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made a constitution for every day in the year, and two for the first of
April.
Amos Shuttle, though a mighty pompous little man out of doors,
was the meekest of human creatures within. He belonged to that
class of people who pass for great among the little, and little among
the great; and he would certainly have been master in his own
house had it not been for a woman! We have read somewhere that
no wise woman ever thinks her husband a demigod. If so, it is a
blessing that there are so few wise women in the world.
Amos had grown rich, Heaven knows how—he did not know
himself; but, what was somewhat extraordinary, he considered his
wealth a signal proof of his talents and sagacity, and valued himself
according to the infallible standard of pounds, shillings, and pence.
But though he lorded it without, he was, as we have just said, the
most gentle of men within doors. The moment he stepped inside of
his own house his spirit cowered down, like that of a pious man
entering a church; he felt as if he was in the presence of a superior
being—to wit, Mrs. Abigail Shuttle. He was, indeed, the meekest of
beings at home except Moses; and Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s song,
which Sir Toby Belch declared “would draw nine souls out of one
weaver,” would have failed in drawing half a one out of Amos. The
truth is, his wife, who ought to have known, affirmed that he had no
more soul than a monkey; but he was the only man in the city thus
circumstanced at the time we speak of. No wonder, therefore, the
year one thousand seven hundred and sixty was called annus
mirabilis!
Such as he was, Mr. Amos Shuttle waxed richer and richer every
day, insomuch that those who envied his prosperity were wont to
say, “that he had certainly been born with a dozen silver spoons in
his mouth, or such a great blockhead would never have got together
such a heap of money.” When he had become worth ten thousand
pounds, he launched his shuttle magnanimously out of the window,
ordered his weaver’s beam to be split up for oven wood, and Mrs.
Amos turned his weaver’s shop into a boudoir. Fortune followed him
faster than he ran away from her. In a few years the ten thousand
doubled, and in a few more trebled, quadrupled—in short, Amos
could hardly count his money.
“What shall we do now, my dear?” asked Mrs. Shuttle, who never
sought his opinion that I can learn, except for the pleasure of
contradicting him.
“Let us go and live in the country, and enjoy ourselves,” quoth
Amos.
“Go into the country! go to——” I could never satisfy myself what
Mrs. Shuttle meant; but she stopped short, and concluded the
sentence with a withering look of scorn, that would have cowed the
spirit of nineteen weavers.
Amos named all sorts of places, enumerated all sorts of modes of
life he could think of, and every pleasure that might enter into the
imagination of a man without a soul. His wife despised them all; she
would not hear of them.
“Well, my dear, suppose you suggest something; do now, Abby,” at
length said Amos, in a coaxing whisper; “will you, my onydoney?”
“Ony fiddlestick! I wonder you repeat such vulgarisms. But if I
must say what I should like, I should like to travel.”
“Well, let us go and make a tour as far as Jamaica, or Hackensack,
or Spiking Devil. There is excellent fishing for striped bass there.”
“Spiking Devil!” screamed Mrs. Shuttle; “aren’t you ashamed to
swear so, you wicked mortal! I won’t go to Jamaica, nor Hackensack
among the Dutch Hottentots, nor to Spiking Devil to catch striped
bass; I’ll go to Europe!”
If Amos had possessed a soul it would have jumped out of its skin
at the idea of going beyond seas. He had once been on the sea-bass
banks, and gone seasoning there, the very thought of which made
him sick. But as he had no soul, there was no great harm done.
 When Mrs. Shuttle said a thing, it was settled. They went to
Europe. Taking their only son with them, the lady ransacked all the
milliners’ shops in Paris, and the gentleman visited all the
restaurateurs. He became such a desperate connoisseur and
gourmand, that he could almost tell an omelette au jambon from a
gammon of bacon. After consummating the polish, they came home,
the lady with the newest old fashions, and the weaver with a
confirmed preference of potage à la turque over pepper-pot. It is
said the city trembled, as with an earthquake, when they landed, but
the notion was probably superstitious.
They arrived near the close of the year, the memorable year, the
annus mirabilis one thousand seven hundred and sixty. Everybody
that had ever known the Shuttles flocked to see them, or rather to
see what they had brought with them; and such was the magic of a
voyage to Europe, that Mr. and Mrs. Amos Shuttle, who had been
nobodies when they departed, became somebodies when they
returned, and mounted at once to the summit of ton.
“You have come in good time to enjoy the festivities of the
holydays,” said Mrs. Hubblebubble, an old friend of Amos the weaver
and his wife.
“We shall have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year,”
