Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1854-09-21
Foreign Correspondent Of the o. s. Journal.
FROM PARIS.
PARIS, August 23, 1854.

j FROM PARIS.
PARIS, August 23, 1854.
The German papers report fact so
extraordinary, that we should refuse to
igive it faith, if it was not confirmed by
the most competent men. and by the
learned bodies of Berlin, Vienna and
Munich.
] A very rich old lady, the Countess
de x, had by her first marriage,
two twin sons, whom she loved fondly.
After having trembled long while for
their existence, she decided to quit Ger
many, her native country, where she
possessed, Independent Of vast and
magnificent chateau, an immense prop
Ierty under rent She travelled, con-
suited the most eminent physicians, and
fnally fixed her residence in Italy
There, under the influence of beauti-
full sky, the two boys grew up, but they
preserved she expressive nervous i'm
pressibiIly which had, since their in
fancy, put their lives in peril. The two
boys had between them remarkable
resemblance; they both engaged in the
culture of arts, but especially to paint
ing. At sixteen years of age, they
were already cited as masters; but at
this epoch new crisis appeared; the
same symptoms, the same pains; the
physicians decided that to prevent the
return of these nervous crisis, the young
men should be separated. They obsti-
nately refused at first, but vanquished
by the supplications of their distracted
mother, they consented to the painful
separation. 1t was left to chance which
one should leave the maternal roof, and
it fell on Alfred.
Alfred K. started on the tour Of
Greece and Egypt; the journey was to
continue a year. Alfred wrote regular
ly every day to his mother and brother;
he sent them his drawings and his pic
lures. But what was remarkable, the
young man who remained in Italy lived
so perfectly the life of his brother, that
he designed and painted exactly and
simultaneously what his brother de-
signed and painted after nature. Each
time that package arrived from Athens
or Alexandria, the paintings, the
aquarells that they contained had al
ready their duplicates in the studio of
the brother-duplicates so faithful that
the artists themselves could find no diff
ference.
One day, returning from a journey
in Upper Egypt, Alfred K. died, and
the physicians sent to the family de-
tailed account of all the circumstances
which attended the death of the young
man. The same day, at the same hour.
and under circumstances, and with
symptoms precisely identical, the brother
who remained in Italy died, pronounc-
ing the same words as his brother had
pronounced.
The desolate mother, who was yet
young. being but sixteen years older
than her sons, returned to Germany,
where her husband occupied high posi-
| ton under Government. Two years
after her return, she gave birth, a Sc
cond time, to two twin boys, who re-
sembled trait for trait, the twin sons
whom she had so unfortunately lost
They received at their baptism the
names of their deceased brothers. All
the circumstances which had presided at
the development of the frst children,
were reproduced precisely with the Sc
cond; the same nervous paroxysms, the
same mysterious sympathies. Again
the mother was advised to travel
This time she went into Spain; the boys
exhibited the same taste for the arts,
particularly for painting. At the age of
sixteen, and day for day with the first
brothefs they fell sick. Their separa-
ton was ordered, but this time the
mother resisted energetically; she was
vanquished, however, by the persistence
of their malady and the continued per-
suasion of the physicians, who declared
that they would die if they remained to-
gether, on account of the extraordinary
resemblance of their nervous organiza-
ton, which absorbed mutually the prin-
ciple of their existence. The mother
consented that one of them should make
avoyage into the south of Spain.
Chance again designated the one who
bore the name of Alfred. The same
phenomenon of intuition was repro
duced. The one designed at Madrid or
Barcelona what the other painted at
Cadiz, and with the same wonderful re-
semblance of touch. The day that
Alfred was ready to start home to re-
join his mother and brother, he fell sick
and died at the same hour that his
brother died at Cadiz in the arms of his
mother, and both pronounced at the
same time the words which their de-
ceased brothers had pronounced eigh-
teen years before.