48 



KNOWLEDGE 



[January 1, 1890. 



retarded, and sometimes cured by projjer medical treat- 

 ment, and especially by hygiene. In youth, middle age, 

 and even in advanced age, one may suffer for yfears from 

 disorders of the nervous system that cause derangement of 

 some one or many of the moral faculties, and perfectly 

 recover. The symptoms should be taken early, and trc^ated 

 like any other physical disease. Our best asylums arc now 

 acting upon this principle, and with good success. Medical 

 treatment is almost powerless without i hygiene. Study 

 the divine art of taking it easy. Men often die as trees 

 die, slowly, and at the top first. As the moral and rea- 

 soning faculties are the highest, most complex, and most 

 delicate development of human nature, they are the first 

 to show signs of cerebral disease. When they begin to 

 decay in advanced life, we are generally safe in predicting 

 that, if these signs are neglected, other functions will 

 sooner or later be impaired. When conscience is gone, 

 the constitution is threatened. Everybody has observed 

 that greediness, ill-temper, despondency, are often the first 

 and only symptoms that disease is coming upon us. The 

 moral nature is a delicate barometer, that foretells long 

 beforehand the coming storm in the system. Moral decline 

 as a symptom of cerebral disease is, to say the least, as 

 reliable as are many of tl;e symptoms by which physicians 

 are accustomed to make a diagnosis of various diseases of 

 the bodily organs. When moral is associated with mental 

 decline in advanced life, it is almost safe to make a 



diagnosis of cerebral disease Let nothing deprive 



us of our sleep. Early to bed and late to rise, makes the 

 modern toiler healthy and wise. The problem for the 

 future IS to \vork hard, and at the same time to take it 

 easy. The more we have to do, the more we should sleep. 

 Let it never be forgotten that death in the aged is more 

 frequently a slow process than an event ; a man may 

 begin to die ten or fifteen years before he is buried." 



When mental decay is nearing the final stage, there is 

 a tendency to revert to the thoughts and impressions of 

 former years, which is probably dependent on the processes 

 by which the substance of the brain is undergoing decay. 

 The more recent formations are the first, as we have seen, 

 to crumble away, and the process not only brings to the 

 surface, if we may so speak, the earlier formations — that 

 is, the material records of earlier mental processes — but 

 would appear to brmg those parts of the cerebrum into 

 renewed activity. Thus, as death draws near, men 

 "babble of green fields," as has been beautifully said, 

 though not by Shakespeare, of old Jack Falstaff. Or less 

 pleasant associations may be aroused, as we see in Mrs. 

 Grandmother Smallweed, when " wMth such infantine 

 graces as a total want of observation, memory, under- 

 standing, and intellect, and an eternal disposition to fall 

 asleep over the fire and into it," she " wiled away the rosy 

 hours " with continual allusions to money. 



The recollections aroused at the moment of death are 

 sometimes singularly affecting. None can read without 

 emotion the last scenes of the life of Colonel Newcome. I 

 say the last scenes, not the last scene only, though that is 

 the most beautiful of all. Everyone knows those last 

 pages by heart, yet I cannot forbear from (juoting a few 

 sentences from them. " ' Father ! ' cries Clive, ' do you 

 remember Ornie's Hixtor// of India '} ' ' Orme's History, 

 of course I do ; I could repeat whole pages of it when I 

 was a boy,' says the old man, and began forthwith. ' " The 

 two battalions advanced against each other cannonading, 

 until the French, coming to a hollow way,, imagined the 

 iMiglish would not venture to pass it. But Major Law- 

 rence ordered the sepoys and artillery — the sepoys and 

 artillery ti halt, and defend the convoy against the Morat- 

 toes." Morattoes, Orme calls them. Ho! Ho! I could 



repeat whole pages, sir.'" Later, "Thomas Newcome 

 began to wander more and more. He talked louder ; he 

 gave the word of command, and spoke Hindustanee, as it 

 to his man. Then he spoke words in French rapidly, 

 seizing a hand which was near him, and crying, ' Toujours, 



toujours.' But it was Ethel's hand which he took 



Some time afterwards, Ethel came in with a scared face 

 to our pale group. • He is calling for you agciin, dear 

 lady, ' she said, going up to Madame de Florae, who 

 was still kneeling. ' And just now he said he wanted Pen- 

 dennis to take care of his boy. He will not know you." 

 She hid her tears as she spoke. She went into the room, 

 where Clive was at the bed's foot ; the old man within it 

 talked on rapidly for awhile ; then again he w-ould sigh 

 and be still : once more I heard him say hurriedly. ' Take 

 care of him when I'm in India,' and then with a heart- 

 rending voice he called out ' Leonore, Leonore.' She was 

 kneehng at his side now. The patient's voice sank into 

 faint murmurs ; only a moan now and then announced 

 that he was not asleep. At the usual evening hour the 

 chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas New-come's hands 

 outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as the last 

 bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and 

 he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, • Adsum I ' 

 and fell back. It was the word we used at school when 

 names were called, and lo ! he whose heart was as that of 

 a child, had answered to his name, and stood in the 

 presence of The Master." 



Sadder than death is it. however, when the brain 

 perishes belore the body. " How often, alas, we see," 

 says Wendell Holmes, " the mighty satirist tamed into 

 oblivious imbecility ; the great scholar wandering without 

 sense of time or place, among his alcoves, taking his books 

 one by one from the shelves and fondly patting them : a 

 child once more among his toys, but a child whose 

 to-morrows come hungry, and not fullhanded — come as 

 bii'ds of prey in the place of the sweet singers of the 

 morning. We must all become as little children if we live 

 long enough ; but how blank an existence the wrinkled 

 infant must carry into the kingdom of heaven, if the 

 Power that gave him memory does not I'epeat the miracle 

 bv restoring it." 



TORTOISES AND TURTLES. 



By E. LYDEKitER, B.A. Cantab. 



TO many of us, the chief idea connected with 

 turtles is that they are used to make turtle- 

 soup ; while in regard to tortoises our acquaint- 

 anceship is often limited to seeing a barrow-load 

 of unfortunate specimens hawked about the 

 streets, or to an individual or two kept in our own or 

 a friend's garden, as a very imsociable kind of pet. We 

 are also acquainted with this group of animals by means 

 of tortoise-shell, either in the form of combs or various 

 ornamental articles ; although the exact nature of this 

 commodity — which, by the way, comes from turtles and 

 not from tortoises — is very frequently but very imperfectly 

 known. Many people, indeed, have more or less hazy- 

 ideas as to what kind of animals tortoises and turtles 

 really are. Thus, according to Piuicli, railway companies 

 classify tortoises as insects ; and the writer well recollects 

 that during his undergraduate days his landlady purchased 

 an unfortmiate tortoise to take the place of a deceased 

 hedgehog in the kitchen, for the purpose of eating black- 

 beetles, and was immensely astonished when told that the 

 tortoise was a vegetable feeder and had no sort of kinship 

 with the hedgehog. 



