an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a furrow of
subsoil in it. The explanation is, of course, that in a great many
thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these instantly arrest
our attention. Now we shall probably never have the least idea of the
enormous number of impressions which pass through our consciousness,
until in some future life we see the photographic record of our thoughts
and the stereoscopic picture of our actions. There go more pieces to
make up a conscious life or a living body than you think for. Why, some
of you were surprised when a friend of mine told you there were
fifty-eight separate pieces in a fiddle. How many “swimming
glands”—solid, organised, regularly formed, rounded disks, taking an
active part in all your vital processes, part and parcel, each one of
them, of your corporeal being—do you suppose are whirled along like
pebbles in a stream with the blood which warms your frame and colours
your cheeks? A noted German physiologist spread out a minute drop of
blood, under the microscope, in narrow streaks, and counted the
globules, and then made a calculation. The counting by the micrometer
took him a _week_. You have, my full-grown friend, of these little
couriers in crimson or scarlet livery, running on your vital errands day
and night as long as you live, sixty-five billions, five hundred and
seventy thousand millions, errors excepted. Did I hear some gentleman
say “Doubted”? I am the Professor; I sit in my chair with a petard under
it that will blow me through the skylight of my lecture-room, if I do
not know what I am talking about, and whom I am quoting.
Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your foreheads and
saying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as if you had been
waltzing until things began to whirl slightly round you, is it possible
that you do not clearly apprehend the exact connection of all that I
have been saying, and its bearing on what is now to come? Listen, then.
The number of these living elements in our bodies illustrates the
incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the number of our thoughts
accounts for those frequent coincidences spoken of; these coincidences
in the world of thought illustrate those which we constantly observe in
the world of outward events, of which the presence of the young girl now
at our table, and proving to be the daughter of an old acquaintance some
of us may remember, is the special example which led me through this
labyrinth of reflections, and finally lands me at the commencement of
this young girl’s story, which, as I said, I have found the time and
felt the interest to learn something of, and which I think I can tell
without wronging the unconscious subject of my brief delineation.
A SHORT LECTURE ON PHRENOLOGY.
_Read to the Boarders at our Breakfast-Table._
I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a _Pseudo-science_. A
Pseudo-science consists of _a nomenclature_, with a self-adjusting
arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favours its
doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells
against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some lucrative
practical application. Its professors and practitioners are usually
shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink and laugh
a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude consists of women
of both sexes, feeble-minded inquirers, poetical optimists, people who
always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists who insist on
hurrying up the millennium, and others of this class, with here and
there a clergyman, less frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician,
and almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detective police.—I
did not say that Phrenology was one of the Pseudo-sciences.
A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It may
contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest bank starts
with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on the
strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very commonly a good one.
The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, after
they have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump at the merest
rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. When we have one fact found us,
we are very apt to supply the next out of our own imagination. (How many
persons can read Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) The
Pseudo-sciences take advantage of this.—I did not say that it was so
with Phrenology.
I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there was
_something_ in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is commonly
agreed, promises intellect; one that is “villainous low,” and has a huge
hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal nature. I have as rarely
met an unbiassed and sensible man who really believed in the bumps. It
is observed, however, that persons with what the Phrenologists call
“good heads” are more prone than others toward plenary belief in the
doctrine.
It is so hard to prove a negative, that if a man should assert that the
moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable substance of
the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary, I might be
puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar cheese, I call
on him to prove the truth of the caseous nature of our satellite before
I purchase.
[Illustration: “I PROCEED TO FUMBLE HIS SKULL.”]
It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological statement.
It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved, and cannot
be, by the common course of argument. The walls of the head are double,
with a great air-chamber between them, over the smallest and most
closely crowded “organs.” Can you tell how much money there is in a
safe, which also has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs with your
fingers? So when a man fumbles about my forehead, and talks about the
organs of _Individuality_, _Size_, etc., I trust him as much as I should
if he felt of the outside of my strong-box and told me that there was a
five-dollar or a ten-dollar bill under this or that particular rivet.
