No less than nine anecdotes have reached me of a twin seeing his or her reflection in a looking-glass, and addressing it in the belief it was the other twin in person.
I have many anecdotes of mistakes when the twins were nearly grown up. Thus:--
"Amusing scenes occurred at college when one twin came to visit the other; the porter on one occasion refusing to let the visitor out of the college gates, for, though they stood side by side, he professed ignorance as to which he ought to allow to depart."
Children are usually quick in distinguishing between their parent and his or her twin; but I have two cases to the contrary. Thus, the daughter of a twin says:--
"Such was the marvellous similarity of their features, voice, manner, etc., that I remember, as a child, being very much puzzled, and I think, had my aunt lived much with us, I should have ended by thinking I had two mothers."
In the other case, a father who was a twin, remarks of himself and his brother:--
"We were extremely alike, and are so at this moment, so much so that our children up to five and six years old did not know us apart."
I have four or five instances of doubt during an engagement of marriage. Thus:--
"A married first, but both twins met the lady together for the first time, and fell in love with her there and then. A managed to see her home and to gain her affection, though B went sometimes courting in his place, and neither the lady nor her parents could tell which was which."
I have also a German letter, written in quaint terms, about twin brothers who married sisters, but could not easily be distinguished by them.[13] In the well-known novel by Mr. Wilkie Collins of Poor Miss Finch, the blind girl distinguishes the twin she loves by the touch of his hand, which gives her a thrill that the touch of the other brother does not. Philosophers have not, I believe, as yet investigated the conditions of such thrills; but I have a case in which Miss Finch's test would have failed. Two persons, both friends of a certain twin lady, told me that she had frequently remarked to them that "kissing her twin sister was not like kissing her other sisters, but like kissing herself--her own hand, for example."