It is the darling habit of such folk to treat the great things in Chess with levity and to dignify those insignificant matters which appertain to the game when used as a plaything.
Such people are merely enthusiastic; usually they are equally frivolous. They do everything from fancy, nothing from design. Their zeal is strong, but they can neither regulate nor control it.
Such bear about their Chessic disabilities in their character. Inflated in good fortune, groveling in adversity, these players never attain to that sage contemplation, which renders the scientific practice of Chess so indescribably beautiful.
There is another class of Chess-players who from mere levity of mind are incapable of steadily pursuing any fixed plan; but who overturn, move by move, even such advantages as their good fortune may have procured. There are others, who, although possessed of great vivacity of mind and eager for information, yet lack that patience necessary to receive instruction.
Lastly, there are not a few whose way of thinking and the validity of whose calculations, depend upon their good or ill digestion.
It is in vain that such people endeavor to divine things beyond their understanding. Hence it is, that among those incapable of thought, or too indolent for mental effort, the game proceeds in easy fashion until routine is over. Afterward, at each move, the most probable conjecture passes for the best reason and victory ultimately rests with him whose blunders are least immediately consequential.
Understanding of high art is dispensed only to the few; the great mass neither can comprehend nor enjoy it. In spite of the good natured Helvetius, all are not wise who wish to be so and men ever will remain what Nature made them. It is impossible for the stream to rise higher than its source.
“The progress of human reason,” writes the great Frederic, “is more slow than is imagined; the true cause of which is that most men are satisfied with vague notions of things and but few take time for examination and deep inquiry.
“Some, fettered by prejudice from their infancy, wish not, or are unable to break their chains; others, delighting in frivolity know not a word of mathematics and enjoy life without allowing their pleasures to be interrupted by a moment of reflection. Should one thinking man in a thousand be discovered it will be much; and it is for him that men of talent write.