Twine

“ They with surpassing skill, most wise, have measured out the Twins united in their birth and in their home. They, the refulgent Sages, weave within the sky, yea, in the depths of sea, a web for ever new. ”

“ He was already in his basket.
“As I can’t be baby,” Tootles said, getting heavier and heavier, “do you think I could be a twin?”
“No, indeed,” replied the twins; “it’s awfully difficult to be a twin.” ”

“ If you were alone in the sacred room you could go right up to the frame and feel the actual bars and put your hand thrillingly through them to touch the painted king of the jungle. But the Merle twin could sit alone in the presence of this prized art treasure and never think of touching it. He would sit quietly and read his instructive book and not occasion the absent Winona any anxiety. Wherefore the Wilbur twin each Sabbath morning in the woodshed polished three pairs of shoes, and not uncheerfully. ”

“ One twin has sexual intercourse with his mother, and begets himself and his brother; and next he has sexual intercourse with his grandmother and begets his mother. I should think it would be difficult, mamma, though interesting. Oh, ever so difficult. I should think that the Corespondent —
All things are possible with God, my child.
Yes, I suppose so. But not with any other Siamese twin, I suppose. You don't think any ordinary Siamese twin could beget himself and his brother on his mother, do you, mamma, and then go on back while his hand is in and beget her, too, on his grandmother? ”

“ And yet these creatures were ignorant and unlettered--barbarians themselves and the offspring of barbarians, who knew not the light of philosophy and science. What a withering rebuke is this to our boasted civilization, with its quarrelings, its wrangling, and its separations of brothers!
As men, the Twins have not always lived in perfect accord; but, still, there has always been a bond between them which made them unwilling to go away from each other and dwell apart. ”

“ The patterns of a twin's right hand are not the same as those on his left. One twin's patterns are never the same as his fellow twin's patterns—the jury will find that the patterns upon the finger balls of the twins' hands follow this rule. [An examination of the twins' hands was begun at once.] You have often heard of twins who were so exactly alike that when dressed alike their own parents could not tell them apart. Yet there was never a twin born in to this world that did not carry from birth to death a sure identifier in this mysterious and marvelous natal autograph. ”

“ Another day.—"The twins are certainly improving a trifle. They are by no means angelic, but they are at least growing human; and if ever their tremendous energy—a very whirlwind—is once turned in the right direction, we shall see things move, I warrant you! ”

“ I wish I was a twin.
"There's two of twins, and it must be fun To go double at everything; To holler by twos, and whistle by twos, To stamp by twos, and to sing!"
[122] His laugh was something to make you glad, So brimful was it of joy; A conscience he had, perhaps, in his breast, But it never troubled the boy. ”

“ Twins are thought by the Kpelle to do wonders; they even say that "a twin surpasses every medicine-man." [77] Among the Fan or Fang, a tribe of the Cameroons in West Africa, there is a curious superstition that a twin ought not to see a rainbow. Should he by accident have caught sight of one, he must shave his eyebrows and dye the place of the one black and the place of the other red. ”

“ By some strange chance, which I am unable to explain, my twin and I have become separated; so that instead of thinking and acting alike, we are now individuals--as are all the strange men who have passed through the hole in the hedge. And, being individuals, we can no longer agree, nor can one of us lawfully rule over the Kingdom of Twi, where all the subjects are twins, thinking and acting in unison. ”

“ Said Prince Marvel:
"Your Highness, I alone can explain why you became separated from your twin. By means of a fairy enchantment, which I learned years ago, I worked upon you a spell, which compelled your brain to work independent of your sister's brain. It seems to me that it is better each person should think her own thoughts and live her own life, rather than be yoked to another person and obliged to think and act as a twin, or one-half of a complete whole. ”

“ I sought for twins
I could not find;
I search my mind,
No twins have seen.
They seem alike,
Man and man, beast and brute,
Yet no faces two are like;
Ne’er the same song sang the lute.
Ne’er two hearts are same. ”

