from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his company." § 345. Of casual association in connexion with particular days. The same marked tendencies of mind may sometimes be discovered in connexion with particular days or other periods of time. Pinel mentions a lady who fancied that Friday was a day of ill omen and ill luck. "She at length carried this notion so far that she would not leave her room on that day. If the month began on a Friday, it rendered her extremely fearful and miserable for several days. By degrees, Thursday, being the eve of Friday, excited similar alarms. If ever she heard either of those days named in company, she immediately turned pale, and was confused in her manner and conversation, as if she had been visited by some fatal misfortune."* Statements, much to the same effect, have been made of an individual no less distinguished than Lord Byron. From some circumstance or other, he became deeply impressed with the belief that Friday was destined to be, in relation to himself, an unlucky or illomened day. This was not a mere transitory feeling, which was under the control of his philosophy, but was deeply seated and operative. And, with his characteristic frankness, he did not hesitate to declare, or, rather, he took no pains to conceal, that his mind was actually under the despotism of this strange influence.† We will subjoin here, as bearing some affinity to the cases which might properly be arranged under this head, an instance mentioned in the Encyclopedia Americana by the author of the article on Memory. The statement is as follows: "How strange are the associations of ideas which often take place in spite of us. Every one must have experienced such. The writer recollects a melancholy instance in the case of an insane boy in a hospital, whose derangement was referred to an irreverent association with the name of * Treatise on Insanity, Davis's translation, p. 140. God, which occurred to him while singing a hymn in church, and of which he could not divest himself, the painfulness of the impression making it occur to him more forcibly every time he sung in church, till his reason became unsettled." § 346. Antipathies to animals. Nothing but the fact of the existence and great power of casual associations can explain the circum stance that individuals have, from time to time, discovered a very great antipathy to certain animals. Tasso, according to his biographers, would fall into convulsions at the sight of a carp. Henry III. of England could not be persuaded to sit in the room with a cat. Admiral Coligni, a name justly renowned in the history of France, was so afraid of a mouse, that he could not be induced to admit one to his presence unless he had his sword in his hand. No man ever gave more decided proofs of courage than the celebrated Marquis de la Roche Jacquelin; but it is a singular fact (although no account is given of the origin of this strange association), that he could not look in the face of a squirrel without trembling and turning pale. He himself ridiculed his weakness in this respect, but with all his efforts he could not prevent the physical effects which have been referred to, whenever he was in the presence of that harmless animal. But we have an incident nearer home, which appears the less surprising, because we know the origin of it. The late Governor Sullivan, of Massachusetts, when a boy, fell asleep under a tree, and was awaked by a serpent crawling over him. He arose in great terror, ran towards the house, and fell down in a convulsive fit. Afterward, through life, he retained such aversion for everything of the serpent kind, that he could not see one, or even the picture of one, without falling into convulsions. Peter the Great, of Russia, who certainly was not wanting in expansion and force of mind, was subject to a strong and invincible aversion of this kind. His biographer, without giving any explanation of it, merely mentions the fact as follows: "Nothing was so much the object of the Czar's antipathy as a black insect of the scarabeus or beetle kind, which breeds in houses that are not kept clean, and especially in places where meal and other provisions are deposited. În the country, the walls and ceilings of the peasants' houses are covered with them, particularly in Russia, where they abound more than in any other part of the world. They are there called taracan; but our naturalists give them the name of dermeste, or dissecting scarabeus. 66 Although the Russian monarch was far from being subject to childish fears or womanish fancies, one of these insects sufficed to drive him out of an apartment, nay, even out of the house. In his frequent journeys in his own dominions, he never went into a house without having his apartment carefully swept by one of his own servants, and being assured that there were no taracans to fear. One day he paid a visit to an officer who stood pretty high in his esteem, at his country house, which was built of wood, at a little distance from Moscow. The Czar expressed his satisfaction with what was offered him, and with the order he observed in the house. The company sat down to table, and dinner was already begun, when he asked his landlord if there were taracans in his house. "Not many,' replied the officer, without reflecting; 'and, the better to get rid of them, I have pinned a living one to the wall.' At the same time he pointed to the place where the insect was pinned, and still continued to palpitate. Unfortunately, it was just beside the Czar, in whom the unexpected sight of this object of his aversion produced so much emotion, that he arose instantly from the table, gave the officer a violent blow, and left his house with all his attendants."* * Staehlin's Original Anecdotes of Peter the Great. |