Don't you think that we should all consider it to
be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces?
Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to
scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the State which allowed its
members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? Yet it is a very
plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness
of every one of us, and more or less of those who are connected with us,
do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely
more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been
played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two
players in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the
pieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what
we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from
us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we
know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest
allowance for ignorance.
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