i
I believe that more unhappiness comes from this source than from any
other—I mean from the attempt to prolong family connection unduly and to
make people hang together artificially who would never naturally do so.
The mischief among the lower classes is not so great, but among the
middle and upper classes it is killing a large number daily. And the old
people do not really like it much better than the young.
ii
On my way down to Shrewsbury some time since I read the Bishop of
Carlisle’s _Walks in the Regions of Science and Faith_, {31} then just
published, and found the following on p. 129 in the essay which is
entitled “Man’s Place in Nature.” After saying that young sparrows or
robins soon lose sight of their fellow-nestlings and leave off caring for
them, the bishop continues:—
“Whereas ‘children of one family’ are constantly found joined together by
a love which only grows with years, and they part for their posts of duty
in the world with the hope of having joyful meetings from time to time,
and of meeting in a higher world when their life on earth is finished.”
I am sure my great-grandfather did not look forward to meeting his father
in heaven—his father had cut him out of his will; nor can I credit my
grandfather with any great longing to rejoin my great-grandfather—a
worthy man enough, but one with whom nothing ever prospered. I am
certain my father, after he was 40, did not wish to see my grandfather
any more—indeed, long before reaching that age he had decided that Dr.
Butler’s life should not be written, though R. W. Evans would have been
only too glad to write it. Speaking for myself, I have no wish to see my
father again, and I think it likely that the Bishop of Carlisle would not
be more eager to see his than I mine.