I see no "self-contradiction" in the Keyes confirmation of the "mere chess player" story. Again, it strikes me as completely natural for her to want to clarify for her readers what degree of truth there was behind her Charmian Shepard character. She undoubtedly understood that readers of historical fiction are likely to wonder about that sort of thing.

With regard to the idea that Keyes was just writing "a regurgitation of the Buck account": Again, Buck did not specify a family.

I do not see how it can be known as a "fact" that there were no Creoles in 1960. My own experience indicates otherwise. It seems to me that it is very much a matter of interpretation to say what it meant to call oneself a Creole, and nobody is entitled to claim ultimate authority on such a subject.

As for the Keyes willingness to write about ancestors: It is one thing to write about the ancestry of a historical figure who has been and will, no doubt, continue to be discussed by other writers. It is quite another to write about a family that is unknown to history and wishes to continue to be unknown to history.

I do not know what indications of "shallow knowledge" are present in the Keyes book, but it must be remembered that it IS a work of fiction, and not a historical treatise. She clearly did some research. I see no reason to doubt that she could have become aware of some family with more information on the "mere chess player" subject.

With regard to Buck and Regina, "poor research/documentation" is the sort of thing that results in false claims, whether one calls it "puffery" or not.

"Morphy wants to get married. He is perpetually having 'love affairs.' All the people in New Orleans know it and humor him a little. Mind you, he is the most chivalrous soul alive. He is a thorough gentleman. But if he sees a strange face in the street that pleases him, you will see him lift his hat and give a bow. Sometimes the lady will stop kindly and speak to him or smile and pass on. Then he will follow her a distance - sometimes for hours - and when she enters her house, take out his note-book and enter the address." - Steinitz (as quoted in the New York Tribune, March 22, 1883)

I had also considered the Steinitz observations and it continues with <He regrets his loss (money) because he wishes to be married, and the cure is, I think to play chess again determinedly>

While it is somewhat lacking in suggesting a single serious “Love of his Life” type of affair it does have some bearing upon the matter. I felt the more important fact was that it indicates that Morphy himself understood that he had no prospects for marriage while lacking any means of support, a fact that he never was able to remedy during his life. It is this that casts some doubt that he would ever propose marriage under his distressed financial conditions. <Unless>, of course, he was totally bonkers at the time, but then it would not have been a contributing factor to his bonkerness.

Marriage Praxis – By Fredrick Deacon

1)one Paul Morphy
2)one Southern Belle (Marie Philomene Theriault)
3)two bottles of pouilly-fuissé
4)Mix Morphy, Belle and pouilly-fuissé, lay on a bed of rice

5)Bank sides of rice bed with cold hard cash
6)Turn up the heat and simmer overnight

More Reasons for Morphy to Leave Paris April 1859.

Influencing ......'s departure from France, (besides JDSybrandt's efforts) there surely should have to be taken into account the fact that ominous news of impending war was blowing in from neighbouring Italy, when finally on 29th April 1859 some 150,000 Piedmontese troops invaded Piedmontese territory and the French army raced to support them as the Austrian army mobilized to oppose them. Morphy had already made good his departure the previous week. Best move available. Outa Dodge.

May 3 1859, France declared war on Austria. Not good. http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/indi...

.....y arrives in New York May 11th 1859: http://batgirl.atspace.com/morphybi...

....hy left, probably not by way of Calais naturally wishing to avoid any potentially unsavoury scenes, going to Persia by Liverpool, although he had planned to leave earlier for Niagra, eventually having a surprise late dinner in Halifax, only to soon find himself being torn betwixt asunder as the man in the middle in the Civil War which broke out at home, causing him to return to Paris, assumedly earlier than he'd previously anticipated.

His well-documented aversion for conflict, excepting of course the peaceful, gentlemanly, chivalrous conflicts across the chessboard, would not permit him to either fight for the freedom of the slaves (a number of which happened to be occupying various domestic duties in the handsome mansion he occupied) nor join the north with their desires of destroying his home town along with all the heritage.

Reportedly he had enquired of Gen. Beauregarding the possiblity of him aquiring a mission of sorts in an intelligence-pool capacity tank perhaps, or somesuch suitable agentlike role. Gleaner of classified information and other secret items etc. The Gen. turned him down. Possibly thinking also to keep him, as much as possible out of harm's way, he being a family friend and all.

....phy would have been mortified naturally. (it must've been tough being the AlexanderThe Great of the chessboard all the time and holding such a title with disdain)

Rejection.
Failure.

He would've seen all the crushing things instead of the possible positives of, being in effect, selected paradoxically by rejection.

