THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE - What song the Syrens sang, or what
name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling
questions are not beyond all conjecture.
• SIR THOMAS BROWNE, Urn-Burial. THE mental features discoursed of as the
analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate
them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are
always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest
enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such
exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral
activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial
occupations bringing his talents into play. He is fond of enigmas, of
conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of
acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension preternatural. His results,
brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole
air of intuition. The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by
mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly,
and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par
excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. A chess-player, for
example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of
chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not
now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by
observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that
the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more
usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by all the elaborate
frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre
motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a
not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully
into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or
defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of
such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more
concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on
the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the
probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left
comparatively what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by
superior acumen. To be less abstract —Let us suppose a game of draughts where
the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be
expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at
all equal) only by some recherche movement, the result of some strong exertion
of the intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into
the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees
