IN RETIREMENT.
There comes a time in most households when the mistress has perforce to
contemplate an enforced retirement from public life; and I wish to
impress upon all those who may be in a similar plight that the time will
pass much more quickly and agreeably if the room selected for the
temporary prison is made as pretty, convenient, and as unlike the
orthodox sick-room as can be managed.
Naturally these times are looked forward to with dread by all young
wives. They are fully convinced that they must die, and in fact make
themselves perfectly wretched and miserable because of their ignorance,
and of their not unnatural dislike to speak of their dreads and fears;
and though, of course, I can only lightly touch on these matters in a
book which I trust may be widely used and read, I want to whisper a few
words to reassure all those who may be contemplating the arrival of No.
1. If girls are brought up in a proper, healthy manner, if they do not
rush about from ball to party or from one excitement to the other, if
they realise their condition, and dress and rest themselves properly
beforehand, in nine cases out of ten the illness, being a natural one,
has no attendant dangers, and should therefore be looked upon in an
entirely different manner than it is at present. There is a most
excellent little book published by Messrs. Churchill, and written by Dr.
Chevasse, which all young wives should procure. It is called ‘Advice to
a Wife,’ and is a really necessary possession. This can be supplemented
later by ‘Advice to a Mother’ (same author and publisher); and,
possessed of these books, any young matron can manage herself most
successfully without the constant harassment of continually seeing the
doctor. But, besides the purely medical aspect of the case, there are
matters that can and must be arranged early, and by the expectant mother
herself alone; and one of these, and the most important of all, is
undoubtedly the choice of the nurse, who should be engaged as early as
possible, for most good nurses are secured as soon as it is probable
their services will be required later on. And as, to my mind, a good
nurse is ‘all the battle,’ this once secured the worst is over, and
Angelina may contemplate the future, if not with absolute calmness, at
all events with a brave and trustful heart. I do not think too much
stress can be laid upon this looking after a nurse. And though girls may
indeed congratulate themselves on their position to-day as regards the
orthodox monthly nurse, as contrasted with their mothers’ and
grandmothers’ accounts of all they suffered at the hands of the old-time
Mrs. Gamp, with whose vagaries we are all so familiar, still great care
must be exercised in the choice, as nothing is so important, especially
for No. 1, as to have a really good, kind woman in the nurse, and one
who will neither unduly coddle the patient nor allow her to do rash
things, of which she will most certainly repent unto her dying day; and
I should like to implore any one who is contemplating the arrival of
King Baby not to trust entirely to the doctor’s recommendation, but to
rely for once, at least, on her mother’s advice, and to employ some one
who is personally known to some member of the family.
I have known, and still know, a nurse who is simply perfect. She is of
no use to the general public, as ‘her ladies’ keep her well employed
among themselves and their friends, but I shall write a little about her
here, as a guide to those who may be likely to require some one in a
similar capacity.
But before I do this let me say a few words about the extreme folly,
from my point of view, of engaging what is called a lady-nurse. ‘She is
so companionable, so delightful, so much nicer than any mere working
woman can possibly be,’ say those who have friends they wish to find
places for; but I must declare I have never, in all my large experience,
found them in the very least bit satisfactory or of the very least use
practically.
As a theory they are all they ought to be; but in practice they are a
most dismal failure! They will keep the room pretty with flowers, and
will forget to remove them at night; and they will do what I may term
the decorative parts of nursing, leaving all the more practical ones to
any of the already overworked servants who can be pressed into the
service, and who of course resent this immensely, and generally give
warning at a most inconvenient time; but I have really found them do
very little besides this!
Thinking of my good nurse causes me to remember other things in
connection with these events, on which I will touch for one moment; the
while I maintain strenuously that, as a rule, not half enough loving
thought is bestowed upon the mother, who, I insist, should be the first
object of every one’s care until she has been for at least a fortnight
over her trouble; and I trace a good deal of my own nervous irritability
and ill-health to the fact that after my last baby arrived I had an
enormous quantity of small worries that the presence in the house of a
careful guard would have obviated, and to the fact that wearisome
details of an illness of a relative were carried to me as usual, and I
had to see to matters that should never have been even whispered about
before me, but the arrangement of all of which was left entirely to me;
and the only rest I obtained during all that weary time was literally
snatched for me, from the jaws of all those who are accustomed to depend
on me, by nurse, who was my one bright gleam of hope, and to whose
never-failing energy and thoughtfulness I always look back most
gratefully and thankfully.
