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Page 15
BALDNESS AND INTELLECTUALITY
One of Judge Methuen's pet theories is that the soul in the human
body lies near the center of gravity; this is, I believe, one of
the tenets of the Buddhist faith, and for a long time I eschewed
it as one might shun a vile thing, for I feared lest I should
become identified even remotely with any faith or sect other than
Congregationalism.
Yet I noticed that in moments of fear or of joy or of the sense
of any other emotion I invariably experienced a feeling of
goneness in the pit of my stomach, as if, forsooth, the center of
my physical system were also the center of my nervous and
intellectual system, the point at which were focused all those
devious lines of communication by means of which sensation is
instantaneously transmitted from one part of the body to another.
I mentioned this circumstance to Judge Methuen, and it seemed to
please him. ``My friend,'' said he, ``you have a particularly
sensitive soul; I beg of you to exercise the greatest prudence in
your treatment of it. It is the best type of the bibliomaniac
soul, for the quickness of its apprehensions betokens that it is
alert and keen and capable of instantaneous impressions and
enthusiasms. What you have just told me convinces me that you
are by nature qualified for rare exploits in the science and art
of book-collecting. You will presently become bald--perhaps as
bald as Thomas Hobbes was--for a vigilant and active soul
invariably compels baldness, so close are the relations between
the soul and the brain, and so destructive are the growth and
operations of the soul to those vestigial features which humanity
has inherited from those grosser animals, our prehistoric
ancestors.''
You see by this that Judge Methuen recognized baldness as
prima-facie evidence of intellectuality and spirituality. He has
collected much literature upon the subject, and has promised the
Academy of Science to prepare and read for the instruction of
that learned body an essay demonstrating that absence of hair
from the cranium (particularly from the superior regions of the
frontal and parietal divisions) proves a departure from the
instincts and practices of brute humanity, and indicates surely
the growth of the understanding.
It occurred to the Judge long ago to prepare a list of the names
of the famous bald men in the history of human society, and this
list has grown until it includes the names of thousands,
representing every profession and vocation. Homer, Socrates,
Confucius, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Pliny, Maecenas, Julius
Caesar, Horace, Shakespeare, Bacon, Napoleon Bonaparte, Dante,
Pope, Cowper, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Israel Putnam, John Quincy
Adams, Patrick Henry--these geniuses all were bald. But the
baldest of all was the philosopher Hobbes, of whom the revered
John Aubrey has recorded that ``he was very bald, yet within dore
he used to study and sitt bare-headed, and said he never took
cold in his head, but that the greatest trouble was to keepe off
the flies from pitching on the baldness.''
In all the portraits and pictures of Bonaparte which I have seen,
a conspicuous feature is that curl or lock of hair which depends
upon the emperor's forehead, and gives to the face a pleasant
degree of picturesque distinction. Yet this was a vanity, and
really a laughable one; for early in life Bonaparte began to get
bald, and this so troubled him that he sought to overcome the
change it made in his appearance by growing a long strand of hair
upon his occiput and bringing it forward a goodly distance in
such artful wise that it right ingeniously served the purposes of
that Hyperion curl which had been the pride of his youth, but
which had fallen early before the ravages of time.
As for myself, I do not know that I ever shared that derisive
opinion in which the unthinking are wont to hold baldness. Nay,
on the contrary, I have always had especial reverence for this
mark of intellectuality, and I agree with my friend Judge Methuen
that the tragic episode recorded in the second chapter of II.
Kings should serve the honorable purpose of indicating to
humanity that bald heads are favored with the approval and the
protection of Divinity.
In my own case I have imputed my early baldness to growth in
intellectuality and spirituality induced by my fondness for and
devotion to books. Miss Susan, my sister, lays it to other
causes, first among which she declares to be my unnatural
practice of reading in bed, and the second my habit of eating
welsh-rarebits late of nights. Over my bed I have a gas-jet so
properly shaded that the rays of light are concentrated and
reflected downward upon the volume which I am reading.
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