The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1875-09-09
Human Idi0syncrasies.

Human IdiOsyncrasies.
That curiosity which originated in the
feminine sex, but did not fail in fullness
of time to lapse into masculine attrib-
ute also, seems to have fair share in
evolving those discoveries which run all
the way from the practical and useful to
frantic belief in, and steadfast endeavo
to prove, the most ridiculous isms.
Each decade of time furnishes its own
examples of those who risk life, and lose
it, in their devotion to science. Living
stones explorations in Africa made him
hero in his own country, and his death
made him take rank among the martyrs
who sacrifice their being in pursuit of
discoveries so remote that they are almost
entitled to take rank with the vexed
question, "Was Adam the common father
Of us all ?"
A taste for experimenting is generally
unsafe Although it is now some two
hundred years since Bishop Wilkins re-
marked that it would be as common here
after for a man to call for his wings,
when about making journey, as it was
then to call for his boots and spurs, the
story of Darious Green and his flying
machine, supported by the unhappy fate
of the luckless Grimwood, warns US that
the thereafter" he then alluded to is
some distance off in the future, and that
those who have an agreeable premonition
that they "are bound to rise," will find it
consistent with personal safety to under
take such evolutions merely in flights of
| fancy.
While thirst for discovery may be
founded on a desire to benefit mankind,
as in the case of the physician who, to
test the contagion of yellow fever, supped
on the black-vomit of dying patient, in
many instances it seems as though some
cerebral perversion inevitably impelled
the would-be discoverer to risk health, for
tune, even life ITSELF in order to freeze
fire or ignite snow, or cause water to run
up hill. ThesA is not more touching
narrative in any literature than the story
of the German peasant who turned away
from many friends and happy home to
wander over the wide world in search of
g. four-leaved clover that was to be a
charm that would make life perpetual
Joy and blessing. He wandered far away,
and looked along the ground for many
years. He did not pause to make friends,
nor did he pluck any flower by the way
side, but when old age came and it SEEM
ed to him that his search was not ever to
be successful, the story tells us that he
went slowly back to the old home in the
mountains. in order that he might die
there, and Just beside the door grew the
four-leaycd clover he had wasted his life
in search of. But few of US are inclined
to be content with life just as we find it,
or to echo the question of the poet who
exclaimS,
"Whv should tear my flesh and bruisc my feet
| Climbing for roses when from where stand
Down the green meadow may reach my hand
| And pluck them OF as well"
While our eccentricities do not master
US so rs to interfere with the tenor of our
every day life and conversation, pet weak
nesses will occasionally rise to the surface,
not so much in faculty for gathering
split milk, or curing spoiled hay, as in an
unlimited confidence that our ability to
make preserves for family use far exceeds
the ability of some less favored mortal,
whose genius extends no farther than a
special faculty for making soup for sick
neighbor. Both qualifications are harm
less and necessary in their way, and those
who carry their exercise to excess, are
but guilty of amiable weakness, and are
to be much commended, in contrast with
their sisters, who so sacrifice home COM
fort to personsal display, in the egotisti-
cal belief that they sqould be cynosure
for all eyes, that one who mari ked their
tinery otherwise than admiringly wrote
thus concerning them:
"Drcss drains our cellar dry,
| And keeps our larder lean, puts out our fires,
| And introduces hunger, frost and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign"
Again, there may be an itching eager
ness for autographs, or a longing desire
after fossils, and the whole world seems
called upon to pay tribute to those snap
pers-up of unconSidered trifes, who ram
sack the ends of the earth for specimens,
until their absorbing interest in science
reminds distinguished looker-on of the
will of one Nicholas Gimerack, who left
| TO lIN uCuE WIG OllS pO-N Va bNSs~hhASS1
one drawer of shells, one female skeleton,
and a dried cockatrice, while he cut OFT
his eldest son with "a single cockleshell, !"
for undutiful behavior in laughing at the
littlesister his father had preserved in
spirits of wine, and bcqucathed to anoth-
or j relative "a collection of dried grass
hoppers" as an adequate acknowledge
ment of virtue and reward of merit.
Well may those whimsicalities remind us
of "what shadows we are, and what
shadows we pursue" as human ingenuity
varies from a harmless inquiry as to the
relative speed Of the hare and the tor
toise to the horrors, calamities and trag-
edies that follow in the wake OF sclen-
tilic or adventurous Investigations from
the argonauts of olden time to the
acronauts of the present day.
| Tam m O.