“ I'm always getting into trouble, and—"
"Getting other folks out!" whispered Brother Bob.
"Well," said Miss Burnard, "if to be the wrong twin means to be always striving—in spite of difficulties and temptations—to do right; if it means to confess oneself in the wrong and to try to make amends—then, Dina darling, there is not one of us who would not be glad to change with you and be a wrong twin too."
"Hear! Hear!" said Mr. Ellis.
"Three cheers for the righter of the two right twins!" cried Gerald. ”

“ In the first case, it is supposed that the twins are necessarily of the same sex, while in the other, each twin child may be of the sex determined by the fertilized ovum from which it sprung. Clearly, in the latter case it might often happen that both twins might be male, or both female.
Dr. Berry Hart quotes from the records of another observer (Wilder) in which there was a pair of “identical” twins, in whom the similarity was complete even to the finger-prints. [Brit. Med. Jour., July 29th, 1911, p. 215.] ”

“ The woman gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, who were nurtured in secret and made to believe that their father was dead no difficult matter, since at a tender age they saw their mother die, and they gave little thought to tracing genealogies. As our maternal grandfather was rich our childhood passed happily. My sister and I were brought up together, loving one another as only twins can love when they have no other affections. ”

“ We thought “twins” must be something pretty nice, and learned to feel the disappointment that we saw on the faces of strangers when Mother set them right. Once at camp-meeting we were playing together, when some ladies stopped us asking, “Little girls, are you twins?” Mother was not near. Kate and I looked at each other and knew that our time had come to be twins. ”

“ Twins are not like other people, and there is something wakon about them. They come from Twin Land where they have lived together always; and when they come into this world looking for a mother, they ride around on jack rabbits. Nobody can see them; but they ride around anyway, looking and looking for a good and pretty young woman. Maybe she is getting water from a spring or a creek and the twins have followed her on their jack rabbits. They are hiding in the brush, and when the good and pretty young woman leans over, they hurry and get inside of her. ”

“ Twins.—The signs of heredity between brothers and sisters ought to be especially apparent between twins of the same sex, who are physiologically related in a peculiar degree and are sometimes extraordinarily alike. More rarely, they are remarkably dissimilar. ”

“ There have been known cases of twins that had no resemblance to one another, but they are alike as a general rule. There was once upon a time a woman who had intercourse with her husband a week after giving birth to a child and she conceived and bore a second child as like the first as any twin. Some women have a tendency to produce children that take after themselves, and others children that take after the husband ”

“ In an age which worshiped fertility, whether in mankind or animals, TWINS were ever counted especially blest, and were credited with a magic power. (The Constellation of the Twins was thought peculiarly lucky.) Perhaps after a time it was discovered that twins sometimes run in families, and in such cases really do bring fertility with them. In cattle it is known nowadays that there are more twins of the female sex than of the male sex. ”

“ THE exceedingly close resemblance attributed to twins has been the subject of many novels and inlays, and most persons have felt a desire to know upon what basis of truth those works of fiction may rest. But twins have many other claims to attention, one of which will be discussed in the present memoir. It is, that their history affords means of distinguishing between the effects of tendencies received at birth and of those that were imposed by the circumstances of their after-lives; in other words, between the effects of nature and of nurture. ”

“ For, though one was fair and the other dark, they were both equally beautiful. But the fair twin loved him, and the dark twin hated him, so he chose the fair one. The dark twin would have prevented the marriage if she could, but she couldn’t; however, on the night before it, much suspecting Captain Murderer, she stole out and climbed his garden wall, and looked in at his window through a chink in the shutter, and saw him having his teeth filed sharp. ”

“ I never could look at these little fellows without an inexplicable feeling coming over me; and though there was nothing so very remarkable or unprecedented about them, except the singular coincidence of two sisters simultaneously making the world such a generous present; yet, the mere fact of there being twins always seemed curious; in fact, to me at least, all twins are prodigies; and still I hardly know why this should be; for all of us in our own persons furnish numerous examples of the same phenomenon. ”

