BEST AND WISEST MOM - by Joanna Fuchs

 

BEST  AND  WISEST  MOM by  Joanna Fuchs Mom, I wish I had words to tellHow much you mean to me.I am the person I am today,Because you let me be. Your unconditional loveMade me happy, strong, secure.Your teaching and exampleMade me confident, mature. In all the world, there is no motherBetter than my own.You're the best and wisest person, MomI have ever known.

POEMS FOR CHILDREN - Verse by W · A · FRISBIE - 1901

 

“ONCE ON A TIME.”

If you had lived “once on a time,”

Just as the story books all say,

Oh wouldn’t it have been a sight

To see the knights with dragons fight

And bear their heads away.

And it was “once upon a time,”

That little boys came to be kings;

That fairies flitted here and there

To little girls with presents rare

Rich gowns and diamond rings.

But now, dear me, how things are changed:

And yet, perhaps, ’tis just as well:

For, if ’twere not so long ago,

That all these wondrous things were so,

There’d be no tales to tell.

To Mr. Fox’s barber shop,

The large important Mr. Bear

Once took his chubby, little son

To have the barber trim his hair.

The cloth was tucked about his neck

When, in the mirror large and tall,

He chanced to see another bear

And cuffed the glass to pieces small.

Perhaps there is a funny land

Where rabbits dress in long tailed coats,

And kittens all wear wooden shoes

And schools are taught by learned goats.

Where crocodiles play violins

And owls are decked in gowns and caps;

But if there is a land like this,

You can not find it on the maps.

A very foolish little clam

Each night sat up till very late;

His parents said repeatedly

That he should not thus dissipate.

But he would never heed their words:

He was too headstrong to obey

And thus he had so little sleep

That he was sleepy all the day.

One summer morning on the beach,

He opened wide his shell to yawn.

A big red bird came walking by

A snap, a gulp - the clam was gone!

So, children, though you are too large

For any hungry bird to hold,

You see ’tis much the wiser plan

To go to bed when you are told.

THE AIRSHIPS

The airship fleet of Meadowville

Floats gaily o’er the town;

For older people fully grown,

The craft is thistle down.

The smaller of the meadow folk

On fluffy silk-weed ride:

And there’s a ship for every one

With ships to spare, beside.

THE PIRATE FROG - Verse By W · A · FRISBIE - 1901

 

THE PIRATE FROG

Some boys whose names I do not know,

Went out to sail their boat one day:

Fast to her stern they tied a line

So she could not sail far away

But little did those boys suspect

That, just beyond a floating log,

With all his trusty followers,

There lay in wait the Pirate Frog.

On came the ship; out sprang the frogs

A desperate, determined crew.

They climbed aboard with reckless speed

And each one found his work to do.

One cut the line, one raised the flag,

The captain seized the helm to steer;

And thus, on peaceful Plunkett’s Pond,

Began the Pirate Frog’s career.

Upon the shore of Plunkett’s Pond

Three turtles basked beneath the sun;

’Twas afternoon, the spot was warm,

And they were dozing every one.

Their eyes were closed, they did not see

Around the point a sail appear,

Nor did they know, until too late,

The dreaded Pirate Frog was near.

The pirate crew made haste to land:

They ran to where the turtles lay,

Turned all three quickly on their backs,

Then, hoisting sail, sped fast away.

For hours the turtles strained and scratched

To turn themselves, but all in vain,

Till Mrs. Muskrat came that way

And set them right side up again.

As out of Turtle Bay he sailed,

The Pirate Frog the waters scanned,

And soon he steered his stolen ship

To catch some ducklings far from land.

Around the downy neck of one

A lasso made of cord he cast,

And, though the victim struggled hard,

The cord was strong; the knot held fast.

The other ducklings hurried home,

When this unequal fight began:

All breathlessly they told the news

To Uncle Peter Pelican.

He hurried out across the pond,

And first he cut the duckling’s cord;

Which gave the frightened pirates time

To dive to safety overboard.

Far up the shores of Plunkett’s Pond,

Within a deep and marshy bay,

Amid the rustling rushes green,

The muskrats’ cozy village lay.

Now, when the older rats were gone,

The little ratlings had no fear;

’Twould have been different had they known

The dreaded Pirate Frog was near.

But soon the pirates’ flag was seen

The town was taken by surprise.

One baby rat was caught and bound

And dragged on ship despite his cries.

But soon his bonds were gnawed apart

And he for safety scaled the mast,

His weight aloft o’erset the ship

And he laughed best for he laughed last.

’Twas in July; the sun was hot,

The pond was smooth, the air was still.

The Pirate’s vessel lay becalmed

Without a breeze the sail to fill;

But soon a plan had been devised

To move the ship without a sail:

A diving frog took down a line

And tied it ’round a bull-head’s tail.

The big fish felt a gentle tug,

Then saw the line and jumped with fright.

He tried in vain to shake it off,

And swam away with all his might.

This way and that, at race-horse speed,

He crossed the pond from side to side,

But where he went the ship went, too,

And all the frogs enjoyed the ride.

For weeks the wicked Pirate Frog

Had filled the water folk with fright;

They hid themselves throughout the day,

While few dared venture out at night.

Had he not grown too rash and bold

They might be living that way still;

But his career closed when he tried

To stop the busy water mill.

He planned to drive his stolen ship

Against the wheel and tie it fast.

Nor did he think, on starting out,

That this exploit would be his last.

Too late he saw his grave mistake,

He tried in vain to reach the shore

The pirates’ ship was ground to bits,

And Plunkett’s Pond knew them no more.

Old Daddy Longlegs sat him down

And wept in deepest woe.

“Alas!” he cried, “The summer’s gone

“And soon will come the snow.

“My children beg for warmer clothes,

“But yet I must refuse

“For each one has so many feet

“I can’t buy overshoes.”

TWINS, THEIR HISTORY AS A CRITERION OF THE RELATIVE POWERS OF NATURE AND NURTURE - by FRANCIS GALTON

 

Sir Francis Galton, FRS ( 1822 – 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, and psychometrician. He was knighted in 1909.

Galton produced over 340 papers and books. He also created the statistical concept of correlation and widely promoted regression toward the mean. He was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for his anthropometric studies. He was a pioneer of eugenics, coining the term itself in 1883, and also coined the phrase "nature versus nurture". His book Hereditary Genius (1869) was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness.

As an investigator of the human mind, he founded psychometrics (the science of measuring mental faculties) and differential psychology, as well as the lexical hypothesis of personality. He devised a method for classifying fingerprints that proved useful in forensic science. He also conducted research on the power of prayer, concluding it had none due to its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for. His quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for making tea.

As the initiator of scientific meteorology, he devised the first weather map, proposed a theory of anticyclones, and was the first to establish a complete record of short-term climatic phenomena on a European scale. He also invented the Galton Whistle for testing differential hearing ability. He was Charles Darwin's half-cousin.

