THE CAUSE OF CHARACTER. 829 



to two successive brotliers extremely like one another in build and 

 feature, and evidently modeled in mind and character on the self -same 

 mold. It is only a small incident, but as I can vouch for the correct- 

 ness of the minute details, it has a certain psychological interest of its 

 own. They met a lady dressed in blue, whom they had never seen 

 before, at a military dance. Each of them asked at once to be intro- 

 duced to her at first sight ; each asked the same officer for an introduc- 

 tion (though they had several friends in common present) ; each de- 

 scribed her in the same way, not as " the lady in blue " (the most 

 obvious point of appearance about her), but as " the lady with the 

 beautiful ears " ; each fell desperately in love with her offhand ; and 

 each asked her for a particular flower out of a little bouquet contain- 

 ing four or five more conspicuous blossoms. Finally, each came up at 

 the end of the evening to confide in the same married lady of their 

 acquaintance their desire to see more of the beautiful stranger. Now, 

 small as are all these little coincidences, they nevertheless show, to my 

 mind, a more profound identity of mental fiber than far larger and 

 more important matters of life could do. For, on great emergencies, or 

 in the great affairs of one's conduct, it is only natural that somewhat 

 similar characters, being governed by the same general emotions, should 

 act on the whole very much alike ; while often, on the other hand, a 

 particular difference will make the action of similar characters at a 

 special crisis extremely divergent. Thus the two Xewmans, essentially 

 the same in fiber, both re-examining their creed at a certain epoch of 

 life, follow out their own logical conclusions with rigorous precision, 

 one to Free Thought, the other to the Cardinalate — so that outsiders 

 would be apt to say at first sight, " What a striking difference between 

 two brothers ! " But the exact identity of tastes and preferences shown 

 in these minute touches of feeling — the choice of an introducer, the 

 phrase about the ears, the selection of a particular flower (it wasn't 

 even a violet, which might occur to anybody, but a spray of plumbago, 

 in itself quite without sentimental interest), and the unburdening of 

 mind to a particular confidante — all these things abundantly testify to 

 an underlying similarity of mental structure, down to the merest side- 

 tracks and by-ways of the brain, which could hardly happen under 

 any other conceivable circumstances than those of actual family 

 identity. 



Still, even twins do distinctly differ in some things from one another. 

 However much they may look alike to strangers, they are always dis- 

 criminable by those who know them well, and even in early childhood 

 by mothers and nurses. The babies who have to be distinguished by 

 red and blue ribbons tied round their wrists, and who finally get mixed 

 up at wash, so that the rightful heir is hopelessly muddled with the 

 wrongful, and the junior by ten minutes preferred to his senior, belong 

 only to the realm of the novelist ; and even there we have always the 

 well-known mark on the left shoulder to fall back upon, which inva- 