Speaking as I do from experience only, perhaps I may be forgiven if I
repeat myself, and beg for far more consideration for the mother than
she ever gets. I hope I shall not be considered a monster if I whisper
quite low that I do not believe a new baby is anything but a profound
nuisance to its relations at the very first. It howls when peace is
required, it demands unceasing attention, and it is thrust into
Angelina’s arms, and she has to admire it and adore it at the risk of
being thought most unnatural, when she really is rather resenting the
intrusion, and requires at least a week to reconcile herself to her new
fate. My nurse never allows _her_ baby to be a torment. Somehow she has
such a pleasant way with her that babies cannot be a trouble where she
is. She turns them out always as if they had just come out of a
band-box, and one never realises a baby can be unpleasant so long as she
has the dressing of them, and the seeing to them generally; but then she
is so very methodical, so clean, so bright, so cheerful, that somehow I
find, when I come to write down her method, I cannot remember so much
what she did as how she did it, and that I cannot recall her routine of
work half as easily as I can each detail of her neat form and _jolly_
face, and the perfect joy it was to me to have about me a woman who
never fussed, never kept me waiting, always did to-day what she did
yesterday at the same time, and, above all, presented me with a nice
bright-looking baby to look at just when that infant was wanted, and not
at inopportune moments, or just at the special moment when she would
have been a worry.
And oh, what a contrast she was to the good old-fashioned nurse who came
to me with No. 1! who had a routine and who kept to it, and who regarded
all new ideas and thoughts as dangerous and ‘flying in the face of
Providence,’ yet who was goodness and trustworthiness itself; but she
was too old to learn that people differ, and what is one man’s meat is
another man’s poison, and so made my life a burden to me because she
could not understand that I was really and truly different in my tastes
and likings to most of her other ladies, who loved to be fed constantly
and be as constantly ‘waited on’ and looked after, while all I required
was to be let alone in peace and quiet and fed rather less than most
people. Still she was a dragon of watchfulness, and kept away all those
small bothers which men can never refrain from bringing to their wives,
regardless that at such times the smallest worry becomes gigantic, and
assumes proportions that would be ludicrous, were they not really and
truly very real; and have real effects too on the nerves and temper of
the unfortunate invalid. And here let me say sternly, and as forcibly as
I can, that the life of the ordinary house-mother has never been
properly appreciated by the male sex; and, if at no other time can we
obtain consideration and thought, it is imperative that for at least
three weeks after the arrival of a baby the wife should have mental as
well as bodily rest, and that she should be absolutely shielded from all
domestic cares and worries. And every husband should be taught by the
doctor and nurse combined that there is real and great need for the wife
to be carefully kept from _little_ worries and bothers, until she has
regained her usual balance of health, and is able to hear with more
equanimity of the death of some dear friend, maybe, than she was a few
weeks before; to simply be told that cook had had a soldier to tea; and
that there had been so much butter used in the kitchen that the
Bankruptcy Court is in the near future.
