lock
in the midst of his dark hair: he assured me that his grandmother had {6} a
similar lock on the same side, and his mother on the opposite side. But it
is superfluous to give instances; every shade of expression, which may
often be seen alike in parents and children, tells the same story. On what
a curious combination of corporeal structure, mental character, and
training, must handwriting depend! yet every one must have noted the
occasional close similarity of the handwriting in father and son, although
the father had not taught his son. A great collector of franks assured me
that in his collection there were several franks of father and son hardly
distinguishable except by their dates. Hofacker, in Germany, remarks on the
inheritance of handwriting; and it has even been asserted that English boys
when taught to write in France naturally cling to their English manner of
writing.[8] Gait, gestures, voice, and general bearing are all inherited,
as the illustrious Hunter and Sir A. Carlisle have insisted.[9] My father
communicated to me two or three striking instances, in one of which a man
died during the early infancy of his son, and my father, who did not see
this son until grown up and out of health, declared that it seemed to him
as if his old friend had risen from the grave, with all his highly peculiar
habits and manners. Peculiar manners pass into tricks, and several
instances could be given of their inheritance; as in the case, often
quoted, of the father who generally slept on his back, with his right leg
crossed over the left, and whose daughter, whilst an infant in the cradle,
followed exactly the same habit, though an attempt was made to cure
her.[10] I will give one instance which has fallen under my own
observation, and which is curious from being a trick associated with a
peculiar state of mind, namely, pleasurable emotion. A boy had the singular
habit, when pleased, of rapidly moving his fingers parallel to each other,
and, when much excited, of raising both hands, with the fingers still
moving, to the sides of his face on a level with the eyes; this boy, when
almost an old man, could still hardly resist this trick when much pleased,
but from its absurdity concealed it. He had eight children. Of these, a
girl, when {7} pleased, at the age of four and a half years, moved her
fingers in exactly the same way, and what is still odder, when much
excited, the raised both her hands, with her fingers still movi