Perhaps puzzling or not to him, but to everybody else around him, well.. no doubt most likely.

To be spared the approaching carnage. But he was cast, in his eyes as one to be shunned and avoided by the entire world. His age of chivalry and honour at this period in history being couched in the very comfortable position of utterly prime importance. Perhaps Morphy saw it as a Custer / Errol Flynn type of the gallant hero job, although it was only 1861 all the Belles of the south wouldve been clamouring for his heroic attentions and hoping to be included in his datebook and all his activities. etc. following him on his heroic charges on a white stallion. (From a safe distance tho)

Morphy after a hard nights partying with Marie-Philomene and various cutiepies. http://www.victorianweb.org/paintin...

maybe she looked something like this
http://www.victorianweb.org/paintin...

and the rest, Felicite Mathide Marguerite etc
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/...

(excerpts)

Dear Sir
...with your fine brunette hair, your marvellous hue and Maximillian nose...

... pure-non Bersekir blood; ....

...and as we gazed with fine, open countenances, marvelous delicacy of fibre....

..bright, clear eyes, and elongated bones, a keen suspicion entered into...

..in our ethnological department we were the only half-Virginians in the room...

we might one drop, perhaps two of a good cognac ...

across a crowded room...God only knows how we got here....

but surely, beside the star-crossed besotten betrothed of thee who at present so pinedly thus doth write, there was also ...

every breath i take..

i have been a "lover" to you. A wife deserter for you. A child deserter. A taker of underlinens, For you to stay in Paris while the barbarians approach? Nay say I! nay nay!.

Sincerely

Your Freddy xx

<my belief is that we do not know one way or the other about the "mere chess player" story, just as we do not know how much of the civil code of Louisiana Morphy was really able to remember.>

Precisely. We don't know. But the allegations hang in the air.

This discussion really isn't about whether Morphy had an all-consumming love interest, but rather how each of us we go about culling sources and how we each assess credibility and the likelihood of enough truthfullness to warrant researching further.

It should be obvious that everyone has their own methods and criteria which, in some cases, differ widely from those of others.

I am sure Morphy did not need to be spurned for a marriage proposal to realize his financial ineptitude as well as it’s impact and certainly this realization was well before his meeting Steinitz. As early as 1863, when he pawned his watch to Riviere, he had no money.

While practicing law his peers characterize him as a failure, he was so withdrawn his only outside interest was opera, which is why his mother set them off for Paris again.

His existence described as solitary, fraught with frustrations and bitterness, filled with obsessions and irrationalities, feelings of persecution leaves little room that in some point he fell deeply in love and popped the question only to be spurned as ‘merely a chess player’.

It does not seem to me that it would be correct to characterize Morphy's ENTIRE post-Civil War life as necessarily "solitary, fraught with frustrations, ..." We are talking about a period of almost two decades. I know of nothing that would enable us to conclude that Morphy was regarded as an inevitable failure during all of that time. His reported involvements with E. T. Fellowes and Seligman, Hellman & Co. seem to suggest otherwise. It does not seem at all improbable to me that Morphy, at some point, thought he had reasonable prospects. I do not think too much should be read into the words, "love affair". The comments of Steinitz illustrate that the phrase is used to cover a wide variety of situations. Neither Buck nor Keyes wrote that Morphy "popped the question". My own experience in life is that it is not at all far-fetched for a man's thoughts to turn to marriage without much in the way of a courtship. Nor does it seem far-fetched to me for a woman to make known her own feelings about the possibility at some point after becoming aware of this interest.

About this same time (1866) Whitehall Reid toured the south, and gives us a glimpse of a gentleman’s evening in the New Orleans of the time in After the War: A Southern Tour. He describes in this book as evening at the home of Christian Roselious, Professor of Civil Law and Dean of the Faculty at the University of Louisiana, who conferred the degree of L.L.B on Paul Morphy in 1857:

One noticed here, as at most of the formal dinner parties givennn during out stay, and at my subsequent visits to the city, the absence of all ladies save those of the Host’s household. Indeed, except in peculiar cases like this, the prevailing idea of a diner in New Orleans seems to have for its leading feature copious libations of a great many kinds of the choicest wines.—to be licensed by the earliest possible retiracy of the hostess. Among Mr. Roselius’s guests that evening was a modest-looking little gentleman, of retiring manners, and with apparently very little to say; though the keen eyes and well-shaped head sufficiently showed the silence to be no mask for intellect. It was Paul Morphy, the foremost chess-player in the world, now a lawyer, but Alas! By no means the foremost young lawyer of this his native city. “If he were only as good in his profession as he is at chess-playing!” said one of the legal gentleman, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he spoke in an undertone of the abilities of the elder Morphy, and the hopes that had long been cherished of the son. They evidently looked upon the young chess-player as a prosperous banker does upon his only boy, who persists in neglecting his desk in the bank parlor and becoming a vagabond artist.

