How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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82 (canvas 102)
The image contains the following text:
deficiency can concentrate so whole-heartedly on his task
that he becomes a genius.
The left-handed deserve a special word of encourage¬
ment because left-handedness is one of the most common
of organ inferiorities. Few other organ inferiorities offer
such a wide range of compensation as sinistrality. The
left-handed individual is always doing the right thing
with the wrong hand. Therefore he develops a greater
sensitivity to the relation of objects to each other in space.
Combined with visual compensation, converted left-
handedness is almost a universal characteristic of
sculptors. Most of the sculptors whom we have examined
have been ambidextrous, that is, born left-handers who
have developed a compensatory facility of both hands.
Leonardo da Vinci, the most facile genius of the
Renaissance, left us a record of his left-handedness in his
writings which were all in mirror-writing, the reverse
writing so commonly a sign of left-handedness. Left-
handed individuals have a great flair for the mechanical.
They make the best geographers, mechanics, miniature
painters, detail men, pianists, violinists, typists, inventors,
fine needle-workers, jugglers, sleight-of-hand artists, or
echnicians of any sort. Given an anti-social twist by early
childhood conditions the converted left-handers become
pickpockets, safe-breakers, and forgers. We do not
recommend these compensations to our readers.
The second possibility of compensation lies in the
substitution of the normal functioning of another organ
for that of a damaged or inferior organ or function. Thus,
one of my patients who had suffered for years from a
defect in her hearing, together with the social isolation
and suspiciousness that so often follow in the wake of
this condition, was urged to take up sculpture as a life
interest. In this art, which requires hours of concentrated
work during which the extraneous noises of the great
city are only distractions, her loss of hearing was not only
not a liability but a valuable asset. The best piano-tuner
I have ever found was a blind man who took up piano¬
tuning early in life at the behest of a physician who