The exceedingly close resemblance attributed to twins has been the subject of many novels and plays, and most persons have felt a desire to know upon what basis of truth those works of fiction may rest. But twins have many other claims to attention, one of which will be discussed in the present memoir. It is, that their history affords means of distinguishing between the effects of tendencies received at birth, and of those that were imposed by the circumstances of their after lives; in other words, between the effects of nature and of nurture. This is a subject of especial importance in its bearings on investigations into mental heredity, and I, for my part, have keenly felt the difficulty of drawing the necessary distinction whenever I tried to estimate the degree in which mental ability was, on the average, inherited. The objection to statistical evidence in proof of its inheritance has always been: “The persons whom you compare may have lived under similar social conditions and have had similar advantages of education, but such prominent conditions are only a small part of those that determine the future of each man's life. It is to trifling accidental circumstances that the bent of his disposition and his success are mainly due, and these you leave wholly out of account, in fact, they do not admit of being tabulated, and therefore your statistics, however plausible at first sight, are really of very little use.” No method of enquiry which I have been able to carry out, and I have tried many methods, is wholly free from this objection. I have therefore attacked the problem from the opposite side, seeking for some new method by which it would be possible to weigh in just scales the respective effects of nature and nurture, and to ascertain their several shares in framing the disposition and intellectual ability of men. The life history of twins supplies what I wanted. We might begin by enquiring about twins who were closely alike in boyhood and youth, and who were educated together for many years, and learn whether they subsequently grew unlike, and, if so, what the main causes were which, in the opinion of the family, produced the dissimilarity. In this way we may obtain much direct evidence of the kind we want; but we can also obtain yet more valuable evidence by a converse method. We can enquire into the history of twins who were exceedingly unlike in childhood, and learn how far they became assimilated under the influence of their identical nurtures; having the same home, the same teachers, the same associates, and in every other respect the same surroundings.

My materials were obtained by sending circulars of enquiry to persons who were either twins themselves or the near relations of twins. The printed questions were in thirteen groups; the last of them asked for the addresses of other twins known to the recipient who might be likely to respond if I wrote to them. This happily led to a continually widening circle of correspondence, which I pursued until enough material was accumulated for a general reconnaissance of the subject.

The reader will easily understand that the word “twins” is a vague expression, which covers two very dissimilar events; the one corresponding to the progeny of animals that have usually more than one young one at a birth, and the other corresponding to those double-yolked eggs that are due to two germinal spots in a single ovum. The consequence of this is, that I find a curious discontinuity in my results. One would have expected that twins would commonly be found to possess a certain average likeness to one another; that a few would greatly exceed that degree of likeness, and a few would greatly fall short of it; but this is not at all the case. Twins may be divided into three groups, so distinct that there are not many intermediate instances; namely, strongly alike, moderately alike, and extremely dissimilar. When the twins are a boy and a girl, they are never closely alike; in fact, their origin never corresponds to that of the above-mentioned double-yolked eggs.

I have received about eighty returns of cases of close similarity, thirty-five of which entered into many instructive details. In a few of these not a single point of difference could be specified. In the remainder, the colour of the hair and eyes were almost always identical; the height, weight, and strength were generally very nearly so, but I have a few cases of a notable difference in these, notwithstanding the resemblance was otherwise very near. The manner and address of the thirty-five pairs of twins is usually described as being very similar, though there often exists a difference of expression familiar to near relatives but unperceived by strangers. The intonation of the voice when speaking is commonly the same, but it frequently happens that the twins sing in different keys. Most singularly, that one point in which similarity is rare is the handwriting. I cannot account for this, considering how strongly handwriting runs in families, but I am sure of the fact. I have only one case in which nobody, not even the twins themselves, could distinguish their own notes of lectures, etc.; barely two or three in which the handwriting was undistinguishable by others, and only a few in which it was described as closely alike. On the other hand, I have many in which it is stated to be unlike, and some in which it is alluded to as the only point of difference.

One of my enquiries was for anecdotes as regards the mistakes made by near relatives between the twins. They are numerous, but not very varied in character. When the twins are children, they have commonly to be distinguished by ribbons tied round their wrist or neck; nevertheless the one is sometimes fed, physicked, and whipped by mistake for the other, and the description of these little domestic catastrophes is usually given to me by the mother, in a phraseology that is somewhat touching by reason of its seriousness. I have one case in which a doubt remains whether the children were not changed in their bath, and the presumed A is not really B, and vice versa. In another case an artist was engaged on the portraits of twins who were between three and four years of age; he had to lay aside his work for three weeks, and, on resuming it, could not tell to which child the respective likenesses he had in hand belonged. The mistakes are less numerous on the part of the mother during the boyhood and girlhood of the twins, but almost as frequent on the part of strangers. I have many instances of tutors being unable to distinguish their twin pupils. Thus, two girls used regularly to impose on their music teacher when one of them wanted a whole holiday; they had their lessons at separate hours, and the one girl sacrificed herself to receive two lessons on the same day, while the other one enjoyed herself. Here is a brief and comprehensive account: “Exactly alike in all, their schoolmasters never could tell them apart; at dancing parties they constantly changed partners without discovery; their close resemblance is scarcely diminished by age.” The following is a typical schoolboy anecdote: Two twins were fond of playing tricks, and complaints were frequently made; but the boys would never own which was the guilty one, and the complainants were never certain which of the two he was. One head master used to say he would never flog the innocent for the guilty, and another used to flog both. No less than nine anecdotes have reached me of a twin seeing his or her reflection in a looking-glass, and addressing it, in the belief it was the other twin in person. I have many anecdotes of mistakes when the twins were nearly grown up. Thus: “Amusing scenes occurred at college when one twin came to visit the other; the porter on one occasion refused to let the visitor out of the college gates, for, though they stood side by side, he professed ignorance as to which he ought to allow to depart.”

Children are usually quick in distinguishing between their parents and his or her twin: but I have two cases to the contrary. Thus, the daughter of a twin says: “Such was the marvellous similarity of their features, voice, manner, etc. that I remember, as a child, being very much puzzled, and I think, had my aunt lived much with us, I should have ended by thinking I had two mothers.” The other, a father of twins, remarks: “We were extremely alike, and are so at this moment, so much so that our children up to five and six years old did not know us apart.”

I have four or five instances of doubt during an engagement of marriage. Thus: “A married first, but both twins met the lady together for the first time, and fell in love with her there and then. A managed to see her home and to gain her affection, though B went sometimes courting in his place, and neither the lady nor her parents could tell which was which.” I have also a German letter, written in quaint terms, about twin brothers who married sisters, but could not easily be distinguished by them. In the well-known novel by Mr. Wilkie Collins of “Poor Miss Finch,” the blind girl distinguishes the twin she loves by the touch of his hand, which gives her a thrill that the touch of the other brother does not. Philosophers have not, I believe, as yet investigated the conditions of such thrills; but I have a case in which Miss Finch's test would have failed. Two persons, both friends of a certain twin lady, told me that she had frequently remarked to them that “kissing her twin sister was not like kissing her other sisters, but like kissing herself, her own hand, for example.”

It would be an interesting experiment for twins who were closely alike, to try how far dogs could distinguish between them by scent.

I have a few anecdotes of strange mistakes made between twins in adult life. Thus, an officer writes: “On one occasion when I returned from foreign service my father turned to me and said, 'I thought you were in London,' thinking I was my brother, yet he had not seen me for nearly four years, our resemblance was so great.”

