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Updated: September 13, 2025
He had no more to say; every faculty was, for at least an hour, devoted to the contemplation of these lusus naturæ, thus presented to his vision. At last, the road, which had long been in a condition of ominous second-childhood, suddenly died a natural death at the foot of a steep hill, where a rail-fence presented itself as a barrier to farther progress.
This little lusus naturae, under the masterly management of Mr. Barnum, had made a great sensation in London which, after the Queen had summoned him two or three times to Windsor, grew into a fashionable furor. Mr. Barnum's description of those visits to the royal palaces is very amusing.
I had long considered the character of our archdeacon as a lusus politicus et theologicus.
He sent for three great scholars, who, after much debate, concluded that I was only lusus naturae; a determination agreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe, whose professors have invented this wonderful solution of all difficulties, to the unspeakable advancement of human knowledge.
Such an anomaly in sociology, such a lusus naturae, might occur in Bacon's 'Bensalem, or in some undiscovered and unimagined realm, where the men are all brave, honest, and true, and the women conscientious and constant! But here! and now? Ah! pardon me! Impossible!"
This lusus naturae, or sport of nature, has a very pretty effect, but is oftener found in stones than other substances.
She was no "lusus naturæ," but a woman with a heart, and blood in her veins; and not as yet a very old woman either. And therefore, though she had no idea that Sir Lionel was her lover, she had learned to be fond of him. Her little conversations with Caroline on this subject were delightful.
After much debate, they concluded unanimously that I was only relplum scalcath, which is interpreted literally, lusus naturae; a determination exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe: whose professors, disdaining the old evasion of occult causes, whereby the followers of Aristotle endeavored in vain to disguise their ignorance, have invented this wonderful solution of all difficulties, to the unspeakable advancement of human knowledge.
Instead of feeling that my bookish taste was something to be valued, I looked upon myself as a lusus naturæ whom Nature had cruelly formed to suffer from an abnormal constitution, and lamented that somehow I never could be like other boys. The maladroitness described by my father, of which I was fully conscious, added to the feeling of my unfitness for the world around me.
As he listened he thought of his eldest son, partly imbecile, all but a lusus naturae, separated from his wife immediately after marriage, through whom there could never be succession he thought of him, and for the millionth time in his life winced in impotent disdain.
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