Tern] AND SYMBOLS. 34$ 



The Restless Temperament. 



There are individuals and plants which are in a state of 

 unceasing restlessness. The individual is best known by the 

 name of fidget. He or she (for a woman is quite as often a 

 fidget as a man is) exists in a perpetual fuss, and the work of 

 life is a meaningless series of uninterrupted movements, whose 

 end and object no human being can see. The activity is not 

 strong and progressive, but consists in nervous fuss for the sake 

 of fuss. The fidget never accomplishes anything as the result 

 of all this restless motion. Yet this does not deter the creature 

 from working out its fussy destiny. Alteration of the habit is 

 utterly impossible. The fidget is a fidget by nature ; as the 

 Desmodium gyraeus is a jerker by nature. Those who are 

 acquainted with this very remarkable Bengal plant will have 

 noticed that the lateral or very small folioles are almost always 

 in motion, executing little jerks somewhat analogous to the 

 movements of the seconds of a watch. One of the folioles rises 

 and the other descends at the same time, and with a corre- 

 sponding pace. When the first begins to descend the other 

 begins to rise. The large or terminal folioles move also, in- 

 clining now to the right, now to the left, but by a continuous 

 and very slow movement as compared with that of the lateral 

 folioles. This singular mechanism endures throughout the life 

 of the plant. It jerks itself day and night, through drought 

 and humidity. The warmer and more humid the day, the more 

 lively are its movements, as are also those of the dyspeptic 

 fidget. The movements of both occur spontaneously and with- 

 out any apparent cause. In India the plant has been known to 

 make sixty jerks in the minute. The number of worries the 

 human fidget can perform in a given time has never yet been 

 accurately computed, the patience of man being quite unequal 

 to the task of accurate computation. But general experience 

 puts the approximate number very high indeed ; particularly 

 in the case of the female fidget, who, when settled even in the 

 most comfortable circumstances, has been known, in one single 

 day, to display her peculiarities to such an extent that the 

 beholder, in utter dizziness and bewilderment, has been com- 

 pelled to leave the spot. Happy is the man who is able to do 

 so without having any necessity ever to return to it ! v. 