What is reported about his practice that suggests he was successful?

In order to have a marriage proposal rejected it would be normal, i think to take a leap of faith and assume, that someone (Paul) asked for her hand in marriage in some personal up close manner.

As I see that some of my posts are misinterpeted I'll ask

Are you suggesting he was rejected for a husband on the basis he was a 'mere chess player' without Morphy ever proposing?

Didn't FPK specifically state 'proposal'?

Regina's phamplet is so void of anything pertinent about Morphy it makes me wonder whether she really knew much about him at all or if she just kept to the common ground without mentioning anything much about his later years (which was when she was less than 14).

I do not think it would be fair to blame Regina very much for failing to catch the mistakes in Buck that Lawson found. Regina's pamphlet was obviously a project of much more limited scope, with the primary purpose being to describe Morphy's life in New Orleans, sharing with the public some of what she knew from experience, conversation, and letters. I see no reason to believe that Regina was wrong about her description of Morphy's behavior at the opera. A man can be quiet in one setting and social in another, especially if the other involves bunches of young unmarried women. Such behavior could well have been the subject of discussion that Regina heard - discussion not too different from what came to the attention of Steinitz later.

Peninsular Campaign Mar-June 1862 -- bloodiest fighting in the war.

Morphy completes his 122nd successful visit to bathroom May1862 - soapiest bath of the year.

First Union Victory Apr 1862 at the Battle of Shiloh at Pittsburg Landing TN (the South pulled back first) caused the South to pull most of its troops out of Tennessee as a result, after losing CSA Gen Johnston, killed on 6 Apr.

Morphy declines offer to play checkers match with war tramps.

Seven Days Campaign June 1862

June 22nd 1862 Morphy celebrates 25th birthday. Goes for walk.

Second Battle of Bull Run 29-30 Aug 1862

Morphy has bath.

Battle of Antietam Sept 1862 - Union's most acute crisis of the War.

Morphy completes his 243rd successful walk of year.

13 Sept -- Lee divided forces, sending Jackson to Harper's Ferry as he planned to go into MD.

Morphy decides to visit France via Cuba. Brushes up Code of Lousiana.

17 Sept 1862 - McClellan with 70,000 met Lee with 40,000 at Antietam Creek near Sharpstown MD in the single bloodiest day of the war - 36,000 CSA troops (2,700 killed, 9,024 wounded, 2,000 missing) vs 87,000 Federals (2,108 killed, 9,549 wounded, 753 missing).

Morphy completes 193rd visit to opera. "During intermissions, Morphy would call upon some of his lady friends (Marie Philomene, Lydia, Lilian, Margeux, Zoe etc) who occupied boxes and invite them to a promenade in the 'foyer' where refreshments were served." - Mrs. Regina Morphy-Voitier.

Lee withdrew from MD the next day and the South resumed a defensive position.

Morphy makes good his withdrawal.
According to Regina Morphy-Voitier, Paul spent two months in Havana on his way to Paris. He stayed at the Hotel America where his presence became known around the 16th of October 1862. http://staugustine.com/visit/histor...

Message of October 19, 1863, when Grant, from Louisville, Kentucky, bid Thomas " to hold Chattanooga at all hazards," and received the laconic reply in a few hours, " I will hold the town till we starve." http://www.fotosearch.com/BDX126/bx...

On October 31, after attending a banquet given by Señor Eduardo Fesser at L'Hermitage, a French Inn, http://www.csuohio.edu/convo/eventp... Morphy and Maurian booked passage on a mail steamer heading for Cadiz, Spain. After arriving in Cadiz, they took a train to Paris. http://batgirl.atspace.com/morphybi...

The Southern loss at Antietam ended possible recognition by European nations and gave Lincoln an opportunity officially to release his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

Morphy, by now heartily vexed, refuses Kolisch a match in Paris March 1863, citing his inferior displays against Anderssen and Paulsen. http://batgirl.atspace.com/morphybi...

http://schaaklinks.jouwpagina.nl/ru...

These and links to other players and more, can be found at my webpage which is mentioned on my profile.

While opposed to the war, Morphy had no desire to see New Orleans ruled by an occupying army. It seems to have caused him great stress.

Lawson has this one description of him that year by a soldier named Putnam: