How Accidents Become Habits

1901

As to our mannerisms, says a writer in the Baltimore Sun, at first they are accidents, and afterward they become habits. It is singular how easy it is to convince a credulous public that a misfortune is a gift, just as an eccentricity is a mark of genius.

Your correspondent knows a lady who was asked in marriage by several gentlemen (for where one pastures others will follow), although she was neither beautiful nor clever nor rich but because she was affected with a trembling of the lids. In her inmost heart she who addresses you believes the trembling began with nervousness, but it was universal, and after a little what was curious began to be regarded as fascinating.

At any rate I know a well established, portly lady, married to a man who secured her, not without difficulty, whose only sorrow is the necessity of keeping up the girlish habit which procured her a spouse. He is not a sentimentalist, but he wants what he paid for. He married her because her eyelids trembled, and not unnaturally he wishes to be possessed of the same treasure.