Husbands are far too apt to say and think that the life of a woman is a
mere giddy whirl of frocks and gaiety, that all the time he is ‘toiling
in the City,’ or doing the equivalent of that in some other walk in
life, she is airily fluttering from flower to flower, extracting all the
sweetness she can out of it, and bitterly resents it should she be tired
in the evening, or require a little lively talk, instead of hours of
contemplation of a sleeping countenance, at which perchance she looks
sadly, and wonders if she ever really did think it so good-looking, as
she seems to remember she once did, in some far-off existence long since
dead. But have men the smallest idea of what a never-ceasing,
uninteresting work a woman’s far too often is? Men never can be
acquainted with or realise--bless them!--the thousand worries a woman
knows all too well; the abject fears for her children that always haunt
her, the dread that Tommy’s whine may mean scarlet fever, or that
Trixy’s temper indicates measles; the impatience with which she would
fain greet the daily details of food and drink, and which she has to
smother; the sordid arrangements with butcher and baker, and the endless
trouble she has to keep the house nice, the children well, and the
expenses down to the lowest sum she can possibly manage with, and all
this is done within the walls of one house. A man’s work takes him far
afield; he rubs his intellect against those of hundreds of other people
daily. He goes to his ‘toil’ through amusing streets which always vary,
and he has the grand excitement of being paid for his ‘toil,’ while the
ordinary woman works on and on ceaselessly without pay, sometimes
without thanks; and handicapped by indifferent health and nervous dread
for her babies that no man--no _man_, I repeat, with a fine accent of
scorn on the noun--can ever comprehend, much less appreciate in the
least; gets through an amount of real positive labour, an account of
which might astonish the husband, but which he would most certainly not
believe in were it written out in plain words for his perusal, and
placed before him. Of course, I am not writing about the ‘upper ten,’
about whose domestic arrangements I know nothing, and which, judging
from the papers, are not always as successful as they might be. Here, no
doubt, ladies spend their days in the ‘fluttering’ spoken of above, and
may not earn their keep--to put the matter a little coarsely--but we
ordinary folk cannot do much fluttering, even if we would; and I can but
hope that men will realise what a woman’s work means for the future, and
will take care she is really nursed and guarded, in a manner the husband
alone can see is done, at a time when the brain should be allowed to
rest, as well as the rest of the body.
A man cannot realise that a woman ever can have ambition--that she can
sicken at the dusters and pudding-cloths that are supposed to be her
proper occupation, that she does sometimes feel even a little bit better
educated or cleverer than the clever creature who makes the money; and
if only I can get one of the male sex to believe that we do sometimes
want a little of his freedom, a little of his powers of money-making, a
little of his ability to take a holiday unhaunted by never-ceasing
dreads and fears of what awful ends the children are coming to at home
in our absence, I shall not have lived in vain, particularly if at the
same time he takes the double burden on his own shoulders, when his wife
has presented him with a small son or daughter, and takes care that not
even a whisper of the cook’s wickedness passes the bedroom door, until
Materfamilias is able to bring her mind to bear upon a matter that can,
no doubt, be explained as soon as the feminine intellect grapples with
it.
And one more very serious word for the last on this subject: let Edwin
bear in mind that much more care is needed with No. 5 or No. 6 than was
ever bestowed at the time when No. 1 put the house in a stir, and
altered all the domestic arrangements. Angelina is not so young as she
was, dear soul; she is very tired. She is quite sure such a numerous
family must bring her to the workhouse, and unless Edwin is goodness
itself he may so depress and harass his wife by his depression that she
may slip out of his fingers altogether, and leave him to himself, that
most utterly to be pitied person on earth, a widower with young
children, to find out what he has lost, and to realise all too late what
he might have saved, had he remembered how desperately hard women do
work, and how unending and never-ceasing is their toil; which has
dulness as a background and utter sameness as a rule, as a drawback to
its being satisfactorily performed.
Once let the nurse be secured for as early a date as one can
conveniently do with her, there are the small garments to be seen to.
These consist of very fine lawn shirts (12), long flannels (6 for day,
of fine Welsh flannel; 4 for night, of rather a thicker quality), fine
long-cloth petticoats (6), monthly gowns of cambric and trimmed with
muslin embroideries on the bodices only (8), and nightgowns (8); besides
this 4 head-flannels will be required, and a large flannel shawl to wrap
the child in as it is taken from room to room; about six dozen large
Russian diapers and six good flannel pilches. Three or four pairs of
tiny woollen shoes complete the outfit, which may furthermore have added
to it four good robes; but these I strongly advise no one to buy until
it is time to talk about the christening, for relatives often present
the baby with smart frocks; and as they are really worn very little, and
cost a great deal of money, are not necessary, especially in the
country, where really nice monthly gowns are good enough for any baby;
and the smart robes tempt young mothers to adopt the pernicious custom
of low necks and short sleeves, making these even shorter by tying them
up on the small shoulders with gay ribbons, that soon find their way
into the little mouths. Even in smart low-necked frocks I always had a
species of long-sleeved, extra high bodice tacked; for, apart from the
appearance of the small skinny arms and necks of most young babies, I
consider it suicidal of any mother to condemn her children to a style of
dress that is about as unsuitable to our climate as anything well can
be. I should put even a tiny baby into a high fine flannel vest. I
always make the long flannel barra-coats with three pleats in the
bodices back and front, and line the stay bodices with flannel, thus
reducing the chance of colds greatly; and I live in hopes of seeing in a
very short time the total disappearance of low dresses everywhere; for
to my mind this is a custom as foolish and indecent as any we still
retain from our savage ancestors. Besides the clothes enumerated above,
four or five strips of flannel about six inches wide, herring-boned each
side, and about eighteen inches long, will be required, and six swathes
to roll round the infant and give support to the back; this,
new-fashioned doctors try to dispense with, but from long experience I
am convinced these binders are a most important portion of a young
baby’s attire.
