “Paul Morphy, whom the French journals speak of as ‘the handsome young man who plays blindfold,’ is to represent America. Morphy is spoken of with genuine admiration by all good Chess-players, and it is evidently feared that he will carry off the laurels.”

  However, Morphy had had no thought of competing, or of playing chess with anyone. In fact, although he was in Paris during the tournament, in which his friends Rivière, Eugène Rousseau, and others he knew were participating, he never once visited the tournament hall nor is he known to have played Rivière or anyone else during this, his last and longest stay in Paris.

  He occasionally visited Rivière, but not to play chess. Some insight into Morphy’s life in Paris at this time is given by Sheriff W. C. Spens in the Glasgow Weekly Herald of July, 1884:

  Morphy returned to Paris, where he had a married sister living. Events had proved disastrous to his parents [the Civil War], and also blighted his own prospects, which had such a depressing influence on his over-wrought mind, that it perfectly paralysed his energies. He lost his taste for chess entirely, and Neumann told us in 1867 that he never could prevail upon Morphy to play a game. They frequently met at De Riviere’s house, and Morphy would occasionally condescend to look on at some variations, when the Paris Congress book was being prepared for press. We recollect his coming once as far as the door of the Régence to make some inquiries, but he would not enter, in spite of M.Lequesne’s entreaties.

  But in America in 1867, there was one voice not in harmony with others there and abroad, who held Morphy in slight esteem. This was the “literary” chess editor—so called by a contemporary editor—of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. The Bulletin’s chess column had started in 1858, edited by Francis Wells and Dr. Samuel Lewis. Dr. Lewis, it appears, left the Bulletin, and Gustavus C. Reichhelm took his place in 1861. Colonel Forney of Forney’s War Press said in the August 24, 1864 issue, that “it is Mr. Reichhelm upon whom the labor of preparing the chess column of the Bulletin almost entirely falls, while the credit of it is usurped by another.” Apparently Reichhelm, the Morphy-game collector mentioned in Chapter 22, who stayed in the background during the first years of the Bulletin’s chess column, was not the “literary” editor referred to by “Contemporary” as “decidedly against Morphy,” the one who had chosen to believe in Deacon rather than Morphy.

  This “literary voice” of the Bulletin said of Morphy and his presence in Paris, “We understand that Mr. Paul Morphy is now in Paris, but that he refuses to play with any of the eminent players there, unless at odds. We can hardly credit this, silly as Mr. Morphy has shown himself to be on many occasions.” At other times the literary chess editor used the Bulletin columns for snide remarks, and it is very likely that Morphy became aware of them, and that they accumulated against him and had their effect on his sensitive nature.

  About Morphy’s fifteen months in Paris, almost nothing is known. However, from one of his letters it is known that he accepted an invitation to a costume ball for the twenty-seventh of March 1868, given by Colonel and Madame Norton, which probably indicates the kind of life he was leading.

  About a month before this, Wilkes’ Spirit of the Times reported:

  It gives us much pleasure to announce that the Champion of the World, Mr. Paul Morphy, has emerged from his retirement. Rumor says that he has played four games with Mr. Steinitz, losing one and drawing three. It is impossible that he will remain satisfied with that result with a player who was beaten by Mr. Kolisch at the Paris Tournament; therefore we confidently expect to see him contest a series of games either with Mr. Steinitz, or some other chess champion of equal strength, without fear that the laurels which he earned will be wrested from him.

  Unfortunately for the chess world, they had not met, nor did they until 1883 during Steinitz’s visit to New Orleans. About this time, 1863, Steinitz had several games with a Mr. Murphy of Lo
ndon, and evidently someone, finding Steinitz’s opponent rather vaguely described, thought it was Morphy. This mistake was made even though Steinitz was conceding odds of Pawn and move to his opponent, which should have canceled the possibility that the opponent was Morphy. Some of these games were published in 1863 in the Chess Players Magazine.

  In September 1868, Morphy was in New York on his way back to New Orleans. He put up at the New York Hotel for a few days but did not visit the New York Chess Club, a fact upon which the newspapers of the city commented.

