824 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



case as a simple expression of the Polly-Lucian shade of character. 

 This is the rule in nine cases out of ten ; twins are all but absolutely 

 identical. 



Still, there is such a thing as idiosyncrasy, and the reason for its ex- 

 istence is a yery simple one. Each separate human being, it is true, is 

 on the average an equal compound of his father and his mother, his 

 grandfathers and grandmothers ; but not necessarily or even probably 

 the same compound. Suppose you take a lot of red and white ivory 

 billiard-balls, say a thousand, and cast them down upon the surface of the 

 billiard-board. Let five hundred be red and five hundred white ; then 

 every time the total result will be in one sense the same, while in 

 another sense it will be quite different. For there will always be five 

 hundred of each, but the arrangement will never be exactly identical ; 

 each throw will give you a new combination of the balls — a combina- 

 tion which will often put a totally different aspect upon the entire 

 picture. Now, in the case of a human being you deal with infinitely 

 more subtile factors, combined in infinitely more subtile fashions. Fa- 

 ther and mother have each in their being myriads of traits, both men- 

 tal and physical, any one of which may equally happen to be handed 

 down to any of their children. And the traits handed down from each 

 may not happen to be by any means always the same in the same 

 family. Though each child resembles equally on the average both father 

 and mother, yet this child may resemble the father in this, and that 

 child in that ; each may combine in any possible complexity of inter- 

 mixture traits derived from either at random. 



Here, for example, are an English father with light hair and blue 

 eyes ; a Spanish mother with black locks, an iris dark as night, and a 

 full olive-colored southern complexion. Clearly, the children may dif- 

 fer indefinitely in appearance, some with darker eyes, some with 

 lighter ; some as men may grow dark-brown beards, and some may 

 have black whiskers and hazel eyes, and clear half-Spanish dusky skin. 

 One may have wavy hair like the mother, yet almost as light in hue as 

 the father's ; another may have it rather straight, but dark. Similarly, 

 too, with the features. The forehead and chin may resemble the 

 father, the nose and mouth may rather approximate to the maternal 

 pattern. So, at least, we often say in our folly ; but in reality, when 

 we come to examine closely, we see that no single feature, even, owes 

 everything absolutely to one parent only. Those dark eyes may in- 

 deed be Spanish in color, with a gleam of bull-fighting in their cruel 

 depths, but they are set in the head after an English pattern, and have 

 an English solidity of Philistine hardness. That pretty little nose may 

 have much of the father in the bridge and the tip, but don't you catch 

 faint hints of the mother, too, in the quivering nostril and the ex- 

 panded wings ? The chin recalls an Andalusian type, to be sure, but 

 the tiny fold of flesh beneath foreshadows the fat double crease of later 

 life derived from that old burly Lincolnshire grandfather. And so on 