Perhaps there is; _only he doesn’t know anything about it_. But this is
a point that I, the Professor, understand, my friends, or ought to,
certainly, better than you do. The next argument you will all
appreciate.
I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of
Phrenology, which is _very similar_ to that of the Pseudo-sciences. An
example will show it most conveniently.
A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find a
good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. Casts
and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump _does not lose_ in the
act of copying.—I did not say it gained.—What do you look so for? (to
the boarders).
Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. has no bump at all
over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.—Not a bit
of it. Don’t you see how small Conscientiousness is? _That’s_ the reason
B. stole.
And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,—used to
steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets and
put its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committing
petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a _hollow_, instead of a bump, over
Acquisitiveness. Ah! but just look and see what a bump of
Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and gingerbread, when a boy, with
the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief, and how his
example confirms our noble science.
At last comes along a case which is apparently a _settler_, for there is
a little brain with vast and varied powers,—a case like that of Byron,
for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which covers
everything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner a
Phrenologist. “It is not the size alone, but the _quality_ of an organ,
which determines its degree of power.”
Oh! oh! I see.—The argument may be briefly stated thus by the
Phrenologist: “Heads I win, tails you lose.” Well, that’s convenient.
It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the
Pseudo-sciences.—I did not say it was a Pseudo-science.
I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and amazed
at the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of Phrenology had
read their characters written upon their skulls. Of course the Professor
acquires his information solely through his cranial inspections and
manipulations.—What are you laughing at? (to the boarders).—But let us
just _suppose_, for a moment, that a tolerably cunning fellow, who did
not know or care anything about Phrenology, should open a shop and
undertake to read off people’s characters at fifty cents or a dollar
a-piece. Let us see how well he could get along without the “organs.” I
will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I would invest one hundred
dollars, more or less, in casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other
matters that would make the most show for the money. That would do to
begin with. I would then advertise myself as the celebrated Professor
Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first
customer. My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,—ask him
a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang of
him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, dictating
as follows:—
SCALE FROM 1 TO 10.
LIST OF FACULTIES FOR PRIVATE NOTES FOR MY PUPIL:
CUSTOMER. _Each to be accompanied with a wink._
_Amativeness_, 7. Most men love the conflicting sex, and
all men love to be told they do.
_Alimentiveness_, 8. Don’t you see that he has burst off his
lowest waistcoat-button with
feeding—hey?
_Acquisitiveness_, 8. Of course. A middle-aged Yankee.
_Approbativeness_, 7, + Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the
effect of that _plus_ sign.
_Self-esteem_, 6. His face shows that.
_Benevolence_, 9. That’ll please him.
_Conscientiousness_, 8½ That fraction looks first-rate.
_Mirthfulness_, 7 Has laughed twice since he came in.
_Ideality_, 9. That sounds well.
_Form, Size, Weight, 4 to 6. Average everything that can’t be
Colour_} guessed.
_Locality,
Eventuality_, }
_etc., etc._ }
And so of the other faculties.
Of course, you know, that isn’t the way the Phrenologists do. They go
only by the bumps. What do you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders).
I only said that is the way _I_ should practise “Phrenology” for a
living.
_Oliver Wendell Holmes._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_APHORISMS._
WE know but few men, a great many coats and breeches.
To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite
awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much
nearer to one another.
A man sits as many risks as he runs.
There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers.
If you give money, spend yourself with it.
Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-half-witted
with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their
wit.
_Thoreau._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_AN ENGLISH FUNERAL._
LONDON, _October 15, 1802_.
THE most humorous sight which I have seen was an English funeral,
performed in the most fashionable manner; for you must know they
_perform funerals_ here. An undertaker’s sign exhibits these words,
“Funerals performed.” The first one which I saw was such a novelty, I
followed it a short distance, not knowing what it was; and, as my manner
is to question every one whom I think can give me any information (a
Yankee custom), I asked an honest fellow “what the show was?” He seemed
a little offended, but directly replied, “_You may know one day, if you
do not come to the gallows._” This man, like Chatham, was “original and
unaccommodating.” But, observing that I was surprised at his answer, and
feeling, perhaps, a little mortified, he asked, “Do you live in London?”
