It will be all
right in a few weeks; he will go back to prose or bills-of-
parcels or whatever is his natural method of expressing himself,
none the worse for his adventure. But he will have gained this
knowledge for his future guidance--that poems never come singly.
Every two or three years I discover the game of chess. In normal
times when a man says to me, "Do you play chess?" I answer
coldly, "Well, I know the moves." "Would you like a game?" he
asks, and I say, "I don't think I will, thanks very much. I
hardly ever play." And there the business ends. But once in two
years, or it may be three, circumstances are too strong for me. I
meet a man so keen or a situation so dull that politeness or
boredom leads me to accept. The board is produced, I remind
myself that the queen stands on a square of her own colour, and
that the knight goes next to the castle; I push forward the
king's pawn two squares, and we are off. Yes, we are off; but not
for one game only. For a month at least I shall dream of chess at
night and make excuses to play it in the day. For a month chess
will be even more to me than golf or billiards--games which I
adore because I am so bad at them. For a month, starting from
yesterday when I was inveigled into a game, you must regard me,
please, as a chess maniac.
Among small boys with no head for the game I should probably be
described as a clever player.
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