exclaimed Mrs. Doubletrouble, another old acquaintance of old
times.
“The holydays,” drawled Mrs. Shuttle; “the holydays? Christmas
and New Year? Pray what are they?”
It is astonishing to see how people lose their memories abroad
sometimes. They often forget their old friends, old customs, and
occasionally themselves.
“Why, la! now, who’d have thought it?” cried Mrs. Doubletrouble;
“why, sure you haven’t forgot the oily cooks and the mince-pies, the
merry meetings of friends, the sleigh-rides, the Kissing Bridge, and
the family parties?”
 “Family parties!” shrieked Mrs. Shuttle, and held her salts to her
nose; “family parties! I never heard of anything so Gothic in Paris or
Rome; and oily cooks—oh, shocking! and mince-pies—detestable!
and throwing open one’s doors to all one’s old friends, whom one
wishes to forget as soon as possible—oh! the idea is insupportable!”
And again she held the salts to her nose.
Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble found they had
exposed themselves sadly, and were quite ashamed. A real, genteel,
well-bred, enlightened lady of fashion ought to have no rule of
conduct, no conscience, but Paris—whatever is fashionable there is
genteel—whatever is not fashionable is vulgar. There is no other
standard of right, and no other eternal fitness of things. At least so
thought Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble.
“But is it possible that all these things are out of fashion abroad?”
asked the latter, beseechingly.
“They never were in,” said Mrs. Amos Shuttle. “For my part, I
mean to close my doors and windows on New Year’s Day—I’m
determined.”
“And so am I,” said Mrs. Hubblebubble.
“And so am I,” said Mrs. Doubletrouble.
And it was settled that they should make a combination among
themselves and their friends, to put down the ancient and good
customs of the city, and abolish the sports and enjoyments of the
jolly New Year. The conspirators then separated, each to pursue her
diabolical designs against oily cooks, mince-pies, sleigh-ridings,
sociable visitings, and family parties.
Now the excellent St. Nicholas, who knows well what is going on
in every house in the city, though, like a good and honourable saint,
he never betrays any family secrets, overheard these wicked women
plotting against his favourite anniversary, and he said to himself—
“Vuur en Vlammen! but I’ll be even with you, mein vrouw.” So he
determined he would play these conceited and misled women a trick
or two before he had done with them.
It was now the first day of the new year, and Mrs. Amos Shuttle,
and Mrs. Doubletrouble, and Mrs. Hubblebubble, and all their wicked
abettors, had shut up their doors and windows, so that when their
old friends called they could not get into their houses. Moreover,
they had prepared neither mince-pies, nor oily cooks, nor crullers,
nor any of the good things consecrated to St. Nicholas by his pious
and well-intentioned votaries, and they were mightily pleased at
having been as dull and stupid as owls, while all the rest of the city
were as merry as crickets, chirping and frisking in the warm
chimney-corner. Little did they think what horrible judgments were
impending over them, prepared by the wrath of the excellent St.
Nicholas, who was resolved to make an example of them for
attempting to introduce their new-fangled corruptions in place of the
ancient customs of his favourite city. These wicked women never
had another comfortable sleep in their lives!
The night was still, clear, and frosty—the earth was everywhere
one carpet of snow, and looked just like the ghost of a dead world,
wrapped in a white winding-sheet; the moon was full, round, and of
a silvery brightness, and by her discreet silence afforded an example
to the rising generation of young damsels, while the myriads of stars
that multiplied as you gazed at them, seemed as though they were
frozen into icicles, they looked so cold and sparkled with such a
glorious lustre. The streets and roads leading from the city were all
alive with sleighs filled with jovial souls, whose echoing laughter and
cheerful songs mingled with a thousand merry bells, that jingled in
harmonious dissonance, giving spirit to the horses and animation to
the scene. In the licence of the season, hallowed by long custom,
each of the sleighs saluted the other in passing with a “Happy New
Year,” a merry jest, or mischievous gibe, exchanged from one gay
party to another. All was life, motion, and merriment; and as old
frost-bitten Winter, aroused from his trance by the rout and revelry
around, raised his weather-beaten head to see what was passing, he
felt his icy blood warming and coursing through his veins, and
wished he could only overtake the laughing buxom Spring, that he
might dance a jig with her, and be as frisky as the best of them. But
as the old rogue could not bring this desirable matter about, he
contented himself with calling for a jolly bumper of cocktail, and
drinking a swinging draught to the health of the blessed St. Nicholas,
and those who honour the memory of the president of good-fellows.
 “THE EXCELLENT ST. NICHOLAS OVERHEARD THESE WICKED
WOMEN.”