The next and last anecdote I shall give is, perhaps, the most remarkable of those that I have: it was sent me by the brother of the twins, who were in middle life at the time of its occurrence: “A was again coming home from India, on leave; the ship did not arrive for some days after it was due; the twin brother B had come up from his quarters to receive A, and their old mother was very nervous. One morning A rushed in, saying, 'Oh, mother, how are you?' Her answer was, 'No, B, it's a bad joke; you know how anxious I am!' and it was a little time before A could persuade her that he was the real man.”

Enough has been said to prove that an extremely close personal resemblance frequently exists between twins of the same sex; and that, although the resemblance usually diminishes as they grow into manhood and womanhood, some cases occur in which the resemblance is lessened in a hardly perceptible degree. It must be borne in mind that the divergence of development, when it occurs, need not be ascribed to the effect of different nurtures, but that it is quite possible that it may be due to the appearance of qualities inherited at birth, though dormant, like gout, in early life. To this I shall recur.

There is a curious feature in the character of the resemblance between twins, which has been alluded to by a few correspondents: it is well illustrated by the following quotations. A mother of twins says: “There seems to be a sort of interchangeable likeness in expression, that often gave to each the affect of being more like his brother than himself.” Again, two twin brothers, writing to me, after analysing their points of resemblance, which are close and numerous, and pointing out certain shades of difference, add: “These seem to have marked us through life, though for a while when we were first separated, the one to go to business, and the other to college, our respective characters were inverted; we both think that at that time we each ran into the character of the other. The proof of this consists in our own recollections, in our correspondence by letter, and in the views which we then took of matters in which we were interested.” In explanation of this apparent interchangeableness, we must recollect that no character is simple, and that in twins who strongly resemble each other every expression in the one may be matched by a corresponding expression in the other, but it does not follow that the same expression should be the dominant one in both cases. Now it is by their dominant expressions that we should distinguish between the twins; consequently when one twin has temporarily the expression which is the dominant one in his brother, he is apt to be mistaken for him. There are also cases where the development of the two twins is not strictly by equal steps; they reach the same goal at the same time, but not by identical stages. Thus: A is born the larger, then B overtakes and surpasses A, the end being that the twins become closely alike. This process would aid in giving an interchangeable likeness at certain periods of their growth, and is undoubtedly due to nature more frequently than to nurture.

Among my thirty-five detailed cases of close similarity, there are no less than seven in which both twins suffered from some special ailment or had some exceptional peculiarity. One twin writes that she and her sister “have both the defect of not being able to come down stairs quickly, which, however, was not born with them, but came on at the age of twenty.” Another pair of twins have a slight congenital flexure of one of the joints of the little finger: it was inherited from a grandmother, but neither parents, nor brothers, nor sisters show the least trace of it. In another case, one was born ruptured, and the other became so at six months old. Two twins at the age of twenty-three were attacked by toothache, and the same tooth had to be extracted in each case. There are curious and close correspondences mentioned in the falling off of the hair. Two cases are mentioned of death from the same disease; one of which is very affecting. The outline of the story was that the twins were closely alike and singularly attached, and had identical tastes; they both obtained Government clerkships, and kept house together, when one sickened and died of Bright's disease, and the other also sickened of the same disease and died seven months later.

In no less than nine out of the thirty-five cases does it appear that both twins are apt to sicken at the same time. This implies so intimate a constitutional resemblance, that it is proper to give some quotations in evidence. Thus, the father of two twins says: “Their general health is closely alike; whenever one of them has an illness the other invariably has the same within a day or two, and they usually recover in the same order. Such has been the case with whooping cough, chicken-pox, and measles; also with slight bilious attacks, which they have successively. Latterly, they had a feverish attack at the same time.” Another parent of twins says: “If anything ails one of them, identical symptoms nearly always appear in the other: this has been singularly visible in two instances during the last two months. Thus, when in London, one fell ill with a violent attack of dysentery, and within twenty-four hours the other had precisely the same symptoms.”

A medical man writes of twins with whom he is well acquainted: “Whilst I knew them, for a period of two years, there was not the slightest tendency towards a difference in body or mind; external influences seemed powerless to produce any dissimilarity.” The mother of two other twins, after describing how they were ill simultaneously up to the age of fifteen, adds, that they shed their first milk teeth within a few hours of each other.

Trousseau has a very remarkable case (in the chapter on Asthma) in his important work, “Clinique Médicale.” It was quoted at length in the original French in Mr. Darwin's “Variation Under Domestication,” - The following is a translation:

“I attended twin brothers so extraordinarily alike, that it was impossible for me to tell which was which without seeing them side by side. But their physical likeness extended still deeper for they had, so to speak, a yet more remarkable pathological resemblance. Thus, one of them, whom I saw at the Néothermes at Paris, suffering from rheumatic ophthalmia, said to me, 'At this instant, my brother must be having an ophthalmia like mine;' and, as I had exclaimed against such an assertion, he showed me a few days afterwards a letter just received by him from his brother, who was at that time at Vienna, and who expressed himself in these words: 'I have my ophthalmia; you must be having yours.' However singular this story may appear, the fact is none the less exact: it has not been told to me by others, but I have seen it myself; and I have seen other analogous cases in my practice. These twins were also asthmatic, and asthmatic to a frightful degree. Though born in Marseilles, they never were able to stay in that town, where their business affairs required them to go, without having an attack. Still more strange, it was sufficient for them to get away only as far as Toulon in order to be cured of the attack caught at Marseilles. They travelled continually, and in all countries, on business affairs, and they remarked that certain localities were extremely hurtful to them, and that in others they were free from all asthmatic symptoms.”

I do not like to pass over here a most dramatic tale in the Psychologie Morbide of Dr. J. Moreau (de Tours), Médecin de l'Hospice de Bicetre. Paris, 1859 - . He speaks “of two twin brothers who had been confined, on account of monomania, at Bicetre.... Physically the two young men are so nearly alike that the one is easily mistaken for the other. Morally, their resemblance is no less complete, and is most remarkable in its details. Thus, their dominant ideas are absolutely the same. They both consider themselves subject to imaginary persecutions; the same enemies have sworn their destruction, and employ the same means to effect it. Both have hallucinations of hearing. They are both of them melancholy and morose; they never address a word to anybody, and will hardly answer the questions that others address to them. They always keep apart and never communicate with one another. An extremely curious fact which has been frequently noted by the superintendents of their section of the hospital, and by myself, is this: From time to time, at very irregular intervals of two, three, and many months, without appreciable cause, and by the purely spontaneous effect of their illness, a very marked change takes place in the condition of the two brothers. Both of them, at the same time, and often on the same day, rouse themselves from their habitual stupor and prostration; they make the same complaints, and they come of their own accord to the physician, with an urgent request to be liberated. I have seen this strange thing occur, even when they were some miles apart, the one being at Bicetre and the other living at Sainte-Anne.”