  Years later it was revealed that during the following year, he and Maurian met frequently for a game of chess. In fact, Maurian said they played, in particular, four series of games, all at Knight odds, the result being:

  It was Reichhelm who succeeded in getting these results and many of the game scores from James Wibray of New Orleans, who evidently had gotten them from Maurian. The results indicate Maurian’s growing strength. After the conclusion of the Fourth Series in December 1869, Morphy told Maurian that he was now too strong to receive the odds of Knight and that hereafter he would allow him the odds of Pawn and two moves only.

  The Second American Chess Congress, now ten years later than originally planned, was set for December 1871 at Cleveland. The divisiveness of the Civil War affected entries and prize money, but the Prospectus was able to offer one hundred dollars for First Prize. It had been hoped that Morphy would attend, but he declined the invitation.

  From meager reports, Morphy was now living quietly in New Orleans. In March of 1873 the Dubuque Chess Journal reported, “Mr. Paul Morphy has just entered the great banking house of Seligman, Hellman & Co. of New Orleans, but in what capacity we have not learned.”

  In this same month and year, on March 15, a letter from Charles J.Woodbury to the Hartford Times disclosed that Morphy still played chess, but only on special occasions and in privacy, although this time it was a “numerous” privacy, so to speak. Woodbury’s interview letter is for the most part taken up with the story of and comments on Morphy’s life. Morphy greeted him in French and Woodbury replied in the same, and, knowing something of the family circumstances, may have mentioned that chess could do a lot for him. As Woodbury reveals, if there was one thing that enraged Morphy, it was constant talk of chess with strangers and the suggestion that he use his skills at the game for profit:

  A flight of stairs leads up to the dwelling-rooms. I had never seen Paul Morphy, but I knew the moment he stood quietly before me, simply dressed, slight, smooth and melancholy-faced, with a head and brow overhanging with their own weight. So full of dignity, so empty of self-consciousness, was his presence, that I was almost prepared by it for the quick answer he made me that he was but an amateur, and was averse to notoriety. But the passion of the Creole eyes overspoke the tutored voice at a remark I made about the contrast between what he said and what he had done. My imperfect French added to the embarrassment of the moment, and his thin self-control gave way to one of those sudden paroxysms of passion to which I have since learned he is constantly subject. Happily, the coming of his mother soon divested him of the strange suspicion that I thought him to be a professional gambler; and, afterwards, through Mons. C. A. Maurian, an intimate friend and the best public player today in New Orleans, all of these misunderstandings were removed. . . .

  Once in a while, the solitary athlete can be induced to show that his power is only in abeyance. I saw him at a private séance, just before I left, beat simultaneously, in 1 3/4 hours, sixteen of the most accomplished amateurs in New Orleans. His strength had never been fully tested, and will probably never be fully developed.

  Paul Morphy is poor. Unlike a Yankee, he finds it impossible to live on his talent. Opportunities there are in abundance,—rich offers for public exhibitions of himself as delicate as those grasped at by men who would pretend to more honor. He stead-fastly refuses them. He was morbidly sensitive to misjudgment, lest he be taken for one who “travels on his muscle,” and, on all his journeys, defrayed his own expenses, and always played in the presence only of select companies, to which no money could gain access. There seems to me to be a certain attraction in this fine delicacy, which one would encounter not elsewhere among us than in the half-foreign society of New Orleans, amid which Mr. Morphy was reared. It is dearer to him than wealth or reknown, or the strange gift by which he must get his daily bread or go without it. Some there are who do not live by bread alone.

  About this same time (ca. 1872) Morphy made another attempt to enter the legal profession by joining in partnership with E. T. Fellowes, who was already well established. Cards were prepared and the office advertised as “Fellowes & Morphy, Attorneys and Counsellors at Law.”