All this time the wicked women and their abettors lay under the
malediction of the good saint, who caused them to be bewitched by
an old lady from Salem. Mrs. Amos Shuttle could not sleep, because
something had whispered in her apprehensive ear that her son, her
only son, whom she had engaged to the daughter of Count
Grenouille, in Paris, then about three years old, was actually at that
moment crossing Kissing Bridge in company with little Susan Varian,
and some others besides. Now Susan was the fairest little lady of all
the land; she had a face and an eye just like the widow Wadman in
Leslie’s charming picture; a face and an eye which no reasonable
man under Heaven could resist, except my uncle Toby—beshrew him
and his fortifications, I say! She was, moreover, a good little girl, and
an accomplished little girl—but, alas! she had not mounted to the
step in Jacob’s ladder of fashion which qualifies a person for the
heaven of high ton, and Mrs. Shuttle had not been to Europe for
nothing. She would rather have seen her son wedded to dissipation
and profligacy than to Susan Varian; and the thought of his being
out sleigh-riding with her was worse than the toothache. It kept her
awake all the live-long night, and the only consolation she had was
scolding poor Amos, because the sleigh-bells made such a noise.
As for Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble, they neither of
them got a wink of sleep during a whole week for thinking of the
beautiful French chairs and damask curtains Mrs. Shuttle had
brought from Europe. They forthwith besieged their good men,
leaving them no rest until they sent out orders to Paris for just such
rich chairs and curtains as those of the thrice-happy Mrs. Shuttle,
from whom they kept the affair a profound secret, each meaning to
treat her to an agreeable surprise. In the meanwhile they could not
rest for fear the vessel which was to bring these treasures might be
lost on her passage. Such was the dreadful judgment inflicted on
them by the good St. Nicholas.
 The perplexities of Mrs. Shuttle increased daily. In the first place,
do all she could, she could not make Amos a fine gentleman. This
was a metamorphosis which Ovid would never have dreamed of. He
would be telling the price of everything in his house, his furniture,
his wines, and his dinners, insomuch that those who envied his
prosperity, or perhaps only despised his pretensions, were wont to
say, after eating his venison and drinking his old Madeira, “that he
ought to have been a tavern-keeper, he knew so well how to make
out a bill.” Mrs. Shuttle once overheard a speech of this kind, and
the good St. Nicholas himself, who had brought it about, almost felt
sorry for the mortification she endured on the occasion.
Scarcely had she got over this, when she was invited to a ball by
Mrs. Hubblebubble, and the first thing she saw on entering the
drawing-room was a suite of damask curtains and chairs, as much
like her own as two peas, only the curtains had far handsomer
fringe. Mrs. Shuttle came very near fainting away, but escaped for
that time, determined to mortify this impudent creature by taking
not the least notice of her finery. But St. Nicholas ordered it
otherwise, so that she was at last obliged to acknowledge they were
very elegant indeed. Nay, this was not the worst, for she overheard
one lady whisper to another that Mrs. Hubblebubble’s curtains were
much richer than Mrs. Shuttle’s.
“Oh, I daresay,” replied the other—“I daresay Mrs. Shuttle bought
them second-hand, for her husband is as mean as pursley.”
This was too much. The unfortunate woman was taken suddenly
ill—called her carriage, and went home, where it is supposed she
would have died that evening had she not wrought upon Amos to
promise her an entire new suite of French furniture for her drawing-
room and parlour to boot, besides a new carriage. But for all this she
could not close her eyes that night for thinking of the “second-hand
curtains.”
Nor was the wicked Mrs. Doubletrouble a whit better off when her
friend Mrs. Hubblebubble treated her to the agreeable surprise of
the French window curtains and chairs. “It is too bad—too bad, I
declare,” she said to herself; “but I’ll pay her off soon.” Accordingly
she issued invitations for a grand ball and supper, at which both Mrs.
Shuttle and Mrs. Hubblebubble were struck dumb at beholding a
suite of curtains and a set of chairs exactly of the same pattern with
theirs. The shock was terrible, and it is impossible to say what might
