Eccentricities Of Genius

We often hear people offering objections to certain of their acquaintances because they are "queer." Eccentricity, however, is of tener alliedto genius than not, says the Pittsburgh Dispatch. Among the musicians there have been found some of the most whimsical of men. Haydn could not compose satisfaetorily to himself without first having put on his best suit of clothes and powdered his hair. Nor could he get his ideas in form until he had placed upon his finger a diamond ring preseuted to him by Frederick II. Another composer, Sacchini by name, declared that he never had any moments of inspiration excepting when his two pet cats were sitting upon his shoulders. In other lines than music we find that Tycho de Brahe, the celebrated astronomer of the sixteenth century, dropped totheground wheneverhecaught sight of a hare or a fox. Ladislaus, king of Poland, took to flight as soon as he saw an apple. Henry III., king of England, could not bear to be in a room where there was a cat, even though he might not see it. Erasmus, of Rotterdam, one of the most enlightened men of the period, was thrown into a fever at the sight of a üsh. Bacon, the great English chancellor, fainted while gazing at an eclipse of the moon. John II., grand duke of Moscow, feil into a svvoon at the sight of a woman - surely the strangest peculiarity ever noticed in a man. Chevalier de Guise was similarly affected by the sight of a rose, even without smelling its fragrance. Maria de Medici, the wife of Louis XII., fond as she was of flowers, generally speaking, could not disguise her repugnance to roses, even painted ones.