Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjectsProctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects
Proctor, Richard A. (Richard Anthony)
Science
[Footnote 16: Shakspeare, who was bald young (and, so far as one
can judge from his portraits, had a good set of teeth), suggests a
correlation between hairiness and want of wit, which is at least
likely to be regarded by those who 'wear his baldness while they're
young' as a sound theory. 'Why,' asks Antipholus of Syracuse, 'is Time
such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?'
'Because,' says Dromio of Syracuse, 'it is a blessing that he bestows
on beasts; and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath given them in
wit.']
[Footnote 17: While penning the above lines I have been reminded of an
experience of my own, which I had never before thought of as connected
with the subject of heredity; yet it seems not unlikely that it may be
regarded as a case in point. During the infancy of my eldest son it
so chanced that the question of rest at night, and consequently the
question of finding some convenient way of keeping the child quiet,
became one of considerable interest to me. Cradle-rocking was effective
but carried on in the usual way prevented my own sleep, though causing
the child to sleep. I devised, however, a way of rocking the cradle
with the foot, which could be carried on in my sleep, after a few
nights' practice. Now it is an odd coincidence (only, perhaps) that the
writer's next child, a girl, had while still an infant a trick which I
have noticed in no other case. She would rock herself in the cradle by
throwing the right leg over the left at regular intervals, the swing of
the cradle being steadily kept up for many minutes, and being quite as
wide in range as a nurse could have given. It was often continued when
the child was asleep.
Since writing the above, I have learned from my eldest daughter, the
girl who as a child had the habit described, that a recent little
brother of hers, one of twins, and remarkably like her, had the same
habit, rocking his own cradle so vigorously as to disturb her in the
next room with the noise. These two only of twelve children have had
this curious habit; but as this child is thirteen years younger than
she is, the force of the coincidence in point of time is to some degree
impaired.]
[Footnote 18: See my _Science Byeways_, p. 337 _et seq._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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