The basket should contain a complete set of baby’s things ready aired,
and furthermore a skein of whitey-brown thread, a _new_ pair of
scissors, a pot of cold cream, pins, safety pins, and some old pieces of
linen; and the young mother will do wisely if she has the long pieces of
Russian diaper used as hand-towels for some three or four months before
taking them for the baby, as this softens them and makes them much
better for the nurse’s use. All these things should be in readiness
quite two months before they are required, and should be placed, with a
large mackintosh sheet, two old blankets, and three coarse
‘blanket-sheets,’ where, should they be required in a hurry, they can be
found at once. Attention to these particulars and directions saves fuss
and worry and often prevents danger.
These matters seen to, the young wife may now turn her mind to the
arrangement of her own chamber, which she should do her very best to
make as pretty as she can; or she should carefully look at the rooms at
her disposal and see which will be the nicest and most cheerful for her
to occupy; for there is really no need, unless we like, for the event to
take place in the room usually occupied, and, if preferred, a pretty
room might be got ready beforehand; but, if this be impossible, at least
all the washing and toilet apparatus might depart, and some tables and
low pretty chairs and a sofa, books and plants, replace the
washing-stand and toilet-table, that can be relegated to another room
until Angelina is herself again. Taking into consideration that, as an
enterprising advertiser remarks, one half one’s time is spent in one’s
bedroom, we cannot possibly take too much care about them to have them
nice and pretty; for I am convinced one comes down to one‘s day’s work
far better tempered from a pretty and convenient room, than one does
from an ugly, inconvenient place, where we have worn ourselves out in
hunting for our properties, or been worried by contemplating hideous
papers and draperies, and ugly conventional walls without pictures or
decoration of any kind; while if one has to be ill, and, what is more,
has to contemplate a long period of convalescence in one spot, one
cannot too carefully select one’s surroundings, for there is no doubt
that one’s mind acts insensibly on one’s body, and that one’s
convalescence is a great deal more advanced or retarded, as the case may
be, than we think for by our surroundings; therefore, I am sure we shall
not be wasting our time if we think a good deal about the arrangement
of a room where the young mother will have to spend at least three
weeks, and where she will remain a much more willing prisoner, if she is
not harassed and worried by a bedroom where she cannot have any of her
usual surroundings, and where the bedroom aspect of the chamber
predominates over everything else, so preventing any visitors to her,
save of the most intimate and personal kind possible. I do hope that the
queer notion that nurse ought to sleep in the room with her patient has
almost, if not quite, died out. I never could make out why this was
considered necessary, unless in very severe cases, where sitting up is
thought of consequence; and even then (though it sounds Irish I can’t
help saying it) the nurse could take her rest in another room, leaving
some one else to sit up in turn; for I know nothing more truly
irritating than to see a second bed in the room, and to feel the eternal
presence of a stranger, who might just as well be snugly resting in the
adjacent dressing-room, where she could be reached quite as well by
ringing a small bell, that could stand on the table by the side of the
bed, as she is by a call from the patient, whose voice is sure to be
none of the strongest.
I have often marvelled at the way people bear these small worries, and
never turn their minds towards relieving themselves of them. I suppose
we are most of us too conventional, and cannot get out of our grooves
easily, but I am quite sure from experience that no one requires a nurse
during the night in an ordinary case, and that one’s comfort is mightily
increased by seeing her depart into the dressing-room, with or without
the baby, as fires or other matters are arranged, and to know she will
not return until the next morning unless she has been rung for; and then
her departure leaves room for far more decoration than would otherwise
be possible, for, if the house is conveniently built, and the
dressing-rooms or nurseries are near enough to be available, I should
turn out all the bedroomy furniture into other rooms, and replace this
with some of the sitting-room furniture, only retaining the bed, which
in its turn can retire behind a screen when the sofa, is taken to, and
convalescence has really and truly begun.
To do this satisfactorily, the bed must be specially thought about, and
should be provided with an extra lot of frilled and monogramed
pillow-cases; these are removed at night, and their presence, and that
of a nice piece of linen, frilled and worked too, and fashioned in such
a way that it appears like a frilled sheet, in the morning, is almost as
good as a complete change of linen, without any bustle. The eider-down
should be removed, and placed in another room to be aired, and the bed
should be covered with one of the beautiful embroidered quilts which
should be in every one’s possession.
These quilts are copies of old work done by our grandmothers; or else
are embroidered in the red and blue ‘Russian-work,’ and are lined with a
coloured sateen or Bolton sheeting; they can be edged with lace, worked
with coloured threads to match, or by a band of the sateen over which a
coarse lace is turned; these quilts make any couch ornamental at once.
Of course the toilet-covers must correspond, and the towels should be
marked in similar colours, and should in some measure repeat the
prevailing tints of the bedroom itself, which is not complete without
both books and growing plants in pots, nor without some convenient
light. A good lamp can be placed on a bracket, if gas is disliked; or a
good bracket lamp in beaten iron can be fixed in the wall just above the
bed, or to one side thereof; and great comfort is found from either a
wall-pocket made from a Japanese fan and plush, or a big bag of plush
strung from the brass end of the bed, to contain one’s handkerchief,
keys, pencil, letters from the post, and the odds and ends that will
accumulate, and, furthermore, will lose themselves in a most peculiar
and aggravating manner, unless one has a distinct place to put them in
from whence they cannot possibly stray; while I again repeat that no
‘bedroomy’ atmosphere must be allowed, and that every medicine bottle,
towel, basin, sponge, &c., must be taken away out of the room the moment
they are done with, and that the sick-room must be looked upon for the
time being as much as possible in the light of a sitting-room, where
friends can come, and where life can go on smoothly and pleasantly,
without being reminded every five minutes that one is laid aside, and
unable to feel or look pleasant and like oneself. I wonder, too, if
other people know how useful a good heliotrope shade is for one’s
dressing-gown, and the short flannel jacket that should be one’s day
attire until the dressing-gown can be put on and one can lie on the
sofa? These dressing-jackets, or more properly ‘bed-gowns,’ are simply
invaluable--in winter especially, when one’s arms do get so cold in the
ordinary nightdress, and when the dressing-gown proper is a distinct
nuisance; and they should be wadded, and of fine heliotrope cashmere
with a soft fall, and frill of either torchon or yak lace, and are most
becoming to any one. The arms should be lined with wadding too; and, in
fact, they are just what one requires before one gets up, as they save
the dressing-gown from the inevitable crushing that is its portion if we
wear it in bed, while we have the required warmth over the chest, which
would not otherwise be ours, for reading or writing or using one’s arms
at all always disturbs the bedclothes in a most tiresome manner, which
does not trouble us when we are possessed of the proper short jacket.
The bother I have had, too, to find a really comfortable way of reading
in bed. How one’s book does flop over just when one doesn’t wish it to,
and how tired one does get of holding it! And I have now discovered
that the only way is to have a couple of cushions or pillows, and to
shake them into a good position oneself, finally resting the volume
luxuriously upon them.
