Chess History and ReminiscencesBird, H. E. (Henry Edward)
History
Chess History and Reminiscences
Bird, H. E. (Henry Edward)
Chess
Steinitz was so much gratified with the reminder of mine at
Simpson's, that three of the greatest minds ever known have had
the same initials that he will pardon the little addition joke from
Paternoster Row. The three mighty W.S.'s are Wilhelm Steinitz,
William Shakespeare and Walter Scott. He was not so well
pleased with the addition of the unnecessary missing words
William Sykes.
Steinitz was introduced at a club once as the Champion. "Of
what?" was the reply.
Steinitz has been known to grieve much when he has lost
at chess; at Dundee, for example, in 1866 after his defeat by
De Vere his friends became alarmed at his woe and disappearance.
Again, after his fall to Rosenthal in a game he should have won
at the Criterion in 1883, news were brought that he was on a seat
in St. James' Park quite uncontrollable.
Steinitz is liberally disposed to others in mind and purse. The
following brevities on chess are known to have been much admired
by him, I therefore append them for his artistic eye.
So old and enthusiastic a chess player as Bird, and one who
has travelled about so much professionally, and on chess, has
naturally been the object of many pleasantries, and bon mots,
although he escaped the Fortnightly Review writers, being
regarded, at least by one of them as a very serious person,
L'Anglais comme il faut of the Vienna Neue Frie Presse. The
despised Britisher of custom house officers (who always chalk
him away, hardly deigning to examine his luggage even). He
has figured as the sea captain of the New York Sun, the farmer
of the Rochester Press, the ladies chess professor of the Albany
Argus, and the veteran of the Montreal Press, his vicissitudes
have led him into strange places, among others to a wigwam of the
Indians at Sarnia in 1860, and a representation of one in the
Vienna Exhibition of 1873, when much to the amusement of
Professor Anderssen and Baron Kolisch he received such a cordial
reception from a lady who recognized him as an old friend and
customer at Niagara falls, the lady in question being commonly
termed a squaw (not a disrespectful word for a lady it is hoped).
Bird has been in the Nest at Amsterdam, in the Bowery at New
York, and in the accident ward at Vienna, and has witnessed
many strange things and distressing circumstances, and has
endured interviewers and Irish Home Rulers in America without
a shudder, and has perhaps been asked more questions about
chess than any man living, because he good naturedly always
answers them, and has furnished matter enough in ten minutes
for a two-column article. He has been accused of a partiality for
whisky hot, especially when served by female hands, of ordering
soles by special train at Nuremberg, though he only disposed or
them at breakfast not knowing their price or from whence they
came. Blackburne and Hoffer are responsible for the statement
that he sat up through the night at Vienna preparing statistics,
with nothing but his hat on. The allegation in the Field and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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