ly chicken-pox, erysipelas, or
such disorders as leave marks on the person. She should keep herself
well nourished, as want of food nearly always injures the child. She
should avoid ungraceful positions and awkward attitudes, as by some
mysterious sympathy these are impressed on the child she carries. Let
her cultivate grace and beauty in herself at such a time, and she will
endow her child with them. As anger and irritability leave imprints on
the features, she should maintain serenity and calmness.

INHERITANCE OF TALENT AND GENIUS.

The effects of inheritance are perhaps more marked upon the mind than
upon the body. This need not surprise us. If the peculiar form of the
brain can be transmitted, the mental attributes, the result of its
organization, must necessarily also be transmitted.

It is a matter of daily observation, that parents gifted with bright
minds, cultivated by education, generally engender intelligent children;
while the offspring of those steeped in ignorance are stupid from birth.
It may be objected, that men the most remarkable in ancient or modern
times, as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Shakspeare, Milton, Buffon,
Cuvier, etc., have not transmitted their vast intellectual powers to
their progeny. In explanation, it has been stated that what is known as
genius is not transmissible. The creation of a man of genius seems to
require a special effort of Nature, after which, as if fatigued, she
reposes a long time before again making a similar effort. But it may
well be doubted whether even those complex mental attributes on which
genius and talent depend are not inheritable, particularly when both
parents are thus endowed. That distinguished men do not more frequently
have distinguished sons, may readily be accounted for when it is
recollected that the inherited character is due to the combined
influence of both parents. The desirable qualities of the father may
therefore be neutralized in the offspring by the opposite or defective
qualities of the mother. That contrasts in the disposition of parents
are rather the rule than the exception, we have already shown. Every one
tends to unite himself in friendship or love with a different character
from his own, seeking thereby to supplement the qualities in which he
feels his own nature to be deficient. The mother, therefore, may weaken,
and perhaps obliterate, the qualities transmitted by the father. Again,
the influence of some remote ancestors may make