I told him I had just come. “Well, but people die, sometimes, in your
town.” By this I discovered that the _performance_ was a funeral.
_William Austin._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_A LOST CHILD._
YE CRYER.
_Here’s a reward for who’ll find Love!
Love is a-straying
Ever since Maying;
Hither and yon, below, above,
All are seeking Love!_
YE HAND-BILL.
_Gone astray_—between the Maying
And the gathering of the hay,
_Love_, an urchin ever playing—
Folk are warned against his play.
How may you know him? by the quiver,
By the bow he’s wont to bear.
First on your left there comes a shiver,
Then a twinge—the arrow’s there.
By his eye of pansy colour,
Deep as wounds he dealeth free;
If its hue have faded duller,
’Tis not that he weeps for me.
By the smile that curls his mouthlet;
By the mockery of his sigh;
By his breath, a spicy South, let
Slip his lips of roses by.
By the devil in his dimple;
By his lies that sound so true;
By his shaft-string, that no simple
Ever culled will heal for you.
By his beckonings that embolden;
By his quick withdrawings then;
By his flying hair, a golden
Light to lure the feet of men.
By the breast where ne’er a hurt’ll
Rankle ’neath his kerchief hid—
_What?_ you cry; _he wore a kirtle?_
Faith! methinks the rascal did!
_Here’s a reward for who’ll find Love!
Love is a-straying
Ever since Maying;
Hither and you, below, above,
I am seeking Love._
ye Finder pray’d
to Bring her to
Master Corydon,
_Petticoat Lane_.
CRYER: H. BUNNER,
GRUB STREET,
CRY’S WEDDINGS,
BURYINGS, LOFT
CHILDN, AND RIGHT
CHEAPLIE.
YE IID. KNOCKER.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_AMONG THE SPIRITS._
MY naburs is mourn harf crazy on the new-fangled idear about Sperrets.
Sperretooul Sircles is held nitely & 4 or 5 long hared fellers has
settled here and gone into the sperret biznis excloosively. A atemt was
made to git Mrs. A. Ward to embark into the Sperret biznis but the atemt
faled. 1 of the long hared fellers told her she was a ethereal creeter &
wood make a sweet mejium, whareupon she attact him with a mop handle &
drove him out of the house. I will hear obsarve that Mrs. Ward is a
invalerble womun—the partner of my goys & the shairer of my sorrers. In
my absunce she watchis my interests & things with a Eagle Eye & when I
return she welcums me in afectionate stile. Trooly it is with us as it
was with Mr. & Mrs. INGOMER in the Play, to whit—
2 soles with but a single thawt
2 harts which beet as 1.
My naburs injooced me to attend a Sperretooul Sircle at Squire Smith’s.
When I arrove I found the east room chock full includin all the old
maids in the villige & the long hared fellers a4sed. When I went in I
was salootid with “hear cums the benited man”—“hear cums the hory-heded
unbeleever”—“hear cums the skoffer at trooth,” etsettery, etsettery.
Sez I, “my frens, it’s troo I’m hear, & now bring on your Sperrets”
1 of the long hared fellers riz up and sed he would state a few remarks.
He sed man was a critter of intelleck & was movin on to a Gole. Sum men
had bigger intellecks than other men had and thay wood git to the Gole
the soonerest. Sum men was beests & wood never git into the Gole at all.
He sed the Erth was materiel but man was immateriel, and hens man was
different from the Erth. The Erth, continnered the speaker, resolves
round on its own axeltree onct in 24 hours, but as man haint gut no
axeltree he cant resolve. He sed the ethereal essunce of the koordinate
branchis of superhuman natur becum mettymorfussed as man progrest in
harmonial coexistunce & eventooally anty humanized theirselves & turned
into reglar sperretuellers. [This was versifferusly applauded by the
cumpany, and as I make it a pint to get along as pleasant as possible, I
sung out “bully for you, old boy.”]
The cumpany then drew round the table and the Sircle kommenst to go it.