have been the consequences, had not the two ladies all at once
thought of uniting in abusing Mrs. Doubletrouble for her
extravagance.
“I pity poor Mr. Doubletrouble,” said Mrs. Shuttle, shrugging her
shoulders significantly, and glancing at the room.
“And so do I,” said Mrs. Hubblebubble, doing the same.
Mrs. Doubletrouble had her eye upon them, and enjoyed their
mortification, until her pride was brought to the ground by a dead
shot from Mrs. Shuttle, who was heard to exclaim, in reply to a lady
who observed the chairs and curtains were very handsome—
“Why yes, but they have been out of fashion in Paris a long time;
and, besides, really they are getting so common that I intend to
have mine removed to the nursery.”
Heavens! what a blow! Poor Mrs. Doubletrouble hardly survived it.
Such a night of misery as the wicked woman endured almost made
the good St. Nicholas regret the judgment he had passed upon
these mischievous and conceited females. But he thought to himself
he would persevere until he had made them a sad example to all
innovators upon the ancient customs of our forefathers.
Thus were these wicked and miserable women spurred on by
witchcraft from one piece of extravagance to another, and a deadly
rivalship grew up between them which destroyed their own
happiness and that of their husbands. Mrs. Shuttle’s new carriage
and drawing-room furniture in due time were followed by similar
extravagances on the part of the two other wicked women who had
conspired against the hallowed institutions of St. Nicholas; and soon
their rivalship came to such a height that neither of them had a
moment’s rest or comfort from that time forward. But they still shut
their door on the jolly anniversary of St. Nicholas, though the old
respectable burghers and their wives, who had held up their heads
time out of mind, continued the good custom, and laughed at the
presumption of these upstart interlopers who were followed only by
a few people of silly pretensions, who had no more soul than Amos
Shuttle himself. The three wicked women grew to be almost perfect
skeletons, on account of the vehemence with which they strove to
outdo each other, and the terrible exertions necessary to keep up
the appearance of being the best friends in the world. In short, they
became the laughing-stock of the town; and sensible, well-bred folks
cut their acquaintance, except when they sometimes accepted an
invitation to a party, just to make merry with their folly and
conceitedness.
The excellent St. Nicholas, finding they still persisted in their
opposition to his rites and ceremonies, determined to inflict on them
the last and worst punishment that can befall the sex. He decreed
that they should be deprived of all the delights springing from the
domestic affections, and all taste for the innocent and virtuous
enjoyments of a happy fireside. Accordingly they lost all relish for
home; they were continually gadding about from one place to
another in search of pleasure, and worried themselves to death to
find happiness where it is never to be found. Their whole lives
became one long series of disappointed hopes, galled pride, and
gnawing envy. They lost their health, they lost their time, and their
days became days of harassing impatience, their nights nights of
sleeplessness, feverish excitement, ending in weariness and
disappointment. The good saint sometimes felt sorry for them, but
their continued obstinacy determined him to persevere in his plan to
punish the upstart pride of these rebellious females.
Young Shuttle, who had a soul, which I suppose he inherited from
his mother, all this while continued his attentions to little Susan
Varian, which added to the miseries inflicted on his wicked mother.
Mrs. Shuttle insisted that Amos should threaten to disinherit his son,
unless he gave up this attachment.
 “Lord bless your soul, Abby!” said Amos. “What’s the use of my
threatening; the boy knows as well as I do that I’ve no will of my
own. Why, bless my soul, Abby——”
“Bless your soul!” interrupted Mrs. Shuttle; “I wonder who’d take
the trouble to bless it but yourself? However, if you don’t I will.”
Accordingly she threatened the young man with being disinherited
unless he turned his back on little Susan Varian, which no man ever
did without getting a heartache.
“If my father goes on as he has done lately,” sighed the youth, “he
won’t have anything left to disinherit me of but his affection, I fear.
But if he had millions I would not abandon Susan.”