Dr. Moreau ranked as a very considerable medical authority, but I cannot wholly accept this strange story without fuller information. Dr. Moreau writes it in too off-hand a way to carry the conviction that he had investigated the circumstances with the sceptic spirit and scrupulous exactness which so strange a phenomenon would have required. If full and precise notes of the case exist, they certainly ought to be published at length. I sent a copy of this passage to the principal authorities among the physicians to the insane in England, asking if they had ever witnessed any similar case. In reply, I have received three noteworthy instances, but none to be compared in their exact parallelism with that just given. The details of these three cases are painful, and it is not necessary to my general purpose that I should further allude to them.

There is another curious French case of insanity in twins, which was pointed out to me by Professor Paget, described by Dr. Baume in the Annales Medico-Psychologiques, -  of which the following is an abstract. The original contains a few more details, but it is too long to quote: Francois and Martin, fifty years of age, worked as railroad contractors between Quimper and Châteaulin. Martin had twice had slight attacks of insanity. On January 15, a box in which the twins deposited their savings was robbed. On the night of January 23-4 both Francois (who lodged at Quimper) and Martin (who lived with his wife and children at St. Lorette, two leagues from Quimper) had the same dream at the same hour, three A. M., and both awoke with a violent start, calling out, “I have caught the thief! I have caught the thief! they are doing injury to my brother!” They were both of them extremely agitated, and gave way to similar extravagances, dancing and leaping. Martin sprang on his grandchild, declaring that he was the thief, and would have strangled him if he had not been prevented: he then became steadily worse, complained of violent pains in his head, went out of doors on some excuse, and tried to drown himself in the River Steir, but was forcibly stopped by his son, who had watched and followed him. He was then taken to an asylum by gendarmes, where he died in three days. Francois, on his part calmed down on the morning of the 24th, and employed the day in enquiring about the robbery. By a strange chance he crossed his brother's path at the moment when the latter was struggling with the gendarmes; then he himself became maddened, giving way to extravagant gestures and making incoherent proposals (similar to those of his brother). He then asked to be bled, which was done, and afterwards, declaring himself to be better, went out on the pretext of executing some commission, but really to drown himself in the River Steir, which he actually did, at the very spot where Martin had attempted to do the same thing a few hours previously.

The next point which I shall mention, in illustration of the extremely close resemblance between certain twins, is the similarity in the association of their ideas. No less than eleven out of the thirty-five cases testify to this. They make the same remarks on the same occasion, begin singing the same song at the same moment, and so on; or one would commence a sentence, and the other would finish it. An observant friend graphically described to me the effect produced on her by two such twins whom she had met casually. She said: “Their teeth grew alike, they spoke alike and together, and said the same things, and seemed just like one person.” One of the most curious anecdotes that I have received concerning this similarity of ideas was that one twin A, who happened to be at a town in Scotland, bought a set of champagne glasses which caught his attention, as a surprise for his brother B; while at the same time, B, being in England, bought a similar set of precisely the same pattern as a surprise for A. Other anecdotes of a like kind have reached me about these twins.

The last point to which I shall allude regards the tastes and dispositions of the thirty-five pairs of twins. In sixteen cases - that is, in nearly one half of them - these were described as closely similar; in the remaining nineteen they were much alike, but subject to certain named differences. These differences belonged almost wholly to such groups of qualities as these: The one was the more vigorous, fearless, energetic; the other was gentle, clinging, and timid: or, again, the one was more ardent, the other more calm and gentle; or again, the one was the more independent, original, and self-contained; the other the more generous, hasty, and vivacious. In short the difference was always that of intensity or energy in one or other of its protean forms: it did not extend more deeply into the structure of the characters. The more vivacious might be subdued by ill health, until he assumed the character of the other; or the latter might be raised by excellent health to that of the former. The difference is in the key-note, not in the melody.

It follows from what has been said concerning the similar dispositions of the twins, the similarity in the associations of their ideas, of their special ailments, and of their illnesses generally, that the resemblances are not superficial, but extremely intimate. I have only two cases altogether of a strong bodily resemblance being accompanied by mental diversity, and one case only of the converse kind. It must be remembered that the conditions which govern extreme likeness between twins are not the same as those between ordinary brothers and sisters (I may have hereafter to write further about this); and that it would be wholly incorrect to generalize from what has just been said about the twins, that mental and bodily likeness are invariably co-ordinate; such being by no means the case.

We are now in a position to understand that the phrase “close similarity” is no exaggeration, and to realize the value of the evidence about to be adduced. Here are thirty-five cases of twins who were “closely alike” in body and mind when they were young, and who have been reared exactly alike up to their early manhood and womanhood. Since then the conditions of their lives have changed; what change of conditions has produced the most variation?

It was with no little interest that I searched the records of the thirty-five cases for an answer; and they gave an answer that was not altogether direct, but it was very distinct, and not at all what I had expected. They showed me that in some cases the resemblance of body and mind had continued unaltered up to old age, notwithstanding very different conditions of life; and they showed in the other cases that the parents ascribed such dissimilarity as there was wholly, or almost wholly, to some form of illness. In four cases it was scarlet fever; in one case, typhus; in one, a slight effect was ascribed to a nervous fever: then I find effects from an Indian climate; from an illness (unnamed) of nine months' duration; from varicose veins; from a bad fracture of the leg, which prevented all active exercise afterwards; and there were three other cases of ill health. It will be sufficient to quote one of the returns; in this the father writes:

“At birth they were exactly alike, except that one was born with a bad varicose affection, the effect of which had been to prevent any violent exercise, such as dancing, or running, and, as she has grown older, to make her more serious and thoughtful. Had it not been for this infirmity, I think the two would have been as exactly alike as it is possible for two women to be, both mentally and physically; even now they are constantly mistaken for one another.”

In only a very few cases is there some allusion to the dissimilarity being partly due to the combined action of many small influences, and in no case is it largely, much less wholly, ascribed to that cause. In not a single instance have I met with a word about the growing dissimilarity being due to the action of the firm, free will of one or both of the twins, which had triumphed over natural tendencies; and yet a large proportion of my correspondents happen to be clergymen whose bent of mind is opposed, as I feel assured from the tone of their letters, to a necessitarian view of life.

It has been remarked that a growing diversity between twins may be ascribed to the tardy development of naturally diverse qualities; but we have a right, upon the evidence I have received, to go further than this. We have seen that a few twins retain their close resemblance through life; in other words, instances do exist of thorough similarity of nature, and in these external circumstances do not create dissimilarity. Therefore, in those cases, where there is a growing diversity, and where no external cause can be assigned either by the twins themselves or by their family for it, we may feel sure that it must be chiefly or altogether due to a want of thorough similarity in their nature. Nay further, in some cases it is distinctly affirmed that the growing dissimilarity can be accounted for in no other way. We may therefore broadly conclude that the only circumstance, within the range of those by which persons of similar conditions of life are affected, capable of producing a marked effect on the character of adults, is illness or some accident which causes physical infirmity. The twins who closely resembled each other in childhood and early youth, and were reared under not very dissimilar conditions, either grow unlike through the development of natural characteristics which had lain dormant at first, or else they continue their lives, keeping time like two watches, hardly to be thrown out of accord except by some physical jar. Nature is far stronger than nurture within the limited range that I have been careful to assign to the latter.