Thay axed me if thare was anbody in the Sperret land which I wood like
to convarse with. I sed if Bill Tompkins, who was onct my partner in the
show biznis, was sober, I should like to convarse with him a few
periods.
“Is the Sperret of William Tompkins present?” sed 1 of the long hared
chaps, and there was three knox on the table.
Sez I, “William, how goze it, Old Sweetness?”
“Pretty ruff, old hoss,” he replide.
That was a pleasant way we had of addressin each other when he was in
the flesh.
“Air you in the show biznis, William?” sed I.
He sed he was. He sed he & John Bunyan was travelin with a side show in
connection with Shakspere, Jonson & Co.’s Circus. He sed old Bun
(meaning Mr. Bunyan) stired up the animils & ground the organ while he
tended door. Occashunally Mr. Bunyan sung a comic song. The Circus was
doin middlin well. Bill Shakspeer had made a grate hit with old Bob
Ridley, and Ben Jonson was delitin the peple with his trooly grate ax of
hossmanship without saddul or bridal. Thay was rehersin Dixey’s Land &
expected it would knock the peple.
Sez I, “William, my luvly frend, can you pay me that 13 dollars you owe
me?” He sed no with one of the most tremenjis knox I ever experienced.
The Sircle sed he had gone. “Are you gone, William?” I axed. “Rayther,”
he replide, and I knowd it was no use to pursoo the subjeck furder.
I then called for my farther.
“How’s things, daddy?”
“Middlin, my son, middlin.”
“Ain’t you proud of your orfurn boy?”
“Scacely.”
“Why not, my parient?”
“Becawz you hav gone to writin for the noospapers, my son. Bimeby you’ll
lose all your character for trooth and verrasserty. When I helpt you
into the show biznis I told you to dignerfy that there profeshun.
Litteratoor is low.”
He also statid that he was doin middlin well in the peanut biznis &
liked it putty well, tho’ the climit was rather warm.
When the Sircle stopt thay axed me what I thawt of it.
Sez I, “my friends I’ve bin into the show biznis now goin on 23 years.
Theres a artikil in the Constitooshun of the United States which sez in
effeck that everybody may think just as he darn pleases, & them is my
sentiments to a hare. You dowtlis beleeve this Sperret doctrin while I
think it is a little mixt. Just so soon as a man becums a reglar out &
out Sperret rapper he leeves orf workin, lets his hare grow all over his
fase & commensis spungin his livin out of other peple. He eats all the
dickshunaries he can find & goze round chock full of big words, scarein
the wimmin folks & little children & destroyin the peace of mind of evry
famerlee he enters. He don’t do nobody no good & is a cuss to society &
a pirit on honest peple’s corn beef barrils. Admittin all you say abowt
the doctrin to be troo, I must say the reglar perfessional Sperret
rappers—them as makes a biznis on it—air abowt the most ornery set of
cusses I ever enkountered in my life. So sayin I put on my surtoot and
went home.”
Respectably Yures,
ARTEMUS WARD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_POETRY AND THE POET._
[A SONNET.]
(_Found on the Poet’s desk._)
WEARY, I open wide the antique pane
I ope to the air
I ope to
I open to the air the antique pane
And gaze {beyond?} the thrift-sown field of wheat,
{ across } [commonplace?]
A-shimmering green in breezes born of heat;
And lo!
And high
And my soul’s eyes behold { a? } billowy main
{ the }
Whose farther shore is Greece strain
again
vain
[_Arcadia_—mythological allusion.—Mem.: _Lemprière_.]
I see thee, Atalanta, vestal fleet,
And look! with doves low-fluttering round her feet,
Comes Venus through the golden {fields of?} grain.
{ bowing }
(_Heard by the Poet’s neighbour._)
Venus be bothered—it’s Virginia Dix!
(_Found on the Poet’s door._)
_Out on important business—back at 6._
_H. C. Bunner._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_A NEW SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR._
I HAVE often thought that the adjectives of the English language were
not sufficiently definite for the purposes of description.
