That very day I dispersed my hoard of antiques, retaining only my Prynne’s ``Histrio-Mastix’’ and my Opera Quinti Horatii Flacci (8vo, Aldus, Venetiis, 1501).  And then I became interested in British balladry—­a noble subject, for which I have always had a veneration and love, as the well-kept and profusely annotated volumes in cases 3, 6, and 9 in the front room are ready to prove to you at any time you choose to visit my quiet, pleasant home.

V

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.