Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-07-10
THE SECRET WILL OUT.
THE REVELATION OF PERSONAL TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS.


 ! TRAITS AND CHARACTERISTICS. Pecu1iarities Which Furnish Clew to the Disposition-Thc Identity of Authors. Opinions of Servants and Tradsspeorae. The Various Little Fads.'' Men betray their real characters in a thou. sand trihing ways The professors of the art of delinaating dispositions do so in various fashions. One artist will undertake to de- scribe character from the examination of ! photograph; another reads indications of tastes and feelings in handwriting; nay, an American savant has recently announced that much may be learned regarding man by observing how he wears his boots Every one has some small peculiarities, which, to the accurate observer, may furnish a clew to his disposition. There have been manifold instances of strange and inconvenient re- semblances between men, leading to cases of < mistaken identity" and yet, probably, in every instance there was some trihing and overlooked personal which distinguished one Dromio from the other. If alike in features they differed in disposition.
 It is difficult, if not impossible to stife the manifestations of personal traits. Counten- ance and voice may be trained and disguised, but mans identity will reveal itself in some gesture, or glance or trif1ing action, which betrays bis real self to the accurate observer. When Queen Elizabeth suspected some author of having written a work which she disap- proved, she angrily exclaimed "that she would have him racked to produce the au- thor of the book" May, madam" said a wise counselor, The is a doctor; never rack his person, but rack his style Bid him write a continuation of the book, and will engage to say if the first part be his or mo-" Authors of all people, find it difficult to conceal their identity. AS Hans Andersen remarks, every writer has some peculiarity of style, which even if he publishes anonymously, enables those who know his works to cry out, "There he is again."
 NOT BY THE SAME HAND.
 Miss Strickland remarks that when the "Lives of the Queens of England" were first published her present majesty detected that all the biographies were not by the same hand, though all purported to be written by Agnes Strickland. The queens critical acu- men was perfectly correct; many of the ,"lives" were by another member of the Strickland family, who objected to be known as an authoress, and therefore published un- der her sisters name. Probably intimate friends of some of our modern collaborators might be able to distinguish the work of one writer from another, amid the incidents and action of the story, after the fashion of the mendicant described by Sir Walter Scott, who could identify the origin of each crust and bone in his bag. Meeting stingy house. keeper who suspected that he had been un- duly relieved at his kitchen door, the blue gown indignantly defended the contents of his poke" "Na, na, these are TO your hon. ours banes they're the laird of -'s banes; and yon's the laird of -'s crusts" The initiated might thus tell us what we had owed to Besant and what to Rice; what to Erck. mann and what to Chatrain.
 There are some personal traits only ob- lservable by what may be called professional eyes. Servants and tradespeople, for exam Iple, probably form their opinions of us from the characteristics which fall under their ob servation in the course of their professions careers. In his "Reminiscences Sir F. Pollock tells story of a housemaid who boasted tha, she had always lived in ecclesiastical fami Elies," and was wont to describe these cele brated church dignitaries from her own poin, tof view. They was all very different, espe lcially as regards the filling and emptying ol baths. The bishop of - he always took hi bath Sundays and week days. Bishop hs took his bath every day except Sundays; but Dean - never took nothing but a we towel" Probably many of us might be sur iprised to find by what characteristic mark we were best remembered by some of our re tainers.
 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.
 The lower orders in Italy attach much i'm portance to what may be called physica characteristics, and speak to and of thei neighbors as often by some descriptive nam as by their baptismal title They have n, fal of fl,a