Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/38

 ANTICIPATING SUCCESS

One may so believe as already in a sense, to possess:

In a little parlor down-stairs of Mencci's house in Staten Island were three large altar-candles in the Italian colors of red, white and green which, Mencci told us (says a correspondent of the Century) he and Garibaldi had amused themselves at making in a leisure hour "to illuminate the Campidoglio of Rome when the Italian army should enter the Eternal City and make it the capital of United Italy." When Rome was recovered, three other candles in the Italian colors were actually sent to Garibaldi there. (Text.)  (105)   ANTICIPATION  It was Schelling who said that if he had truth in one hand and the search for truth in the other, he would let truth go in order that he might search for it. Something of this philosophy is in these verses: For me the loitering of the road,   The hidden voice that sings; For me the vernal mysteries,   Deep woods and silent springs. I covet not the ended road,  The granary, the sheaf; For me the sowing of the grain,   The promise of the leaf. (Text.) —Lippincott's Magazine.  (106)   See. ANTIPATHIES, INSTINCTIVE It would be an excellent accomplishment if an abhorrence of moral evils could be bred in men similar to the instinctive antipathies described in this extract:   It seems absolutely incredible that Peter the Great, the father of the Russian navy, should shudder at the sight of water, whether running or still, yet so it was, especially when alone. His palace gardens, beautiful as they were, he never entered, because the river Mosera flowed through them. His coachman had orders to avoid all roads which led past streams, and if compelled to cross a brook or bridge, the great emperor would sit with closed windows, in a cold perspiration. Another monarch, James I, the English Solomon, as he liked to be called, had many antipathies, chiefly tobacco, ling, and pork. He never overcame his inability to look at a drawn sword, and it is said that on one occasion when giving the accolade, the king turned his face aside, nearly wounding the new-made knight. Henry III of France had so great a dislike for cats that he fainted at the sight of one. We suppose that in this case the cat had to waive his proverbial prerogative, and could not look at a king. This will seem as absurd, as extraordinary to lady lovers of that much-petted animal, but what are we to say of the Countess of Lamballe, of unhappy history, to whom a violet was a thing of horror? Even this is not without its precedent, for it is on record that Vincent, the painter, was seized with vertigo and swooned at the smell of roses. Scaliger states that one of his relations was made ill at the sight of a lily, and he himself would turn pale at the sight of watercresses, and could never drink milk. Charles Kingsley, naturalist as he was to the core, had a great horror of spiders, and in "Glaucus," after saying that every one seems to have his antipathic animal, continues: "I know one (himself), bred from his childhood to zoology by land and sea, and bold in asserting and honest in feeling that all, without exception, is beautiful, who yet can not after handling and petting and examining all day long, every uncouth and venomous beast, avoid a paroxysm of horror at the sight of the common house-spider." (Text.)—Cassell's Family Magazine.

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A well-known officer of Her Majesty's army, who has proved his strength and courage in more than one campaign, turns pale at the sight of a cat. On one occasion, when asked out to dinner, his host, who was rather skeptical as to the reality of this feeling, concealed a cat in an ottoman in the dining-*room. Dinner was announced and commenced, but his guest was evidently ill at ease; and at length declared his inability to go on eating, as he was sure there was a cat in the room. An apparently thorough but unavailing search was made; but his visitor was so completely upset that the host, with many apologies for his experiment, "let the cat out of the bag," and out of the ottoman at the same time.—Cassell's Family Magazine.

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Antiques, Artificial—See.