Yet there is this against it. The courtesies of the game are few.
I think that this must be why the passion for it leaves me after
a month. When at cricket you are bowled first ball, the
wicketkeeper can comfort you by murmuring that the light is bad;
when at tennis your opponent forces for the dedans and strikes
you heavily under the eye, he can shout, "Sorry!" when at golf
you reach a bunker in 4 and take 3 to get out, your partner can
endear himself by saying, "Hard luck"; but at chess everything
that the enemy does to you is deliberate. He cannot say, "Sorry!"
as he takes your knight; he does not call it hard luck when your
king is surrounded by vultures eager for his death; and though it
would be kindly in him to attribute to the bad light the fact
that you never noticed his castle leaning against your queen, yet
it would be quite against the etiquette of the game.
Indeed, it is impossible to win gracefully at chess. No man yet
has said "Mate!" in a voice which failed to sound to his opponent
bitter, boastful, and malicious. It is the tone of that voice
which, after a month, I find it impossible any longer to stand.
A Doubtful Character
I find it difficult to believe in Father Christmas. If he is the
jolly old gentleman he is always said to be, why doesn't he
behave as such? How is it that the presents go so often to the
wrong people?
This is no personal complaint; I speak for the world.
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