The effect of illness, as shown by these replies, is great, and well deserves further consideration. It appears that the constitution of youth is not so elastic as we are apt to think, but that an attack, say of scarlet fever, leaves a permanent mark, easily to be measured by the present method of comparison. This recalls an impression made strongly on my mind several years ago by the sight of a few curves drawn by a mathematical friend. He took monthly measurements of the circumference of his children's heads during the first few years of their lives, and he laid down the successive measurements on the successive lines of a piece of ruled paper, by taking the edge of the paper as a base. He then joined the free ends of the lines, and so obtained a curve of growth. These curves had, on the whole, that regularity of sweep that might have been expected, but each of them showed occasional halts, like the landing places on a long flight of stairs. The development had been arrested by something, and was not made up for by after growth. Now, on the same piece of paper my friend had also registered the various infantile illnesses of the children, and corresponding to each illness was one of these halts. There remained no doubt in my mind that, if these illnesses had been warped off, the development of the children would have been increased by almost the precise amount lost in these halts. In other words, the disease had drawn largely upon the capital, and not only on the income, of their constitutions. I hope these remarks may induce some men of science to repeat similar experiments on their children of the future. They may compress two years of a child's history on one side of a ruled half-sheet of foolscap paper if they cause each successive line to stand for a successive month, beginning from the birth of the child; and if they mark off the measurements by laying, not the 0-inch division of the tape against the edge of the pages, but, say, the 10-inch division - in order to economize space.

The steady and pitiless march of the hidden weaknesses in our constitutions, through illness to death, is painfully revealed by these histories of twins. We are too apt to look upon illness and death as capricious events, and there are some who ascribe them to the direct effect of supernatural interference, whereas the fact of the maladies of two twins being continually alike, shows that illness and death are necessary incidents in a regular sequence of constitutional changes, beginning at birth, upon which external circumstances have, on the whole, very small effect. In cases where the maladies of the twins are continually alike, the clock of life moves regularly on, governed by internal mechanism. When the hand approaches the hour mark, there is a sudden click, followed by a whirling of wheels; at the culminating moment, the stroke falls. Necessitarians may derive new arguments from the life histories of twins.

We will now consider the converse side of our subject. Hitherto we have investigated cases where the similarity at first was close, but afterwards became less: now we will examine those in which there was great dissimilarity at first, and will see how far an identity of nurture in childhood and youth tended to assimilate them. As has been already mentioned, there is a large proportion of cases of sharply contrasted characteristics, both of body and mind, among twins. I have twenty such cases, given with much detail. It is a fact, that extreme dissimilarity, such as existed between Esau and Jacob, is a no less marked peculiarity in twins of the same sex, than extreme similarity. On this curious point, and on much else in the history of twins, I have many remarks to make, but this is not the place to make them.

The evidence given by the twenty cases above mentioned is absolutely accordant, so that the character of the whole may be exactly conveyed by two or three quotations. One parent says: “They have had exactly the same nurture from their birth up to the present time; they are both perfectly healthy and strong, yet they are otherwise as dissimilar as two boys could be, physically, mentally, and in their emotional nature. ” Here is another case: “I can answer most decidedly that the twins have been perfectly dissimilar in character, habits, and likeness from the moment of their birth to the present time, though they were nursed by the same woman, went to school together, and were never separated till the age of fifteen.” Here again is one more, in which the father remarks: “They were curiously different in body and mind from their birth.” The surviving twin (a senior wrangler of Cambridge) adds: “A fact struck all our school contemporaries, that my brother and I were complementary, so to speak, in point of ability and disposition. He was contemplative, poetical, and literary to a remarkable degree, showing great power in that line. I was practical, mathematical, and linguistic. Between us we should have made a very decent sort of a man.” I could quote others just as strong as these, while I have not a single case in which my correspondents speak of originally dissimilar characters having become assimilated through identity of nurture. The impression that all this evidence leaves on the mind is one of some wonder whether nurture can do anything at all beyond giving instruction and professional training. It emphatically corroborates and goes far beyond the conclusions to which we had already been driven by the cases of similarity. In these, the causes of divergence began to act about the period of adult life, when the characters had become somewhat fixed; but here the causes conducive to assimilation began to act from the earliest moment of the existence of the twins, when the disposition was most pliant, and they were continuous until the period of adult life. There is no escape from the conclusion that nature prevails enormously over nurture when the differences of nurture do not exceed what is commonly to be found among persons of the same rank of society and in the same country. My only fear is that my evidence seems to prove too much and may be discredited on that account, as it seems contrary to all experience that nurture should go for little. But experience is often fallacious in ascribing great effects to trifling circumstances. Many a person has amused himself with throwing bits of stick into a tiny brook and watching their progress; how they are arrested, first by one chance obstacle, then by another; and again, how their onward course is facilitated by a combination of circumstances. He might ascribe much importance to each of these events, and think how largely the destiny of the stick has been governed by a series of trifling accidents. Nevertheless all the sticks succeed in passing down the current, and they travel, in the long run, at nearly the same rate. So it is with life in respect to the several accidents which seem to have had a great effect upon our careers. The one element, which varies in different individuals, but is constant in each of them, is the natural tendency; it corresponds to the current in the stream, and invariably asserts itself. More might be added on this matter, and much might be said in qualification of the broad conclusions to which we have arrived, as to the points in which education appears to create the most permanent effect; how far by training the intellect and how far by subjecting the boy to a higher or lower tone of public opinion; but this is foreign to my immediate object. The latter has been to show broadly, and, I trust, convincingly, that statistical estimation of natural gifts by a comparison of successes in life, is not open to the objection stated at the beginning of this memoir. We have only to take reasonable care in selecting our statistics, and then we may safely ignore the many small differences in nurture which are sure to have characterized each individual case.

ROMANIAN ILLUSTRATOR ZORINA BALDESCU (fantasy - children)

 

Zorina Baldescu is a talented artist who gave the world the magical world of a fairy tale. Zorina was born in Bucharest in 1954. Graduated from the Nicolae Grigorescu Academy of Fine Arts in 1978, Faculty of Monumental Art and Restoration. Bachelor of Arts. Zorina Baldescu has participated in the most important national and municipal exhibitions. The artist's works were acquired by private collectors from Romania, Germany, France, Denmark, Spain, Austria and Canada, including: portraits, still lifes, landscapes, paintings, reproductions, icons, decorative paintings .But the fairy tales illustrated by Zorina Baldesku are a special, magical and charming world. You can feel a sincere love for the audience, a flight of fantasy and admiration for the beauty of the surrounding world. The curious world invites you to enjoy the fabulous illustrations of the artist Zorina Baldescu.

THE THREE GIANTS - by Mrs. Marcet

 

Once upon a time, a poor man who had a large family left England to go and see if he could find a better living for himself across the seas. There were many others on board the ship, and for a time all went well; but when they were nearing the end of their journey, a great storm arose. The winds blew, the waves rose and roared, and broke upon the ship; and at last they were very glad to be able to let her drift aground on the nearest land, which they found to be an island on which no one was living.

