Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/16



Plutarch says that a traveler at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedæmonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but a goose can."

There are many who have abilities to do greater things who are content to boast of some accomplishment as useless as standing on one leg.

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Abnormality—See. ABSENT-MINDEDNESS  A Canadian farmer, noted for his absent-mindedness, went to town one day and transacted his business with the utmost precision. He started on his way home, however, with the firm conviction that he had forgotten something, but what it was he could not recall. As he neared home, the conviction increased, and three times he stopt his horse and went carefully through his pocketbook in a vain endeavor to discover what he had forgotten. In due course he reached home and was met by his daughter, who looked at him in surprize and exclaimed, "Why, father, where have you left mother?"—Leslie's Weekly.

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There are many firm believers in the theory that most people are crazy at times, and facts seem to support their belief. The following will possibly remind a number of our readers of some incident in their experience, which at the time of its occurrence seemed to them most unaccountable:

A wise man will step backward off a porch or into a mud-puddle, a great philosopher will hunt for the spectacles that are in his hand or on his forehead, a hunter will sometimes shoot himself or his dog. A working girl had been feeding a great clothing knife for ten years. One day she watched the knife come down slowly upon her hand. Too late she woke out of her stupor with one hand gone. For a few seconds her mind had failed, and she sat by her machine a temporary lunatic and had watched the knife approach her own hand. A distinguished professor was teaching near a canal. Walking along one evening in summer, he walked as deliberately into the canal as he had been walking along the path a second before. He was brought to his senses by the water and mud and the absurdity of the situation. He had on a new suit of clothes and a new silk hat, but, tho the damage was thus great, he still laughs over the adventure. Our mail collectors find in the iron boxes along the streets all sorts of papers and articles which have been put in by some hand from whose motions the mind has become detached for a second. A glove, a pair of spectacles, a deed, a mortgage, a theater ticket, goes in, and on goes the person, holding on to the regular letter which should have been deposited. This is called absent-mindedness, but it is a brief lunacy.—Public Opinion.

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Absentees—See.

Absolution—See.

ABSORPTION

The Italian mothers get for nurses the most beautiful persons, because they believe that by constantly looking into such faces the infant will unconsciously take on some of the beauty of the nurse.

This may be a fiction; but we do know that where there is mutuality of interest and deep affection, persons thrown closely together, in the process of the years, take on traits each of the other.

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See.

Absorption in One's Art—See.

ABSORPTION, MENTAL

The anecdote is a familiar one in the history of painting, of the artist employed upon the frescoes of a dome, who stept back to see from a better point of view the work which he had done, and became so absorbed in comparing the scenes which he had depicted with the forming idea as it lay in his mind, that still proceeding backward he had reached the edge of the lofty scaffolding, when a pupil, observing his instant peril, and afraid even to shout to him, rushed forward and marred the figures with his trowel, so calling back and saving the master. The mind, engrossed in its own operation, had forgotten the body, and was treating it as carelessly as the boy treats the chip which he tosses on the wave.—

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See.