her cultivate grace and beauty in herself at such a time, and she will endow her child with them. As anger and irritability leave imprints on the features, she should maintain serenity and calmness. INHERITANCE OF TALENT AND GENIUS. The effects of inheritance are perhaps more marked upon the mind than upon the body. This need not surprise us. If the peculiar form of the brain can be transmitted, the mental attributes, the result of its organization, must necessarily also be transmitted. It is a matter of daily observation, that parents gifted with bright minds, cultivated by education, generally engender intelligent children; while the offspring of those steeped in ignorance are stupid from birth. It may be objected, that men the most remarkable in ancient or modern times, as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Shakspeare, Milton, Buffon, Cuvier, etc., have not transmitted their vast intellectual powers to their progeny. In explanation, it has been stated that what is known as genius is not transmissible. The creation of a man of genius seems to require a special effort of Nature, after which, as if fatigued, she reposes a long time before again making a similar effort. But it may well be doubted whether even those complex mental attributes on which genius and talent depend are not inheritable, particularly when both parents are thus endowed. That distinguished men do not more frequently have distinguished sons, may readily be accounted for when it is recollected that the inherited character is due to the combined influence of both parents. The desirable qualities of the father may therefore be neutralized in the offspring by the opposite or defective qualities of the mother. That contrasts in the disposition of parents are rather the rule than the exception, we have already shown. Every one tends to unite himself in friendship or love with a different character from his own, seeking thereby to supplement the qualities in which he feels his own nature to be deficient. The mother, therefore, may weaken, and perhaps obliterate, the qualities transmitted by the father. Again, the influence of some remote ancestors may make itself felt upon the offspring through the operation of the law of atavism, before alluded to, and thus prevent the children from equaling their parents in their natural endowments. Notwithstanding the workings of these opposing forces, and others which might be mentioned, we find abundant illustration of the hereditary nature of talent and character.