'Check!' said Clara.
'Check! after about a dozen moves. It is of no use to go on; you
always beat me. I should not mind that if I were any better now than
when I started. It is not in me.'
'The reason is that you do not look two moves ahead. You never say
to yourself, "Suppose I move there, what is she likely to do, and
what can I do afterwards?"'
'That is just what is impossible to me. I cannot hold myself down;
the moment I go beyond the next move my thoughts fly away, and I am
in a muddle, and my head turns round. I was not born for it. I can
do what is under my nose well enough, but nothing more.'
'The planning and the forecasting are the soul of the game. I should
like to be a general, and play against armies and calculate the
consequences of manoeuvres.'
'It would kill me. I should prefer the fighting. Besides,
calculation is useless, for when I think that you will be sure to
move such and such a piece, you generally do not.'
'Then what makes the difference between the good and the bad player?'
'It is a gift, an instinct, I suppose.'
'Which is as much as to say that you give it up. You are very fond
of that word instinct; I wish you would not use it.'
'I have heard you use it, and say you instinctively like this person
or that.'
'Certainly; I do not deny that sometimes I am drawn to a person or
repelled from him before I can say why; but I always force myself to
discover afterwards the cause of my attraction or repulsion, and I
believe it is a duty to do so.
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