Twining

“ As with a few exceptions tendrils spontaneously revolve, it may be asked, Why are they endowed with sensitiveness?—why, when they come into contact with a stick, do they not, like a twining plant, spirally wind round it? One reason may be that in most cases they are so flexible and thin that, when brought into contact with a stick, they would yield, and their revolving movement would not be arrested ”

“ Summary on Leaf-climbers.—Plants belonging to eight families are known to have clasping petioles, and plants belonging to four families climb by the tips of their leaves. With all the plants observed by me, the young internodes revolved more or less regularly, in some cases as regularly as does any twining plant, and at various rates, but generally rather rapidly. Some few can ascend by twining spirally round a support. ”

“ Now if a coloured streak be painted (this was done with a large number of twining plants) along, we will say, the convex line of surface, this coloured streak will after a time (depending on the rate of revolution) be found to lie along one side of the bow, then along the concave side, then on the opposite side, and, lastly, again on the original convex surface. This clearly proves that the internodes, during the revolving movement, become bowed in every direction. The movement is, in fact, a continuous self-bowing of the whole shoot, successively directed to all points of the compass. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But these qualities are not essential to twine, which is defined by Webster as 'a strong thread, composed of two or three smaller threads or strands twisted together, and used for various purposes, as for binding small parcels, making nets, and the like; a small cord or string.' If in fact twine were necessarily stiff, and contained an infusion of gum, there could be no such thing as 'gilling twine,' since, for the purpose of gillnets, linen thread must combine the utmost possible flexibility of movement with lightness of texture, strength, and invisibility. ”

“ 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? ”

“ What a withering rebuke is this to our boasted civilization, with its quarrelings, its wranglings, 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. They have even occupied the same house, as a general thing, and it is believed that they have never failed to even sleep together on any night since they were born. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The 14th Amendment would have been disapproved by every state in the Union if it had saved or recognized the right of a state to compel one accused of crime, in its courts, to be a witness against himself. We state the matter in this way because it is common knowledge that the compelling of a person to criminate himself shocks or ought to shock the sense of right and justice to everyone who loves liberty. Indeed, this court has not hesitated thus to characterize the star chamber method of compelling an accused to be a witness against himself. ”

“ Certain it is, that when the present government of the United States was established it was the belief of all liberty-loving men in America that real, genuine freedom could not exist in any country that recognized the power of government to compel persons accused of crime to be witnesses against themselves. And it is not too much to say that the wise men who laid the foundations of our constitutional government would have stood aghast at the suggestion that immunity from self-incrimination was not among the essential, fundamental principles of English law. ”

“ 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 humblest school-boy and girl look down upon the "workhouse" child. The poorest women object to certain kinds of clothing for their children, because it is like the "workhouse dress." Some persons think this all very right, and desirable that it should be so. ”

“ The mother of the lawful child, and the mother of the illegitimate one, are confined side by side, which is as injurious to the one as the other. The honest mother feels somewhat of the disgrace, and the other loses all sense of shame. Visitors entering the ward regard them both as mothers of a child of shame. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Philosophers have not, I believe, as yet investigated the conditions of such thrills; but I have a case in which Miss Finch's test would have failed. Two persons, both friends of a certain twin lady, told me that she had frequently remarked to them that "kissing her twin sister was not like kissing her other sisters, but like kissing herself—her own hand, for example."
It would be an interesting experiment, for twins who were closely alike, to try how far dogs could distinguish between them by scent.
I have a few anecdotes of strange mistakes made between twins in adult life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is true they might no doubt have applied to the workhouse; but do we never read also of refusals to relieve, and coarse rejection of the destitute when they do apply for parish relief? And when relief is bestowed, is it not too often with the hard hand of necessity, not of brotherly love and charity? "Relief is flung to the poor by law, not given in love," was the remark once made of our system of public charity. And this seems the more remarkable, when we find no other country so prominent for its endless forms of charity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was not very kind of him to load the poor things up with a secret like that, which would be always flying to their tongues' ends every time they heard any one speak of the strangers as twins, and would become harder and harder to hang on to with every recurrence of the temptation to tell it, while the torture of retaining it would increase with every new strain that was applied ”

“ A is born the larger, then B overtakes and surpasses A, and is in his turn overtaken by A, the end being that the twins, on reaching adult life, are of the same size. This process would aid in giving an interchangeable likeness at certain periods of their growth, and is undoubtedly due to nature more frequently than to nurture.
Among my thirty-five detailed cases of close similarity, there are no less than seven in which both twins suffered from some special ailment or had some exceptional peculiarity. ”

“ Under the guise of interpreting the Constitution we must take care that we do not import into the discussion our own personal views of what would be wise, just, and fitting rules of government to be adopted by a free people, and confound them with constitutional limitations. The question before us is the meaning of a constitutional provision which forbids the states to deny to any person due process of law. In the decision of this question we have the authority to take into account only those fundamental rights which are expressed in that provision ”

“ As to the question of removing workhouses out of London, which has lately been suggested in some quarters, I would only remark that from my experience such a change would tend to make them still more dreaded than they are at present; the main objection being, that the poor would be more out of reach of their friends, whose visits in many cases can be their only consolation. And here I cannot help remarking on the cruelty of refusing admission to visitors on Sundays, a very general practice in London, that being the only day on which working people can visit their friends. ”

“ Over the headstone presently came the knee pants, the faded calico waist with bone buttons. The avid buyer seized and apparelled herself in them with a deft facility. The Merle twin was amazed that she should so soon look so much like a boy. From behind the headstone came the now ambiguous and epicene figure of the Wilbur twin, contorted to hold together the back of his waist.
"I can't button it," he said in deepest gloom.
"Here!" said the girl.
"Not you!"
It seemed to him that this would somehow further degrade him. At least another male should fasten this infamous thing about him. ”