They all got safely to shore; and as the ship was broken up by the wind and the waves, they were able to get many planks, and nails, and other useful things from the ship, and from its cargo, with which they built themselves houses, made spades and ploughs, so that they were not so badly off after all. They had plenty of corn to last them until they could grow some more, and for a time all went well. But after they had got a good crop of corn, they had to grind it into flour, and this took a long time. There were no flour mills on the island, and John Jobson for that was the name of the laboring man, had to spend hours every day grinding the grain into flour for his wife and family to eat.

One day, after he had been grinding until his back ached and his arms were very tired, he began to be in despair. If it took him so much time grinding his grain, he would have no time left to look after the little farm which he had laid out. His little boys, although they had great appetites and ate as much bread as their mother could make out of the flour which their father ground between the two millstones, were not strong enough to help him. All the other settlers were just in the same position. They had no machines to do any work for them. Everything had to be done with their hands. There were no people to hire as servants; and if there had been, they could not have paid them any  wages, for they were poor and had no money. So Jobson became very down hearted, and not knowing what to do, thought he would take a stroll in the country and think over things.

He climbed up some rising ground, and walked a long way among the hills, wondering what on earth he should do if he could get no help. He was going up a little valley, which turned suddenly, and there to his great astonishment he saw a monstrous Giant. He was terribly scared, and would have run away as hard as he possibly could, but on taking a second look at the giant he saw that he was asleep. Jobson looked again, and wondered at the immense size of the giant. He could hardly see to the end of him, and he saw that he was enormously strong; yet he looked so harmless and good-humored, that Jobson stood gazing on him till his fear was nearly over. He was clad in a robe of dazzling brightness where the sun shone upon it, but the greater part was shaded by the trees; and it reflected all their different colors, which made it look like a green changing silk. As Jobson stood, lost in amazement, the giant opened his eyes, and turned towards him with a good-humored smile.

As soon as Jobson saw him open his eyes he started to run again, feeling sure that he could have no chance if so huge a giant were to catch him; but as he ran the giant spoke. He was still lying down on his back in the grass, and his voice was gentle and kind.

"Do not be afraid," he said. "I will do you no harm."

"But you are so big," said Jobson, looking timidly at the giant, and making ready to run the moment the giant stirred.

But the giant did not stir. He said, "Yes, I am very strong and very big, but I will do you no harm."

As he still lay and smiled kindly, Jobson came nearer to him, and at last all fear began to leave him. Then he asked the giant who he was.

"My name," said the giant, "is Aquafluens."

"And where do you live?" said Jobson.

"I live in the island. I have always lived here, long before you came."

"Then does it belong to you?" said Jobson, fearing that the giant might treat him as a trespasser.

"I do not know," said the giant. "What does 'belong' mean?"

Jobson thought it was a queer question, but said nothing. Then Jobson began to think whether it might be possible to get this good-natured giant, who seemed so strong, to help him in his work. "Do you ever work?" he said to the giant.

"Oh yes," said he; "I can work if you will set me work to do. I like it. All work is play to me."

Then Jobson's heart was glad within him, and he thought to himself, "Here is one who could grind all my corn with his little finger, but dare I ask him?" So he thought for a time, and then he said, "You said you would work for any one?"

"Yes," said Aquafluens, gently, "for any one who will teach me to work."

"Then," said Jobson, "would you work for me?"

"Yes," said the giant; "if you will teach me."

"But what wages must I pay you ?" asked Jobson.

Then the giant laughed, and said, "What queer words you use. You say 'belong.' What does 'belong' mean? I do not know. You say 'wages.' What are 'wages'? I have never heard of them."

At this Jobson thought the giant must be mad, and he was a little afraid; then again he thought to himself, "Perhaps he is not mad, but only weak in his head. Giants, they say, are often not very wise." So he tried to explain. "What shall I give you if you work for me?"

"Give me?" said the giant; "what a joke! You need give me nothing, I will work for you for love."

Then Jobson could hardly believe his ears, but he thought he would go home at once and tell his wife the good news, that he had got a great, strong giant who would work for him for nothing.

"Where are you going?" said the giant.

"I am going home to tell my wife."

"Had you not better let me carry you?" said the giant.

Then Jobson was frightened in his heart. "Perhaps if I say yes the giant will swallow me alive." But he did not tell him so.

"How can you carry me?" said he.

"I can carry you any way you like," said the giant, "so long as the road goes down hill."

"Oh, it is down hill all the way!" said Jobson.

"Then," said he, "you must get upon my back, and I will carry you there as quick as you like."

Jobson was afraid, for when he came to look at the giant's back, and put his hand upon it, it sank right in; then he saw that the skin was so soft that, when you pressed upon it, it gave way under your hand, or your foot, and you seemed to sink right into the giant's back. So Jobson was terrified, and screamed as he pulled his hand out of the hole that he had made in the giant; but to his surprise the hole closed up, just as if he had never thrust his hand in. But his hand was wet with the giant's blood. It was such queer blood; it was quite cold, and it had no color.

Then the giant said, "That will never do, for you are so small and so heavy for your little size, that you would sink into me if you tried to sit on my back."

"But what can I do?" said Jobson. The giant took a tree-trunk which was lying close at hand, and put it on his shoulder. "Now," said he, "jump onto this trunk, and I will carry you safely."

Jobson was very frightened when he sat on the log, for he thought nothing would be more likely than for the log and himself to sink out of sight in the giant's body, but he soon found that although the log sank in a little way, it did not sink in far enough for him to touch the giant's body with his feet. He was very glad, for he felt all wet and cold where his arm seemed to have gone through the giant's skin. "You had better have a pole with you to steady yourself with." Jobson picked up a long stick, and climbed up once more onto the giant's shoulders, where the great log lay; he seated himself, and waited with terror for the giant's movement. He thought that if he had seven-league boots he might throw him up into the air. He would fall off, he was sure; but, to his great surprise, the giant neither jumped, nor stepped, nor ran; he seemed in the strangest way to glide, without making any noise, down the valley, across the hill to the place where his cottage stood. When they came within sight of the cottage his wife and children were standing on a little hillock looking for him, and when they saw him seated on the shoulders of this strange monster they nearly had a fit with fright. The children ran into the house, and the wife fell at the feet of the great giant, saying, "Have mercy on my poor husband!" But the giant laughed and lay down on the grass: then Jobson jumped off the trunk and told his wife of the glad news, that this was a good giant, and that he would do all their work for them. The children came out of the house and looked timidly at the monster, who, as soon as he had lain down, closed his eyes and seemed to be sound asleep.

Jobson went into the house to tell his wife all of the wonderful story of the giant, but his wife did not seem to like the idea of employing the giant.

"But he will work for nothing, wife," said Jobson.

The wife shook her head. "That is all very well," she said; "but think of the food he will eat. He would swallow all the food we have in the house for breakfast, and we should starve."

The husband scratched his head, and said he had never thought of that. "But," he said, "let us go and ask him how much food we must give him."

"And what drink he will want, and where will you put him up?" said the wife.

Jobson began to believe that his workman was not such a good bargain after all.

So when they drew near to the giant, he opened his eyes and asked what was the matter.

Jobson said they were afraid they would not be able to put him up in their house, as he was too big to enter at the door.