“Are you not ashamed of such a low-lived attachment? You that
have been to Europe! But, once for all, remember this, renounce this
low-born upstart, or quit your father’s house for ever.”
“Upstart!” thought young Shuttle; “one of the oldest families in the
city.” He made his mother a respectful bow, bade Heaven bless her,
and left the house. He was, however, met by his father at the door,
who said to him—
“Johnny, I give my consent; but mind don’t tell your mother a
word of the matter. I’ll let her know I’ve a soul as well as other
people,” and he tossed his head like a war-horse.
The night after this Johnny was married to little Susan, and the
blessing of affection and beauty lighted upon his pillow. Her old
father, who was in a respectable business, took his son-in-law into
partnership, and they prospered so well that in a few years Johnny
was independent of all the world, with the prettiest wife and children
in the land. But Mrs. Shuttle was inexorable, while the knowledge of
his prosperity and happiness only worked her up to a higher pitch of
anger, and added to the pangs of jealousy perpetually inflicted on
her by the rivalry of Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble, who
suffered under the like affliction from the wrathful St. Nicholas, who
was resolved to make them an example to all posterity.
 No fortune, be it ever so great, can stand the eternal sapping of
wasteful extravagance, engendered and stimulated by the baleful
passion of envy. In less than ten years from the hatching of the
diabolical conspiracy of these three wicked women against the
supremacy of the excellent St. Nicholas, their spendthrift rivalship
had ruined the fortunes of their husbands, and entailed upon
themselves misery and remorse. Rich Amos Shuttle became at last
as poor as a church mouse, and would have been obliged to take to
the loom again in his old age, had not Johnny, now rich, and a
worshipful magistrate of the city, afforded him and his better half a
generous shelter under his own happy roof. Mrs. Hubblebubble and
Mrs. Doubletrouble had scarcely time to condole with Mrs. Shuttle,
and congratulate each other, when their husbands went the way of
all flesh—that is to say, failed for a few tens of thousands, and called
their creditors together to hear the good news. The two wicked
women lived long enough after this to repent of their offence against
St. Nicholas; but they never imported any more French curtains, and
at last perished miserably in an attempt to set the fashions in
Pennypot Alley.
Mrs. Abigail Shuttle might have lived happily the rest of her life
with her children and grand-children, who all treated her with
reverent courtesy and affection, now that the wrath of mighty St.
Nicholas was appeased by her exemplary punishment; but she could
not get over her bad habits and feelings, or forgive her lovely
daughter-in-law for treating her so kindly when she so little deserved
it. She gradually pined away; and though she revived at hearing of
the catastrophe of Mrs. Hubblebubble and Mrs. Doubletrouble, it was
only for a moment. The remainder of the life of this wicked woman
was a series of disappointments and heartburnings, and when she
died, Amos tried to shed a few tears, but he found it impossible, I
suppose, because, as his wife always said, “he had no soul.”
Such was the terrible revenge of St. Nicholas, which ought to be a
warning to all who attempt to set themselves up against the
venerable customs of their ancestors, and backslide from the
hallowed institutions of the blessed saint, to whose good offices,
without doubt, it is owing that this, his favourite city, has
transcended all others of the universe in beautiful damsels, valorous
young men, mince-pies, and New Year cookies. The catastrophe of
these three wicked women had a wonderful influence in the city,
insomuch that from this time forward no grey mares were ever
known, no French furniture was ever used, and no woman was
hardy enough to set herself up in opposition to the good customs of
St. Nicholas. And so wishing many happy New Years to all my dear
countrywomen and countrymen, saving those who shut their doors
to old friends, high or low, rich or poor, on that blessed anniversary
which makes more glad hearts than all others put together,—I say,
wishing a thousand happy New Years to all, with this single
exception, I lay down my pen, with a caution to all wicked women to
beware of the revenge of St. Nicholas.
Dominie Nicholas Ægidius Oudenarde.
James K. Paulding.
 AN APHORISM AND A LECTURE.