They have but three degrees of comparison—a very insufficient number,
certainly, when we consider that they are to be applied to a thousand
objects, which, though of the same general class or quality, differ from
each other by a thousand different shades or degrees of the same
peculiarity. Thus, though there are three hundred and sixty-five days in
a year, all of which must, from the nature of things, differ from each
other in the matter of climate, we have but half-a-dozen expressions to
convey to one another our ideas of this inequality. We say—“It is a fine
day;” “It is a _very_ fine day;” “It is the _finest_ day we have seen;”
or, “It is an unpleasant day;” “A _very_ unpleasant day;” “The _most_
unpleasant day we ever saw.”
But it is plain that none of these expressions give an _exact_ idea of
the nature of the day; and the two superlative expressions are generally
untrue. I once heard a gentleman remark, on a rainy, snowy, windy, and
(in the ordinary English language) indescribable day, that it was “most
preposterous weather.” He came nearer to giving a correct idea of it
than he could have done by any ordinary mode of expression; but his
description was not sufficiently definite.
Again:—we say of a lady—“She is beautiful;” “She is _very_ beautiful;”
or “She is _perfectly_ beautiful;” descriptions which, to one who never
saw her, are no descriptions at all, for among thousands of women he has
seen, probably no two are equally beautiful; and as to a _perfectly_
beautiful woman, he knows that no such being was ever created—unless by
G. P. R. James, for one of the two horsemen to fall in love with, and
marry at the end of the second volume.
If I meet Smith in the street, and ask him—as I am pretty sure to
do—“How he does?” he infallibly replies, “_Tolerable_, thank you,” which
gives one no _exact_ idea of Smith’s health, for he has made the same
reply to me on a hundred different occasions, on every one of which
there _must_ have been some slight shade of difference in his physical
economy, and of course a corresponding change in his feelings.
To a man of a mathematical turn of mind, to a student and lover of the
exact sciences, these inaccuracies of expression, this inability to
understand _exactly_ how things are, must be a constant source of
annoyance; and to one who, like myself, unites this turn of mind to an
ardent love of truth, for its own sake,—the reflection that the English
language does not enable us to speak the truth with exactness, is
peculiarly painful. For this reason I have, with some trouble, made
myself thoroughly acquainted with every ancient and modern language, in
the hope that I might find some one of them that would enable me to
express precisely my ideas; but the same insufficiency of adjectives
exist in all except that of the Flathead Indians of Puget Sound, which
consists of but forty-six words, mostly nouns, but to the constant use
of which exists the objection, that nobody but that tribe can understand
it. And as their literary and scientific advancement is not such as to
make a residence among them, for a man of my disposition, desirable, I
have abandoned the use of their language, in the belief that for me it
is _hyas_, _cultus_, or, as the Spaniard hath it, _no me vale nada_.
Despairing, therefore, of making new discoveries in foreign languages, I
have set myself seriously to work to reform our own; and have, I think,
made an important discovery, which, when developed into a system and
universally adopted, will give a precision of expression, and a
consequent clearness of idea, that will leave little to be desired, and
will, I modestly hope, immortalise my humble name as the promulgator of
the truth, and the benefactor of the human race.
Before entering upon my system I will give you an account of its
discovery (which perhaps I might with more modesty term an adaptation
and enlargement of the idea of another), which will surprise you by its
simplicity, and, like the method of standing eggs on end, of Columbus,
the inventions of printing, gunpowder, and the mariner’s compass—prove
another exemplification of the truth of Hannah More’s beautifully
expressed sentiment—
“Large streams from little fountains flow,
Large aches from little toe-corns grow.”
During the past week my attention was attracted by a large placard
embellishing the corners of our streets, headed in mighty capitals with
the word “PHRENOLOGY,” and illustrated by a map of a man’s head, closely
shaven and laid off in lots, duly numbered from one to forty-seven.
Beneath this edifying illustration appeared a legend, informing the
inhabitants of San Diego and vicinity that Professor Dodge had arrived
and taken rooms (which was inaccurate, as he had but one room) at
Gyascutus House, where he would be happy to examine and furnish them
with a chart of their heads, showing the moral and intellectual
endowments, at the low price of three dollars each.