, 1877-07-27
Singularities of Great Men

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Suetonius tells US that, During the
winter, Augustus would wear four tuniCs
beneath thick toga; to these were add
ed shirt and a wooden undergarment; !;
his limbs also were as carefully protected.
In summer he would sleep with both
doors and windows open, and frequently
even under the peristyle of his palace,
where Jets of water refreshed the air, and
where, moreover, was posted slave,
whose duty it was to fan him; he could
not endure the sun-nOt even the winter
sun-and he never walked abroad with
out wide-brimmed hat on his head"
Ferdinand II, Grand Duke Of Tuscany,
who died in 1910, says the Abbe Arnauld,
in his Memoirs, twas the slave of his
health | have frequently seen him pac-
ing up and down his room between two
large thermometers, upon which he would
keep his eyes constantly fixed, unceas-
ingiy employed in taking off and putting
on a variety of skull-caps of different
degrees of warmth, of which he had al
WAYS five or six in his hand, according to
the degrees of heat or cold registered by
the instrument. This, can assure you,
was a mighty pleasant sight to behold,
for there was not a conjurer in all his do
minions more dexterous in handling his
cups aud balls than this prince in shift
ing bis caps"
The Abbe de St. Martin, who, in the
seventeenth century, rendered himself so
ridiculous with his pretensions and his
maniat, always wore nine skull-caps
upon his head to keep off the cold, with
a wig over all, which, by the way, was
always awry and dishevelled, 30 that his
face never appeared to be in its natural
position. In addition to his nine skull
cape, he wore also nine pairs of stock
ings. His bed was made of bricks un-
derneath which was furnace, so con-
structed as to impart the precise degree
of warmth that he might require; this
bed had very small opening, through
which the able used to creep when he re-
tired to rest at night.
The Jesuit Ghezzi, a writer of the
eighteenth century, used to wear seven
skull-caps beneath his wig. The learned
French mathematician, Fourier, had re-
turned from Egypt a martyr to rheuma-
tism, and with constant sensation of
cold; he suffered dreadfully whenever he
was exposed to an atmosphere lower than
twenty degrees below Reaumur; ser
want followed him everywhere with a
mantle, in readiness for any sudden
change Of temperature. During the lat
ter years of his life, exhausted by asthma
from which he had been a sufferer from
his youth, be kept himself, for the pur-
pose Of writing and speaking to his
friends, enclosed in species of box,
which permitted no deviation of the body,
and left at liberty only his head and
hands. The Florentine sculptor, Dona-
tello, who died in 1896, among other
irregularities had the habit of keeping
his money in basket which hung from
a nail in the wall of his room. Into
this basket his workmen and friends
used TO dip at discretion. G Beethoven,
the composer, had two imperious habits,
by which he was constantly swayed-
that of moving his lodgings, and that of
walking. Scarcely was be installed in
an apartment ere he would discover
some fault in it, and commence looking
out for another. Every day after dinner,
ACSpAtC Aat1g uoAAs VI onOWgnC WOuA0 loeuC
forth on foot and take long and fatigu-
ing walk. The French astronomer, La
Caille, had contracted the wearisome
habit of reading and writing with one
eye only; the other eye was especially
reserved by him for the purpose of tele-
scopic observation. By this means, how
ever, he succeeded in obtaining very in
teresting results; for instance, be Was en-
abled to discern with ease and precision
the heights of the stars above the hori-
son of the sea; an observation generally
very uncertain, on account of the diff
Guilty of clearly distinguishing the hori-
zon in the obscurity of night. It does
not appear that any astronomer since his
time has sought to confirm himself to 30
difficult practice.