ONE of the Boys mentioned, the other evening, in the course of a

very pleasant poem he read us, a little trick of the Commons
table-boarders, which I, nourished at the parental board, had never
heard of. Young fellows being always hungry——Allow me to stop
dead-short, in order to utter an aphorism which has been forming
itself in one of the blank interior spaces of my intelligence, like a
crystal in the cavity of a geode.

Aphorism by the Professor.

In order to know whether a human being is young or old, offer it
food of different kinds at short intervals. If young, it will eat anything
at any hour of the day or night. If old, it observes stated periods,
and you might as well attempt to regulate the time of high-water to
suit a fishing-party as to change these periods.
The crucial experiment is this. Offer a bulky and boggy bun to the
suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is eagerly
accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established. If the
subject of the question starts back and expresses surprise and
incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in earnest, the fact of
maturity is no less clear.

—Excuse me,—I return to my story of the Commonstable. Young

fellows being always hungry, and tea and dry toast being the
meagre fare of the evening meal, it was a trick of some of the Boys
to impale a slice of meat upon a fork, at dinner-time, and stick the
fork, holding it, beneath the table, so that they could get it at tea-
time. The dragons that guarded this table of the Hesperides found
out the trick at last, and kept a sharp look-out for missing forks;—
they knew where to find one, if it was not in its place. Now the odd
thing was that, after waiting so many years to hear of this College
trick, I should hear it mentioned a second time within the same
twenty-four hours by a College youth of the present generation.
Strange, but true. And so it has happened to me and to every
person, often and often, to be hit in rapid succession by these
twinned facts or thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot.
I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder over this, taking
it as an unexplained marvel. I think, however, I will turn over a
furrow of subsoil in it. The explanation is, of course, that in a great
many thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these
instantly arrest our attention. Now we shall probably never have the
least idea of the enormous number of impressions which pass
through our consciousness, until in some future life we see the
photographic record of our thoughts and the stereoscopic picture of
our actions. There go more pieces to make up a conscious life or a
living body than you think for. Why, some of you were surprised
when a friend of mine told you there were fifty-eight separate pieces
in a fiddle. How many “swimming glands”—solid, organised,
regularly formed, rounded disks, taking an active part in all your vital
processes, part and parcel, each one of them, of your corporeal
being—do you suppose are whirled along like pebbles in a stream
with the blood which warms your frame and colours your cheeks? A
noted German physiologist spread out a minute drop of blood, under
the microscope, in narrow streaks, and counted the globules, and
then made a calculation. The counting by the micrometer took him a
week. You have, my full-grown friend, of these little couriers in
crimson or scarlet livery, running on your vital errands day and night
as long as you live, sixty-five billions, five hundred and seventy
thousand millions, errors excepted. Did I hear some gentleman say
“Doubted”? I am the Professor; I sit in my chair with a petard under
it that will blow me through the skylight of my lecture-room, if I do
not know what I am talking about, and whom I am quoting.
Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands to your
foreheads and saying to yourselves that you feel a little confused, as
if you had been waltzing until things began to whirl slightly round
you, is it possible that you do not clearly apprehend the exact
connection of all that I have been saying, and its bearing on what is
now to come? Listen, then. The number of these living elements in
our bodies illustrates the incalculable multitude of our thoughts; the
number of our thoughts accounts for those frequent coincidences
spoken of; these coincidences in the world of thought illustrate those
which we constantly observe in the world of outward events, of
which the presence of the young girl now at our table, and proving
to be the daughter of an old acquaintance some of us may
remember, is the special example which led me through this
labyrinth of reflections, and finally lands me at the commencement
of this young girl’s story, which, as I said, I have found the time and
felt the interest to learn something of, and which I think I can tell
without wronging the unconscious subject of my brief delineation.

A Short Lecture on Phrenology.

Read to the Boarders at our Breakfast-Table.

I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a Pseudo-science.

A Pseudo-science consists of a nomenclature, with a self-adjusting
arrangement, by which all positive evidence, or such as favours its
doctrines, is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells
against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected with some lucrative
practical application. Its professors and practitioners are usually
shrewd people; they are very serious with the public, but wink and
laugh a good deal among themselves. The believing multitude
consists of women of both sexes, feeble-minded inquirers, poetical
optimists, people who always get cheated in buying horses,
philanthropists who insist on hurrying up the millennium, and others
of this class, with here and there a clergyman, less frequently a
lawyer, very rarely a physician, and almost never a horse-jockey or a
member of the detective police.—I did not say that Phrenology was
one of the Pseudo-sciences.
A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist wholly of lies. It
may contain many truths, and even valuable ones. The rottenest
bank starts with a little specie. It puts out a thousand promises to
pay on the strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very
commonly a good one. The practitioners of the Pseudo-sciences
know that common minds, after they have been baited with a real
fact or two, will jump at the merest rag of a lie, or even at the bare
hook. When we have one fact found us, we are very apt to supply
the next out of our own imagination. (How many persons can read
Judges xv. 16 correctly the first time?) The Pseudo-sciences take
advantage of this.—I did not say that it was so with Phrenology.
I have rarely met a sensible man who would not allow that there
was something in Phrenology. A broad, high forehead, it is
commonly agreed, promises intellect; one that is “villainous low,”
and has a huge hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal
nature. I have as rarely met an unbiassed and sensible man who
really believed in the bumps. It is observed, however, that persons
with what the Phrenologists call “good heads” are more prone than
others toward plenary belief in the doctrine.
It is so hard to prove a negative, that if a man should assert that
the moon was in truth a green cheese, formed by the coagulable
substance of the Milky Way, and challenge me to prove the contrary,
I might be puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar
cheese, I call on him to prove the truth of the caseous nature of our
satellite before I purchase.
 “I PROCEED TO FUMBLE HIS SKULL.”

