The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1889-11-29
STRANGE

b46 bEcdIs b1D lNblCt VI Jig 1euSSidu navy
should shudder at the sight of water,
whether running or stu, yet SO it was,
especially when alone. His palace gar
dens, beautiful as they were, he never en-
tered, because the river Mosera flowed
through them. His coaehman had or
ders to avoid all roads which led past
streams, and if compelled to cross a brook
or bridge, the great emperor would sit
ton. Another monarch, James /, the
English Solomon, as he liked to be called,
had many %antipathies, chiefly tobacco,
ling and pork. He never overcame his in
ability to look with composure at a drawn
sword, and it is said that on one occasion,
when giving the aceolade, the king turned
his face aside, nearly wounding the new
made knight. Henry III Of France had
50 great a dislike for cats that he tainted
at the sight of one. We suppose that in
this case the cat had to waive his proyerb-
ial ~prerogative, and could not look at a
king. This will seem as absurd as ex-
~traordinary to lady lovers of that much
petted animal, but what are we to say of
the Countess of Lamballe, of unhappy his
tory, to whom a violet was a thing of hor-
rcr? Even this is not without its preeed-
ent, for it is on record that Vincent, the
painter, was seized with vertigo and
swooned at the smell of roses. Scaliger
states that one of his relations was made
i'll at the sight of a lily, and he himself
would turn pale at the sight of water
crosses, and could never drink milk.
Charles Kingsley. naturalist as he was to
the core, had a great horror of spiders,
and in "Glaueus, +" after saying that every
one seems to have his antipathic animal,
continues: II know one (himself bred
from his childhood to zoology by land and
sea, and bold in asserting and honest in
feeling that all, without exception, is
beautiful, who yet cannot after handling
and pettlng and examining, all day long,
every uncouth and venomeus beast, avoid
a paroxysm Of horror at the sight of the
common house-spider." The writer shares
in this dislike to a painful extent; in this
case it is inherited from his grandfather.
The genial author of the Turkish Spy
says that he would far prefer, sword in
hand, to face a lion in his desert lair than
have a spider crawl over him in the dark.
The cat, as we nave previously mentioned,
has repeatedly been an object of aversion.
The Duke of Schomberg, though a re-
doubtable soldier, would not sit in the
same room with a cat. A courtier of the
Emperor Ferdinand carried the dislike SO
far as to bleed at the nose on hearing q
cat new. A ~weli-known officer of Her
Majesty's army, who has proved his
strength and courage in more than one
campaign, turns pale at the sight of a cat.
ner, his host, who was rather skeptical as
to the reality of this feeling, concealed a
cat in an ottoman in the dining-room.
Dinner was announced and commenced,
at length declared his inability to go on
eating, as he was sure there was a cat in
the room. An apparently thorough, but
unavailing. search was made; but his WIS.,
itor was so completely upset that the host
with many apologies for his experiment,
''let the cat out of the bag and u of
the ottoman at the same time. Lord
Lauderdale, on the other hand, declared
that the mewing of a cat was to him
sweeter than any music. while he had the
greatest dislike to the lutte and the bag
pipe. In this latter aversion he was by
no means singular.-CasseHr Family Nag
aziRe.