"Oh," said the giant, "that does not matter, for I never live in a house. I will simply sleep here in the grass under the sky."

"But," said Jobson, "we are afraid that we shall not be able to feed you."

"Feed me?" said the giant, laughing, with a little ripply murmur that shook all his body. "Who asked you for any food? I never eat anything."

Then Jobson's wife was frightened, and said she was afraid that there must be something uncanny about him. But Jobson went on asking:

"What do you drink?" said he.

"Only fresh water," said the giant.

Jobson was very pleased, and looking in triumph at his wife, said to him:

"And how much work can you do in a day?"

"As much as you like," said the giant.

"But I mean," said he, "how many hours will you work?"

"As many hours as there are on the face of the clock," said the giant.

"You mean twelve," said the wife.

"No," said the giant. "I mean all the hours that are in a day."

"What!" said Jobson, "never stop night or day? And do you never sleep?"

"When I have nothing to do," said the giant, "I sleep, but as long as you give me work I will go on working."

"But do you never get tired?" said Jobson.

"Tired !" said the giant, "I don't know what that is. That is another funny word. What a queer language you speak. What is being tired ?"

Then Jobson looked at his wife and his wife looked at him, and they said nothing for a little time. Then they asked him when he was ready to begin.

"At once," he said; "as soon as you have put things right for me."

"What things?" said they.

"I told you I can only work going down hill. If you want me to work hard you must let me have some place that is very steep, and make a step ladder for me to go down on. If you will fix a wheel with steps on it, so that I can step on the steps and make the wheel go round, I can do anything you like."

"Could you grind corn?" said Jobson's wife.

"I can grind stones," said the giant, laughing.

So Jobson and his wife set about building a mill with a step wheel for the giant. They connected a big wheel for the giant to step upon with grindstones on the inside of the mill, so when the giant stepped upon the wheel outside, he made the millstones inside go round and round and grind the wheat. When it was all finished they came to the giant and asked him if he was ready to begin.

"Yes," he said.

"Begin then," said Jobson.

And the giant slowly and steadily stepped first on one step of the wheel and then on another until it began to go round and round, and the millstones went round and round, and so it went on until the whole of a sack of corn was ground into flour, and still the giant went on, and on, and on.

"Are you not tired?" said Jobson to him.

"I don't know what you mean," said he.

"Well, now," said Jobson, "do you think you could get me some stones from the quarry?"

"Easily," said the giant. "But what have I to carry them in?"

Then Jobson made a long box and put it upon the giant's back; but he found that it was not so easy going, for the road was quite flat, and over and over again the giant stopped. He could go very well down hill, but on level ground he needed to be poked along with a long pole which Jobson carried. When it came to the least down hill, he went as quick as could be. This bothered Jobson a great deal, for he saw that if the giant could only go down hill, he could not be nearly so useful as if he could go both ways. So he spoke about it to the giant once, and he laughed and said: "Hum! you must get my brother, he could help me to go as quick along the level ground as I do when I am going down hill; but even he could not make me go up hill. Is there not plenty of work I can do without that?"

"Certainly," said Jobson; and soon he had the giant set to work to make all kinds of things.

When he had ground all the corn, they took away the millstones and fixed up a saw which had come ashore from the wreck. They found that the giant could saw wood as well as he could grind corn. They asked him if he would bring down the trees from the hills, with which they could make planks to floor their cottage.

"Nothing is easier," said the giant; and when the logs came down, he sawed them all up into planks, and soon the Jobsons were so comfortable that they not only had enough planks for themselves, but they had more than they wanted, so they gave them to the neighbors. Every one was very anxious to find out if there were any more giants in the island, because they could see that Giant Aquafluens was more useful than twenty men. He never ate, he never slept, he only drank cold water, and day and night he would go on working as regularly as if he were a machine. Only, when the sun got very hot, and he could not get any water to drink, his strength seemed to wither away, but a good heavy shower of rain set him up in time, and then he would work away as hard as ever.

One day Jobson asked him where this brother of his could be found. "You will find him usually on the hilltops," said Aquafluens; "but occasionally he comes sweeping down, and disturbs me in the grass where I am lying."

"Can he do as much work as you?"

"When he Is in the humor, but sometimes he is not; and sometimes he gets into a frightful temper, until you think he is going to destroy everything. He even gets me mad sometimes," said Aquafluens.

At this Jobson was silent, and wondered greatly, for he had never seen his good giant in a passion. He told all this to a neighbor called Jackson, who was very anxious to have a giant of his own; and no sooner did he hear that the stormy-tempered brother of Aquafluens lived on the hilltops, than he went out into the mountains to see if he could find him.

At length, one day, Jackson, climbing a high rock, saw a magnificent figure seated upon the summit. He could scarcely distinguish the shape for his eyes were dazzled by its brightness; but what struck him most were two enormous wings, as large as the sails of a ship, but thin and transparent as the wings of a gnat. Jackson doubted not but that this was the brother of Aquafluens. Alarmed at the account he had heard of the uncertainty of his temper, he hesitated whether to approach. The hope of gain, however, tempted him, and as he drew nearer he observed that he also had a smiling countenance. So mustering up courage he ventured to accost him, and inquire whether he was the person they had so long been in search of, and whether he would engage in his service.

"My name is Ventosus," cried the winged giant, "and I am ready to work for you, if you will let me have my own way. I am not of the low disposition of my brother, who plods on with the same uniform pace. I cannot help sometimes laughing at his slow motion, and I amuse myself with ruffling his placid temper, in order to make him jog on a little faster. I frequently lend him a helping hand when he is laden with a heavy burden. I perch upon his bosom, and stretching out my wings I move with such rapidity as almost to lift him from the ground."

Jackson was astonished to hear Aquafluens accused of sluggishness; he told Ventosus what a prodigious quantity of work he had done for the colony.

"He is a snail compared to me, for all that," holloed out Ventosus, who had sometimes a very loud voice; and to show his rapidity he spread his wings, and was out of sight in a moment.

Jackson was sadly frightened, lest he should be gone forever; but he soon returned, and consented to accompany Jackson home, on condition that he would settle him in an elevated spot of ground.

"My house is built on the brow of a hill," said Jackson, "and I shall place yours on the summit."

"Well," said the giant, "if you will get me a couple of millstones, I will grind you as much corn in one hour as Aquafluens can in two. Like my brother, I work without food or wages; but then I have an independent spirit, I cannot bear confinement; I work only when I have a mind to it, and I follow no will but my own."

"This is not such a tractable giant as Aquafluens," thought Jackson; "but he is still more powerful, so I must try to manage his temper as well as I can."

His wonderful form and the lightness of his wings excited great admiration. Jackson immediately set about building a house for him on the hill to grind corn in, and meanwhile, Ventosus took a flight into the valley to see his brother. He found him carrying a heavy load of planks, which he had lately sawed, to their proprietor. They embraced each other, and Ventosus, being in a good humor, said, "Come, brother, let me help you forward with your load, you will never get on at this lazy pace."

"Lazy pace!" exclaimed one of the children, who was seated on the load of wood on the giant's back; "why, there is no man who can walk half or quarter so fast."