It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phrenological

statement. It is only necessary to show that its truth is not proved,
and cannot be, by the common course of argument. The walls of the
head are double, with a great air-chamber between them, over the
smallest and most closely crowded “organs.” Can you tell how much
money there is in a safe, which also has thick double walls, by
kneading its knobs with your fingers? So when a man fumbles about
my forehead, and talks about the organs of Individuality, Size, etc., I
trust him as much as I should if he felt of the outside of my strong-
box and told me that there was a five-dollar or a ten-dollar bill under
this or that particular rivet. Perhaps there is; only he doesn’t know
anything about it. But this is a point that I, the Professor,
understand, my friends, or ought to, certainly, better than you do.
The next argument you will all appreciate.
I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of
Phrenology, which is very similar to that of the Pseudo-sciences. An
example will show it most conveniently.
A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him
and find a good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for
Phrenology. Casts and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump
does not lose in the act of copying.—I did not say it gained.—What
do you look so for? (to the boarders).
Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. has no bump at
all over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.—
Not a bit of it. Don’t you see how small Conscientiousness is? That’s
the reason B. stole.
And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,—
used to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own
pockets and put its contents in another, if he could find no other way
of committing petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a hollow, instead
of a bump, over Acquisitiveness. Ah! but just look and see what a
bump of Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and gingerbread, when
a boy, with the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief,
and how his example confirms our noble science.
At last comes along a case which is apparently a settler, for there
is a little brain with vast and varied powers,—a case like that of
Byron, for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which
covers everything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner a
Phrenologist. “It is not the size alone, but the quality of an organ,
which determines its degree of power.”
Oh! oh! I see.—The argument may be briefly stated thus by the
Phrenologist: “Heads I win, tails you lose.” Well, that’s convenient.
It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance
to the Pseudo-sciences.—I did not say it was a Pseudo-science.
I have often met persons who have been altogether struck up and
amazed at the accuracy with which some wandering Professor of
Phrenology had read their characters written upon their skulls. Of
course the Professor acquires his information solely through his
cranial inspections and manipulations.—What are you laughing at?
(to the boarders).—But let us just suppose, for a moment, that a
tolerably cunning fellow, who did not know or care anything about
Phrenology, should open a shop and undertake to read off people’s
characters at fifty cents or a dollar a-piece. Let us see how well he
could get along without the “organs.” I will suppose myself to set up
such a shop. I would invest one hundred dollars, more or less, in
casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other matters that would make
the most show for the money. That would do to begin with. I would
then advertise myself as the celebrated Professor Brainey, or
whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first customer. My
first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,—ask him a
question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang of
him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, dictating
as follows:—

SCALE FROM 1 TO 10.

List of Faculties for Private Notes for my Pupil:
Customer. Each to be accompanied with a wink.
Amativeness, 7. Most men love the conflicting sex, and all men
love to be told they do.
Alimentiveness, 8. Don’t you see that he has burst off his lowest
waistcoat-button with feeding—hey?
Acquisitiveness, 8. Of course. A middle-aged Yankee.
Approbativeness, 7, + Hat well brushed. Hair ditto. Mark the effect of
that plus sign.
Self-esteem, 6. His face shows that.
Benevolence, 9. That’ll please him.
Conscientiousness, 8½ That fraction looks first-rate.
Mirthfulness, 7 Has laughed twice since he came in.
Ideality, 9. That sounds well.
Form, Size, Weight, Colour} 4 to 6. Average everything that can’t be guessed.
Locality, Eventuality, }
etc., etc. }
And so of the other faculties.
Of course, you know, that isn’t the way the Phrenologists do. They
go only by the bumps. What do you keep laughing so for? (to the
boarders). I only said that is the way I should practise “Phrenology”
for a living.
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
 APHORISMS.

We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches.

To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was
quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?
I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds
much nearer to one another.
A man sits as many risks as he runs.
There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not
philosophers.
If you give money, spend yourself with it.
Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once-and-a-
half-witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third
part of their wit.
Thoreau.
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