Although W.E. Napier (1881-1952) was a
highly quotable writer, he produced only one chess work, Napier’s
Amenities and Background of Chess-Play (published in three
‘units’, the first two in 1934 and the third the following year).
After his death they were adapted into a single volume entitled Paul
Morphy and The Golden Age of Chess (New York, 1957 and 1971).
In the quotations below (some of which
have entered chess lore) the figures refer to the item numbers in the
Amenities work, the pages of which were unnumbered:
3. ‘In the laboratory, the gambits
all test unfavourably, but the old rule wears well, that all gambits
are sound over the board.’
18. ‘Once I asked Pillsbury whether
he used any formula for castling. He said his rule was absolute and
vital: castle because you will or because you must; but not because
you can.’
22. ‘John McCutcheon, of Pittsburgh
and undying fame for his research in the French Defense, often said
about opening moves, “Not new, but old enough to be new.”’
28. [On Bird] ‘He earned the rebuke of
playing impulsively in tournaments. It was disrespect and scandalous,
some thought; but if there is genius in chess, Bird of all players
had it, I think, in greatest abundance.’
32. [On Mason] ‘As player, he had the
unique quality of competently simmering thru six aching hours and
scintillating in the seventh. Others resembled him but forgot to
scintillate.’
52. ‘Once in chatting with Janowsky
at Lake Hopatcong, he referred to Maróczy as the gentle
iron-man of Hungary, which was accurate as to both specifications.’
67. ‘Some of Marshall’s most
sparkling moves look at first like typographical errors.’
72. ‘I knew Dr Tarrasch pleasantly at
Monte Carlo, 1902. One day the fates had gone against me,
malevolently, I felt, in a game against a man I had counted on
beating. I got, by way of spur, this vitamin from the Doctor: “In
these tournaments it is never enough to be a connoisseur of chess;
one must also play well.”’
75. ‘The super-men of chess come by
that distinction through two rare capacities, an inscrutable vision
in end play and a bland sense of well-being in what, to lesser men,
look like predicaments.’
78. ‘No chess book, I think, can be
complete without a page of homage to Master Bird. If I had only one
page to rejoice in, it should own up to a kindly veneration for all
his adventures and misadventures, his farce and comedy and drama of
the chess board. The roots of his chess were deep sunk in the
tradition of Labourdonnais and McDonnell; he played Morphy; and half
a lifetime afterwards we see him at Hastings, playing a thorough-bred
game which Pillsbury declared was too beautiful to annotate. A long
stretch, that – and brim-full of enthusiasm. He adored chess, – the
play itself, I mean, which is not common among masters.
I saw him once at Simpson’s Divan but
not to speak to. I brought away an impression of fulminating chess,
of hearty laughter and liberty and beefsteak. He romped.
Once I asked Teichmann what he thought
of Bird’s chess; “Same as his health”, he replied, – “always
alternating between being dangerously ill and dangerously well.”
England will not know his like again.’
85. [On the game Sim v Morrison,
Toronto, 1918.] ‘This is a Canadian game of exceptional worth in my
collection, as resembling, as few games do, a sustained, Charousek
attack. That slow-burning type of invasion, not essentially dependent
on preserving the queen, implies a grasp of endings and a willingness
to play them. As Pillsbury once said, “So set up your attacks that
when the fire is out, it isn’t out”.’
93. ‘Pillsbury was present [at
Thousand Islands, 1897] on other business, and I remember his taking
me for a row on the river, in the morning, before play started. He
lectured a bit on Steinitz’ opening vagaries; when we separated, he
said – revealing perhaps a glimpse of his ruling philosophy, “Be
steady, but not to the point of morbid restraint.”’
96. ‘Louis Paulsen. It was surely a
frolic of fate that translated an enviable potato planter of sedate
Dubuque, Iowa, to that evergreen, mellow fame he achieved in chess.
Paulsen was the landscape of that pioneer period from Morphy to the
early nineties, not given to gay, aggressive outbursts, but a quiet
pastoral ideal of sufficiency.’
115. [On the game
Důras v Teichmann, Ostend, 1906]: ‘Důras needs no better
monument to his genius than this lofty and exciting struggle with an
eminent opponent. In my catalogue of genuinely great contests it
rises up close to the top. It is chess all the way, but from move 43
it goes in a dignity unsurpassed.’
128. ‘A genial disposition shines in
all Tartakower’s chess. It is infectious fun. And when he loses a
game, he writes sincere eulogies, fit for an epitaph, of the victor.
He is very unusual.’
166. ‘It has been my observation all
through the years that the master player nearly always makes lively
games at correspondence, even tho his play vis-à-vis is
governed by more conservative models.
The paradox is baffling.
The only theory I have adduced is that
the social nature of mail exchanges quite subordinates mere winning
to joyful, yawing chess.
In match games over the board, the
killing instinct necessary to success is the same that men take into
Bengal jungles, – for a day. A killing instinct which survives the
day and endures month in and month out, is stark pantomime; and mail
chess is the gainer by it.’
180. ‘Among tournament masters,
Marshall has had few superiors, and, as to style, has clearly been in
a class of his own, without forerunner or disciple. He is a whole
school.’
191. ‘I have met no critic who could
not detect, in Torre, a potential world’s champion.’
196. [On Nimzowitsch’s win over Yates
at Carlsbad, 1923]: ‘It is witch chess, heathen and beautiful.’
225. ‘Once while walking over
Waterloo Bridge, in London, with stout-hearted Teichmann, we
conversed of the ingredients that associate to make a chessplayer. I
ventured a remark that, if he would name one indispensable
ingredient, I would name an able player wholly destitute of it. And
Richard very tolerantly said, “Have you given any thought to
‘vanity’?”’
230. [Of Lasker’s play beginning
17…Rxc3 against Pillsbury at St Petersburg, 1895-96]: ‘Pillsbury
told me that the exquisite combination here initiated was the only
startling and utterly diabolical surprise he suffered in all his
career abroad.’
237. ‘Spielmann plays always like an
educated cave-man, who fell asleep several thousand years ago, – and
woke up quite lately in the Black Forest.’
243. ‘The greatest difficulty of the
game is to play it as well as one knows how.’
253. ‘F.M. Teed, of Brooklyn, was one
of America’s most powerful master players. Business kept him out of
match play; and he describes well as a master “without portfolio”.’
253. [On Winawer v Englisch, London,
1883. Napier had given the game as item six of unit one, where he
stated that ‘it was a revelation when first I studied its
deliberate beauty while a boy enthusiast; and it never seems to
stale.’]: ‘The most important single game ever played, I think.’
262. ‘It is astonishing how much hot
water a master can wade into within the first dozen moves, despite a
century of opening exploration.’
264. ‘I never see a King’s Bishop
Opening without thinking of the first of several lessons I took, when
a youngster, from Steinitz. He said, “No doubt you move your knight
out on each side before the bishop? And do you know why?” I was
stuck for an intelligent answer. He went on to say, “One good
reason is that you know where the knight belongs before you know that
much of your bishop; certainty is a far better friend than doubt.”’
268. ‘It has always been my doctrine
that chess is easier to play with many pieces than few; that ending
play more strains the mind than a middle-game involvement. Of many
options, one may be fit. Resource is likely to be present in a
tangled, critical situation.’
297. ‘Zugzwang is a very
useful term. I sometimes think it is best defined by the story of the
negro who drew a razor across the enemy throat:
Said the enemy, “I’m not cut.”
And the knight of the razor replied,
“Just wait till you turn yo’ head, before guessing at it.”’
