Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

Lawson states that "It is almost certain that his
success at the chessboard worked against his success
at the bar." I disagree strongly.

_
I would be reluctant to come to strong conclusions
about a time and place where attitudes were quite
different from what they are today. Even today,
it seems to me that we might notice something
similar. How easy would it be for, say, a
famous singer, to become accepted as a lawyer?


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

As the son of a prominent lawyer and as a celebrity,
Morphy had advantages other potential lawyers could
only dream of; that he did not benefit from them
needs some other explanation, in my opinion.

_
Does Lawson assert that other factors were not
involved? One worth considering (from page
270 of Lawson):

"The men of the good families in New Orleans,
a group to which young Morphy certainly
belonged, were nearly all members of the
'Louisiana Tigers,' the Seventh Regiment of
New Orleans. Morphy had refused to join with
these old-time associates in the attempt
to over-throw the Republic. This brought
him into social isolation." - Putnam


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:
I imagine that his illness started well before [1873],
though excuses were made for him; distraught over
the war, loss of fortune, etc.

I wrote:
Imagination is no substitute for fact. If there were
instances of illness well before 1873, where are
the reports of them, with or without excuses?


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

Nothing as clear as direct evidence of irrational
behavior, but there is enough remarkable behavior so
that it seems to be too simple to say that there was
no evidence of any disturbance before 1875 (or 1873,
if we start with Woodbury's letter).

Examples:
December 1862 (pg 273 Lawson): when declining all
chess offers, the NY Times correspondent sees fit
to mention that Morphy says that "He has also matters
of more importance to occupy his mind, and seems to
be in feeble health."

_
I see nothing "remarkable" about "feeble health" and
nothing to indicate that the health problem was mental.
Nor is it surprising that Morphy apparently decided
that he had had enough of the petty behavior that he
had experienced in 1857-8.


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

February 1863 (pg 275): Declining to go to Vienna
and earn money with chess giving as one key reason
that he is too caught up following the course of the
war. Instead, he pawns a watch for getting a large
loan from Riviere. This strikes me at least as odd
behavior, though it wouldn't get him institutionalized
of course.

_
Again, I see nothing remarkable here. Morphy had grown
up with the attitude (common in his day) that disapproved
of earning money by such things as playing chess. Morphy
had a history of avoiding the appearance of earning
money in this way, arranging to give away the money that
he won. Moreover, if Morphy was having health problems
(physical, not mental), that alone could explain his
reluctance to travel to Vienna.


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

1867 (page 286): .. "his mother grew concerned about his
monotonous and melancholy life" (so decides to take him
to Paris). At the least, this hints at a fairly severe
depression.

_
Again, there is nothing remarkable about an unemployed
person being depressed.


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

1867 (page 287, from a letter recalling Morphy in Paris):
"Events had proved disastrous to his parents, and also
blighted his prospects, which had such a depressing
influence on his over-wrought mind, that it perfectly
paralyzed his energies."

_
I must object to this quote being cut short. It continued:

"He lost his taste for chess entirely, and Neumann
told us in 1867 that he never could prevail upon
Morphy to play ..."

and on and on in this manner. I see nothing to indicate
that Sheriff W. C. Spens was talking about anything other
than Morphy's reluctance to play chess. What else could
Spens have been expecting Morphy to do in Paris in 1867?


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

This does not sound like a healthy person to me. Many
people suffered much worse in the Civil War, and Morphy
had opportunities available to few others; he just chose
not to take advantage of them.

_
The opportunities from Lawson that Jeremy Spinrad mentions
were all opportunities to play chess.

"[Morphy's aversion to chess] was caused, no doubt,
by his being constantly bored to death by all sorts
of persons who thought it a nice thing to play a game
with the champion of the world, or to ask him in how
many moves he could force mate in a game, or what was
the best way to open the game, or to be kind enough
to solve this or that problem &c, to say nothing of
the mountains of stupid letters he was called upon
to read." - Maurian

"I am more strongly confirmed than ever in the belief
that the time devoted to chess is literally frittered
away. It is, to be sure, a most exhilarating sport,
but it is only a sport; and it is not to be wondered
at that such as have been passionately addicted to
the charming pastime, should one day ask themselves
whether sober reason does not advise its utter
dereliction." - Morphy


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

Lawson says that we know very little of what Morphy did
other than chess in 1865 and 66. My best guess is that
Morphy's first signs of illness came with bouts of
depression in this period, escalating slowly until they
became so severe in 1875 that even his dear ones had
to seek drastic measures.

_
There is no doubt that Morphy was depressed, but depression,
under the circumstances, is not remarkable, and, in any
event, is not what people usually have in mind when they
talk about Morphy's mental illness ("persecution mania").

I wrote:
Anyway, this discussion was originally about the
notion that "given the medical knowledge of the time,
it was very rational to believe that blindfold chess
... drove Morphy crazy". It may be true that "after
Morphy's death ... there was a feeling" expressed by
some "that his blindfold stunts had caused his insanity",
but one must ask whether this opinion was held by
anyone properly acquainted with the chronology of
Morphy's life. Few were better acquainted with
Morphy than Maurian, and he seemed to think that
chess had "nothing to do with [Morphy's derangement]".


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:

I don't think blindfold chess drove Morphy crazy.
However, consider the view of the people at the
time. Blindfold chess was considered awesome but
a potential risk. Morphy, after astonishing the
world, disappears except for a few where-are-they
-now columns, and the next thing they hear he is
apparently insane at quite a young age.

_
Hardly "the next thing they hear". Upon his return
from England in 1858 he made many many public appearances
- appearances that were described in detail by people
who certainly did not give the impression that they
thought Morphy was having mental trouble. The reports
of mental trouble were more than a decade later.


Jeremy Spinrad wrote:
People could not know that later we would find that
some masters could play far more than 8 games blindfold
with no apparent harm, and could quite rationally believe
that Morphy was driven insane by blindfold chess.

_
If Jeremy Spinrad wants to hypothesize that a sufficiently
poorly informed individual might have "rationally" jumped
to such a conclusion, I suppose that we could allow that,
but it strikes me as a bit of a stretch on the meaning
of "rational". Surely part of "rational" includes making
some sort of proper effort to obtain relevant information.
The "escalating slowly" process (extended over more than
a decade) that Jeremy Spinrad has himself hypothesized does
not square very well with the notion of a mental problem
caused by the strain of a blindfold demonstration.

People IN MORPHY'S TIME expressed skepticism about the
strain theory and their writings seem far more rational
to me than those of the strain theory advocates.