第28章 A RECORD OF ANTIPATHIES(1)

In thinking the whole matter over,Dr.Butts felt convinced that,with care and patience and watching his opportunity,he should get at the secret,which so far bad yielded nothing but a single word.It might be asked why he was so anxious to learn what,from all appearances,the young stranger was unwilling to explain.He may have been to some extent infected by the general curiosity of the persons around him,in which good Mrs.Butts shared,and which she had helped to intensify by revealing the word dropped by Paolo.But this was not really his chief motive.He could not look upon this young man,living a life of unwholesome solitude,without a natural desire to do all that his science and his knowledge of human nature could help him to do towards bringing him into healthy relations with the world about him.Still,he would not intrude upon him in any way.He would only make certain general investigations,which might prove serviceable in case circumstances should give him the right to counsel the young man as to his course of life.The first thing to be done was to study systematically the whole subject of antipathies.

Then,if any further occasion offered itself,he would be ready to take advantage of it.The resources of the Public Library of the place and his own private collection were put in requisition to furnish him the singular and widely scattered facts of which he was in search.

It is not every reader who will care to follow Dr.Butts in his study of the natural history of antipathies.The stories told about them are,however,very curious;and if some of them may be questioned,there is no doubt that many of the strangest are true,and consequently take away from the improbability of others which we are disposed to doubt.

But in the first place,what do we mean by an antipathy?It is an aversion to some object,which may vary in degree from mere dislike to mortal horror.What the cause of this aversion is we cannot say.

It acts sometimes through the senses,sometimes through the imagination,sometimes through an unknown channel.The relations which exist between the human being and all that surrounds him vary in consequence of some adjustment peculiar to each individual.The brute fact is expressed in the phrase "One man's meat is another man's poison."In studying the history of antipathies the doctor began with those referable to the sense of taste,which are among the most common.In any collection of a hundred persons there will be found those who cannot make use of certain articles of food generally acceptable.

This may be from the disgust they occasion or the effects they have been found to produce.Every one knows individuals who cannot venture on honey,or cheese,or veal,with impunity.Carlyle,for example,complains of having veal set before him,--a meat he could not endure.There is a whole family connection in New England,and that a very famous one,to many of whose members,in different generations,all the products of the dairy are the subjects of a congenital antipathy.Montaigne says there are persons who dread the smell of apples more than they would dread being exposed to a fire of musketry.The readers of the charming story "A Week in a French Country-House"will remember poor Monsieur Jacque's piteous cry in the night:"Ursula,art thou asleep?Oh,Ursula,thou sleepest,but I cannot close my eyes.Dearest Ursula,there is such a dreadful smell!Oh,Ursula,it is such a smell!I do so wish thou couldst smell it!Good-night,my angel!----Dearest!I have found them!

They are apples!"The smell of roses,of peonies,of lilies,has been known to cause faintness.The sight of various objects has had singular effects on some persons.A boar's head was a favorite dish at the table of great people in Marshal d'Albret's time;yet he used to faint at the sight of one.It is not uncommon to meet with persons who faint at the sight of blood.One of the most inveterately pugnacious of Dr.Butts's college-mates confessed that he had this infirmity.Stranger and far more awkward than this is the case mentioned in an ancient collection,where the subject of the antipathy fainted at the sight of any object of a red color.There are sounds,also,which have strange effects on some individuals.

Among the obnoxious noises are the crumpling of silk stuffs,the sound of sweeping,the croaking of frogs.The effects in different cases have been spasms,a sense of strangling,profuse sweating,--all showing a profound disturbance of the nervous system.

All these effects were produced by impressions on the organs of sense,seemingly by direct agency on certain nerve centres.But there is another series of cases in which the imagination plays a larger part in the phenomena.Two notable examples are afforded in the lives of two very distinguished personages.