“ An odd, earnest, ineffable look jumped into her eyes, changing their grey to pitch-black, with patches of ethereal blue, where the soul shone through. To their dying day the twins never forgot the smell, or ceased from the pain of their incapacity to grasp the fresh, unmellowed point of view. Points of view are the very dickens. ”

“ On the other hand, the more favoured twin, who was from its birth a remarkably strong lively infant, and met with all justice from its nurse, throve apace, and was pronounced by her to be the very picture of the bonnie leddie, its mamma, and then, with all the low cunning of her kind, she would launch forth into panegyrics of its beauty, and prophecies of the great dignities and honours that would one day be showered upon it ”

“ The duke, Lord Dawne, Dr. Galbraith, Mr. Ellis, Father Ricardo and the four strange priests were at table.
"What can have become of those children?" Lady Fulda was exclaiming for the hundredth time, when the door opened, and the twins themselves appeared hand in hand, smiling affably.
They looked as fresh as usual, and began to perform their morning salutations with their habitual self-possession.
"Where have you been?" the duke asked sternly.
"In bed, of course," Angelica answered—"till we got up, at least. Where else should we be?" She looked round in innocent inquiry. ”

“ Since his views were published I have observed various twins, and have seen some instances of astonishing similarity, but in other children of the same parents, not twins, more instances which could readily be accounted for by heredity and the influence of similar surroundings and nurture. A number of instances could be given of distinguished men, now living or but recently deceased, where the physical and mental resemblances between them and their twin brothers are no greater than ordinarily exist between brothers. ”

“ Dee is the most wonderfullest person in the world."
Mrs. Green smiled and hugged the enthusiastic Dum.
"Yes, I know what a sister can be. My sister, Mildred, is not my twin in reality, but the Siamese twins cannot be closer than we are in spirit. I hardly ever see her now, either, as she lives in the northwest and I am at Wellington all winter and in Kentucky in the summer. Fortunately, love can work by wireless at any distance, so absence does not affect our affection for each other." ”

“ Never let on; treat us always as if we were twins.”
“You can depend on us,” said Aunt Betsy, “but it won't be easy, because now that I know you ain't you don't seem so.”
Luigi muttered to himself with satisfaction: “That swindle has gone through without change of cars.” ”

“ Then the two small twins looked back over the icy lake and far behind them saw their father and mother, with Bert and Nan, standing on the ice and waving their hands.
"Oh, they've jumped off and left us to sail the boat alone!" cried Freddie, "Now I can steer! Isn't that good?" ”

“ Now what does this overwhelming body of evidence establish? It establishes just one thing, and that thing it establishes beyond any peradventure whatever. Friends, we would not have it known for the world, and I must beg you to keep it strictly to yourselves, but the truth is, we are no more twins than you are. ”

“ The Heavenly Twins got their day's sport on that occasion, and returned with a basket full of trout for tea, fishy themselves, and tired, but bland and conciliatory. They dressed for the evening carefully, and without coercion, which was always a sign of repentance; and then they went down to the schoolroom, where they found Mr. Ellis standing with his back to the fireplace, reading a newspaper. ”

“ They announced that they had come to call on the Duke of Morningquest, and were conducted to his presence with pomp and ceremony enough to have embarrassed any other equally dusty dishevelled mortals, but the twins were not troubled with self-consciousness, and entered with perfect confidence. The duke was delighted. If there was one thing which could give him more pleasure than another in his old age, it was the wicked ways of the Heavenly Twins, and especially of the promising Angelica, who very much resembled him both in appearance, decision of character, and sharpness of temper. ”

“ I know they think it wicked and ridiculous to leave the raising of four bright spirits in the unworthy hands of a girl like me. I know they will all sniff and smile and—Of course, twins, they have a perfect right to feel, and act, so. I am not complaining. But I want to show them for once in their lives that the parsonage runs smoothly and sweetly. If you would just stay at home with us, father, it would be a big help. You are such a tower of strength. ”