"While men on Wall-street surged to and fro under impulses they no more understood and could no more govern than the iron waves in the howling storm : while men in Broadway and other streets adjacent --the masters suddenly arrested in their golden dreams of enormous profit , and the workmen sadly folding up their implements of labor; and while the poor, frantic with an unknown dread , rushed to the Savings Banks, or gathered in bread mobs in the distant parks--in the midst of this social hurricane , there was one house in Broadway, in which men daily gathered , and matters went on
"'Calm as a summer's sea ,'
"The very center of the vortex , yet calm as a moonlit pool, so deeply embayed in mountains that no breath of air could reach it--a land-locked haven , in which whoever entered, however storm-driven or care-crushed, became calm and still, and hung up his votive offerings to the 'genius loci,' which was neither music nor dancing, nor dice, nor wine, nor opium, nor lotus, nor hasheesh, but simply CHESS! The 'immortal game' painted as played on the inside of the tomb of Nevotp, the Egyptian. 3000 years B.C.; but who can paint it as played at the Donadi's rooms in Broadway , in the year of grace 1857?"
P.283-284, "Chess," THE WORKS OF JAMES McCUNE SMITH: BLACK INTELLECTUAL AND ABOLITIONIST edited by John Stauffer (Oxford: 2006)
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
"CHESS" by James McCune Smith
"While men on Wall-street surged to and fro under impulses they no more understood and could no more govern than the iron waves in the howling storm : while men in Broadway and other streets adjacent --the masters suddenly arrested in their golden dreams of enormous profit , and the workmen sadly folding up their implements of labor; and while the poor, frantic with an unknown dread , rushed to the Savings Banks, or gathered in bread mobs in the distant parks--in the midst of this social hurricane , there was one house in Broadway, in which men daily gathered , and matters went on
"'Calm as a summer's sea ,'
"The very center of the vortex , yet calm as a moonlit pool, so deeply embayed in mountains that no breath of air could reach it--a land-locked haven , in which whoever entered, however storm-driven or care-crushed, became calm and still, and hung up his votive offerings to the 'genius loci,' which was neither music nor dancing, nor dice, nor wine, nor opium, nor lotus, nor hasheesh, but simply CHESS! The 'immortal game' painted as played on the inside of the tomb of Nevotp, the Egyptian. 3000 years B.C.; but who can paint it as played at the Donadi's rooms in Broadway , in the year of grace 1857?"
P.283-284, "Chess," THE WORKS OF JAMES McCUNE SMITH: BLACK INTELLECTUAL AND ABOLITIONIST edited by John Stauffer (Oxford: 2006)