Crumbs from the Chess-Board.pdf

CRUMBS FROM

THE CHESS-BOARD

A SELECTION FROM THE

PROBLEMS COMPOSED BY

CHARLES A. GILBERG

[1890]

An Electronic Edition

Anders hulin, Malmö · 2005-07-31

PREFACE

As a recreation for the idle hours of life, the wide and varied domain of

chess, but more especially that branch so aptly termed the Poetry of the

game, has been to me during the past thirty years an unfailing source

of delightful entertainment – a perennial banquet, indeed, that has

never sufered the appetite for its social and intellectual fare to languish.

Votaries of every clime and country have contributed the fruits of their

genius and industry to the repast, and many warm and valued friend-

ships have been cemented by kindred tastes and sympathies. But how

few, alas, of the early companions remain to share the feast! he empire

of earthly pleasures is frail and uncertain, and its curfew must toll for

us all. While lingering at a somewhat late and protracted dessert with

an ever unsated yearning for Caïssa’s bounty, I have gathered up some

of the crumbs that have fallen from my table, which I wish to ofer as

a souvenir to the friends who still abide to minister to my enjoyment.

If, to them, these morsels will serve to impart an occasional gleam of

pleasant recollection, the aim and ambition which were the impelling

inluences that led to this collection will be fully gratiied.

In the following pages the conventional terms of White and Black

have been retained, but the forces of the chess-board are respectively

presented in Red and Blue. With the exception of a few of the older com-

positions included in this selection, that have been reset and remoulded,

all have passed through the ordeal of public scrutiny, and I trust that it

may not be unreasonable to hope that they will successfully maintain

an unblemished integrity against all further analytical research.

C. A. G.

Brooklyn, September, 1890.