  It is not known whether friendship entered into the reasons for their partnership, or whether Fellowes thought that the Morphy name would bring clients. In either case, failure for Morphy seemed inevitable. He could not escape his chess reputation, especially in New Orleans. If anyone came to the law office because of him, the subject of chess was certain to be introduced. And if there was one thing Morphy did not want to talk about, it was chess. Furthermore, at the office he was a “sitting duck” for anyone who might want to see or talk to him, whether they had business with him or not, and there were many not easily deterred who thought they flattered him by mentioning his great days of the past. Even if Morphy desired daily work at this time, about which there seems some question, chess was forcing itself between him and his profession. Chess hounded him, and his growing morbidity, extreme sensitivity, and increasing suspiciousness of those around him culminated in an imbalance that deprived him of practically all company except that of his immediate family. Undoubtedly there were scenes at the office, such as occurred during Woodbury’s visit. Morphy’s partnership with Fellowes lasted for some time into 1874, but his active share in it, if any, is unknown. It might have happened before, but at this point in his life, in the wake of all that had happened, one finds it difficult to visualize Morphy hard at work on any case.

  Gradually, as these experiences continued and piled up, frustrated and thwarted at every turn, unable to overcome the odds against him and now lacking a meaningful interest in life, his mind turned inward, begetting its own poison. He began to think of evil intentions where there were none.

  About this time Morphy began to show some evidence of the effects of his years of frustration, of lasting bitterness from some experiences, and of a very solitary existence. All this welled up in him and darkened his days, and now, confined to the bursting point, began to show in little irrationalities. He had an obsession about professionalism in chess which in any case was not for him. For him it was the same as gambling and such suggestions infuriated him. His irrationalities increased, and for a while he would eat nothing unless prepared by or under the watchful eyes of his sister Helena or his mother.

  His present circumstances suggested to him that his brother-in-law Sybrandt, the administrator of his father’s estate, had defrauded him or mismanaged the estate, and so Morphy started an absurd lawsuit against him which came to nothing—he had probably spent most of his available patrimony before his second trip to Europe, one reason why he had taken a large loan on his watch while there.

  It appears that before Woodbury’s visit, and indeed into 1875, Morphy lived a quiet and uneventful life. He had given up the law office he had established in 1864 after two or three months and also his partnership with Fellowes; otherwise his daily activities consisted of a promenade on Canal Street, a visit to the lobby of the St. Louis Hotel to read his newspaper, attending Mass at the St. Louis Cathedral, and an occasional game of chess, as had been witnessed by Woodbury. And he may have been otherwise engaged. He had been invited to participate in the 1874 Chicago Chess Congress, but had declined, and he defended himself against unwanted chess by pleading that he had matters of importance requiring his attention. He had done this in New York in 1865, professing to be there on legal matters, merely using his leisure time on his contemplated book.r />
  It was in 1875 that Maurian first began to notice some strange talk by Morphy, as mentioned in his letter below. Soon after, Morphy’s imbalance reached a climax when he suspected a barber of being in collusion with one of his friends, Mr. Binder, whom he attacked, actually trying to provoke a duel (Maurian said he was a good swordsman), believing the friend had wronged him. This raised the question of mental competence. As a consequence of the attack, thinking it might be the prelude to further violence against himself or others, his family considered putting him in an institution for care and treatment, the “Louisiana Retreat,” run by an order of the Catholic Church. So one day all the family took a ride, and he was brought in. Upon realizing the situation, Morphy so expounded the law applying to his case that the nuns refused to accept him, and his mother and the others realized he needed no such constraint.

  It was this attack upon Mr. Binder that brought public attention to his condition and North, South and all of Europe took it up, of course exaggerating the whole incident. There were inquiries about Morphy’s condition and Maurian answered some of them. It was frequently questioned whether the condition might not have resulted from Morphy’s extraordinary (as it was thought) mental strain induced by his chess playing.

  Maurian felt obliged to answer inquiries from Captain George H.Mackenzie, the American chess champion, and Jean Prèti of Paris (see Appendix), among others. The following letter from Maurian, published in the Watertown, New York, Re-Union of December 1875, is quite informative: