CURIOUS ANTIPATHIES.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2233, 30 May 1881, Page 4

CURIOUS ANTIPATHIES.

The learned Dr. Seattle tells us of healthy strong men who were always uneasy on touching velvet, or on sseing another person handle a cork ; Zimmerman, the naturalist, of a lady who could not boar to touch silk or satin, and shuddered when feeling the velvety skin of a peach. One of the Earls of Barrymore considered the pansy an abomination ; and the unfortunate Princess Lamballe looked upon the violet as a thing of horror. Soaliger turned pale at the sight of wateroresses, and neither he nor Peter Abono could ever drink milk. It is said of Cardan that ho was disgusted at the sight of eggs. We have heard of a valiant soldier fleeing without shams from a sprig of rue. The author of the “Turkish Spy” tells us that, provided he had;but a sword in his hand, he would rather encounter a lion in the deserts of Arabia than feel a spider crawling on him in the dark! Williams Matthews, son of the Governor of Barbadoes, had like the above, a great aversion to the harmless spider. One day the Duke of Athole, thinking his antipathy somewhat affected, left him and his friends in the room, and came back with a closed hand. Matthews thought he had a spider concealed there, and becoming furious drew his sword, and would have done damage to the Duke or himself, had not his friends interposed.—“ Chambers’ Journal.”