Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1874 — A Very Notable Performance. [ARTICLE]

A Very Notable Performance.

It is instanced as perhaps the most striking of the many proofs of the enormous brain-power and capacity of the Great Napoleon that he could dictate upon different,, subjects to several secretaries at the same time, or as fast as each could write, and continue such dictation for an indefinite time. The matter is stated as a fact in several of the lives of Napoleon, and I have never seen it questioned in print; indeed, I believe thaLsomething very similar is narrated of one or two other celebrated characters. The faculty is truly a marvelous one; and the ability to carry on two or more manual operations at once, which are not merely automatic or mechanical, is only less wonderful. But what an astonishing exhibition would it be to see the same person perform simultaneously two mental and two manual operations! The nearest approach to this that occurs to me is the case of the itinerant musician who many of us have seen perform upon two or more instruments together, but it is always the same tune that is played upon both. If a single instance can be given of a performance by the same person at the same time of two entirely different tunes upon two different instruments, steadily' and without lapse or break, I will readily admit that the exhibition would be quite as wonderful as was that which I am about to relate. From the same gentleman who related to me the anecdote of GouverneurTMorris which was published in Hearth and Home, I have the following relating to the same eminent personage. My informant w'as present upon the occasion to which I am about to refer, is still living, and is perfectly’ reliable; so I may claim that the story is sufficiently authenticated: During one of his visits to his vast possessions in the Northern counties of New York several persons were with Mr. Morris in his office one day, when the conversation happened to turn upon the remarkable power of Napoleon to which I have alluded. Some one remarked that the ability to dictate to two or more amanuenses at the same time was an extraordinary one. “Not so much so,” said Morris, “as the ability to write on two different subjects at the same time with a pen in each hand.” « “That is true,” was the rejoinder, “ but I nevtr heard of any one who could do that.” - “1 think I can,” remarked- Morris. “ Let me try.” Turning to his desk he arranged two blank pieces of paper before him and took a pen in each hand. , “ I was about to fill out a description in a deed,” he said, “ and I must also write a letter to the grantee to accompany the deed. Now let-us.see if I can do it all at once.” Audio the amazement and admiration of all present, each of whom we may be sure scrutinized the performance with critical watchfulness, he did it as cleverly and rapidly as though he had been writing either separately, and the task was performed with excellent penmanship, without blots or erasures, and without the least mistake or confusion in expression. Now, more than sixty years after that day, I commit the record of it to print, well knowing that it deserves a place among the minor chronicles of the great. —Janies Franklin Fitts, in Hearth and Home.