"True," replied Ventosus; "but we are not such pygmies as you."

So he seated himself beside the child, stretched out his wings, and off they flew with a rapidity which at first terrified the boy; but when he found he was quite safe, he was delighted to sail through the air almost as quickly as a bird flies. When they arrived, and the wood had been unloaded, Aquafluens said, "Now, brother, you may help me back again."

"Not I," said Ventosus; "I am going on, straight forward. If you choose to go along with me, well and good; if not, you may make your way home as you please."

Aquafluens thought this very unkind, and he began to argue with his brother; but this only led to a dispute. Aquafluens' temper was at length ruffled; Ventosus flew into a passion: he struggled with his brother, and roared louder than any wild beast. Aquafluens then lost all self-command, and actually foamed with rage. The poor child stood at a distance, trembling with fear. He hardly knew the face of his old friend, so much was his countenance distorted by wrath; he looked as if he could almost have swallowed him up. At length, Ventosus disengaged himself from his brother, and flew out of his sight; but his sighs and moans were still heard afar off. Aquafluens also murmured loudly at the ill-treatment he had received; but he composed himself by degrees, and, taking the boy on his back, slowly returned home.

Jackson inquired eagerly after Ventosus, and when the child told him all that had happened, he was much alarmed for fear Ventosus should never return; and he was the more disappointed, as he had prepared everything for him to go to work. Ventosus, however, came back in the night, and when Jackson went to set him to work in the morning, he found that nearly half the corn was already ground. This was a wonderful performance. Yet, upon the whole, Ventosus did not prove of such use to the colony as his brother. He would carry with astonishing quickness; but then he would always carry his own way; so that it was necessary to know what direction he intended to take, before you could confide any goods to his charge; and then, when you thought them sure to arrive on account of the rapidity with which they were conveyed, Ventosus would sometimes suddenly change his mind, and veer about with the fickleness of a weathercock; so that the goods, instead of reaching their place of destination, were carried to some other place or brought to the spot whence they set out. This inconvenience could not happen with regard to grinding corn; but one of no less importance often did occur. Ventosus, when not inclined to work, disappeared, and was nowhere to be found.

The benefit derived from the labor of these two giants had so much improved the state of the colony that not only were the cottages well floored, and had good doors and window-shutters, but there was abundance of comfortable furniture - bedsteads, tables, chairs, chests, and cupboards, as many as could be wished; and the men and women, now that they were relieved from the most laborious work, could employ themselves in making a number of things which before they had not time for. It was no wonder, therefore, that the desire to discover more giants was uppermost in men's minds.

They were always asking Aquafluens about where they could find another giant, for he was ever with them and never flew away, so they could always ask questions; while Ventosus used to fly away and disappear if they bothered him with questions which he did not like to answer.

They hunted high and low for more giants, but they found none. The heart of Aquafluens was grieved within him, that they should seek so much for a giant that did not need always to go down hill. So one day, after much doubt, he told Jobson that there was another giant who was stronger than he, and much more constant and regular in his work than Ventosus, who was here today and away tomorrow, and whom you could never be sure of. This giant was the strongest of all giants, but he was also dangerous.

"I will then have nothing to do with him," said Jobson.

"Well," said Aquafluens, "if you know how to manage him he will work for you."

"Can he go up hill?" said his little boy.

"As easily as I can go down," said Aquafluens.

"And who is this giant?" said Jobson.

"Alas," said Aquafluens, mournfully, "he is my own son."

"Where is he?"

"You can only bring him by a charm, and if you are not very careful, he may burst out and kill you."

"Is he so very violent?" said Jobson.

"Very. His breath is scalding hot, and he is a more expensive giant than either my brother or myself."

"Must you pay him, then?" said Jobson's wife.

"He will work without pay, but he needs to be kept hot. He will not work at all unless he is seated right on the top of blazing coals."

"What a funny giant!" said Jobson's little boy. "Does he not burn up?"

"No, the hotter you make the fire the stronger he grows, but when the fire grows cold, all his strength seems to die."

The Jobsons had a long talk over this, and decided that they had better not have anything to do with this strange giant. But once, when they wanted a great deal of heavy stones carried up the hill, they were driven to ask Aquafluens if he would tell them the charm.

"Yes," said he; "it is very simple, but you must not be afraid."

"No," said they, "we will not be afraid."

"Then take a little of my blood."

"Never!" said Jobson's wife.

"No, you do not need to be afraid," said Aquafluens; "you only need to take a very little."

"And what must we do with it?"

"You must put it into an iron pot, and then put it on the fire."

They were very loth to do this; but at last, their need being great, they did so. They were relieved to find that the taking of his blood did not seem to hurt the good, kind giant, and then they put the pot on the fire, and waited to see what would happen. After a time, they heard a singing noise, and they began to be frightened. At last out of the pot there came a cloudy vapor, which rose higher and higher and higher, until it went away. But they saw no giant.

So they went to Aquafluens, and told him that the charm would not work. He asked them what they had done, and they told him, and he said, "But did I not tell you my son would never work unless you put him in prison? I will give you some more of my blood, and you must put it in an iron pot and put the lid on, and fasten it down tight, and then see what will happen."

So they did as the good giant said. They took some more of his blood, put it into the iron pot, and put on a heavy lid, and fastened it on tight, then they put it on the blazing fire, and waited. This time they were terribly frightened, for after a time the iron pot burst into a thousand pieces, and blew all over the place, hurting Jobson's wife on the head, and cutting Jobson's hand. So they ran away frightened and told Aquafluens.

"Ah," he said, "I told you my son was a dangerous child, but he is very strong, and if you give him nothing to do he does mischief. So you must give him a handle to turn. If you do that, he will not burst anything, but will turn the handle as hard as ever you like."

And they did just as the giant told them, and they found that everything happened just so, for the new giant, whose name was Vaporifer, was a strong and willing worker. Up hill and down dale made no difference to him. He could carry and do everything they gave him to, but they must keep him hot, and they must give him a wheel to turn. If at any time he stopped they had to let him get out, otherwise, if he had no wheel to turn, and could not get out, he would blow his prison to pieces.

Thus it came to pass that Ventosus was wanted very little, for Jobson and his friends liked Vaporifer, who was regular and steady in his ways, and could be relied upon always to do what was wanted.

Aquafluens was still the most useful and the cheapest of all the giants, but his son Vaporifer was much stronger and more handy than his father. Nor was there any limit to what he could do if only they would give him plenty of heat and always let him have a wheel to turn.

***

                          

Now, then, who do you think were these three giants? Perhaps you have already guessed from their names, and from their description. The first giant, Aquafluens, is the great giant of running water, which will always run down hill, but which comes to a standstill on level ground, and cannot go up hill, no matter what happens. It is this great giant which turned all the water-mills, which ground the corn, and sawed the wood, and did all manner of work. Ventosus, his brother, is the wind which bloweth whither it listeth, and sometimes, lashes the water into stormy waves. While as to that of Vaporifer, you surely understand that it is nothing else but steam. These three giants are real giants who are still doing their work day by day, and every day. There are no servants of man who have worked so cheaply, so untiringly, and so well.