Then, too, remember always to have some _fresh_ sweet flowers in your
room all day, and if your dinner leaves an odour of food behind it, burn
two of the joss-sticks sold at the Baker Street Bazaar at 6_d._ a
packet--those make your room at once like an Eastern palace, and are
simply delightful; and insist mildly but forcibly on your windows being
opened whenever the sun shines, and in the dressing-room when it
doesn’t; for there is, I am convinced after long experience, nothing
like fresh air for any and every one; and though I have been perpetually
told I should catch my death of cold at such times, I have never had a
suspicion of one, and am remarkably free from this tiresome ailment.
Summer babies must be legislated for rather differently to winter ones;
they must be washed and dressed out of their mother’s room for one
thing, as they always require the fire, that would be cruelty itself in
the bedroom. They can often be taken out earlier, and are much easier to
manage. Still, I think all these details can be safely left to the
nurse, who should always be engaged for two months certain, and for
three if you know your woman and can afford it; for until a baby is
three months old it flourishes far better in the care of the monthly
nurse than in that of even one’s own nurse, who has grown a little
‘rusty’ in her knowledge of infants most likely, and who can never be as
_au fait_ with them as is any one who has a constant succession of these
tiny creatures always under her care.
It is imperative in the case of a first baby that the monthly nurse
remains until the stationary nurse arrives, so that she can find out if
she has really been trained in nice ways, and can really handle a baby.
She can tell at once if she knows what she is about, and, if she does
not, can at once put her right, and tell her the ‘ways’ the child has
been used to.
A general rule should be the daily bath in tepid water, using a high
standing bath in a wooden case; the child is washed all over quickly on
the nurse’s lap; protected by a large flannel apron, with a soft sponge,
and the best soap to be found; it is then floated gently into the bath,
and the water merrily and quickly dashed over the limbs, while the nurse
talks brightly and cheerfully to it; after about three or four minutes
of this it is taken out, and dried rapidly with an extremely soft towel,
powdered all over in every tiny crease and fold of fat, its flannel
binder is sewn on again, and its garments arranged with the flannel
petticoat and shirt tacked together, put on very swiftly; it should then
be fed and put into its bed warm, and there it should stop until time
for feeding again, when it can be taken out for an airing in the
garden, or in some sheltered spot according to the time of year and the
means at command.
Regularity, quiet, and its own nurseries and nurse are the things to
keep a baby well and make it grow up strong; and for this one must
depend partly on one’s nurse, who should be a superior woman, possessed
of the real religion which caused the little maid who was converted to
sweep _under_ the door-mats, a duty she had not fulfilled before she saw
the error of her ways, and not a humbug, who would insist on leaving an
ailing or sick infant because it was her night for church or chapel; but
she must be a real friend too, and be treated as such, if we wish to
have peace and a well-ordered household, for in these hurrying days of
ours we must depend a good deal on our nurses if we are to keep bright
and strong, and be companions to our husbands, and later on to the boys
and girls, who will require so much more from us than the mere infant,
whose well-being we must, of course, superintend and legislate for
ceaselessly, but for whom we need not turn ourselves into domestic
animals merely, incapable of aught, because of our slavedom to the baby,
who in nine cases out of ten does far better with a really good nurse
than it can with us.
I may, of course, have been exceptionally lucky with my nurse, and,
judging from what I hear of other people’s experiences, I suppose I must
have been; but during all my many years of being dependent on them I
have never had one selfish woman in my house, nor one who would not at
any moment sacrifice her own interests and comforts to mine. I cannot
account for this any more than I can account for other people’s
miseries; but I honestly say here that I never cease to wonder at the
cries that rend the air about the wickedness of domestics, for I have
never found one who has not honestly and _according to her lights_ done
her best to help me on my way; and I owe more than I can say now to my
friends in the kitchen, who will do anything to save me trouble, and
will when I am busy, as I generally am, do all in their power to assist
me; while no words of mine could express the unselfish care given by my
nurses both to me and the children during years that are past now, I
hope for ever, but that, while they lasted, would have driven a bad or
selfish woman away from us. Real, true, good friends are, I am sure, far
more often found among what we call the ‘lower classes’ than in those
ranks from whence we generally take our acquaintances! Of course, this
is all digression, but yet it really does relate to the nursery after
all, for there, if anywhere in her household, must our bride look for
her helpmate; and this should be all arranged and thought out with the
help of the monthly nurse in the time of retirement, for this first
arrival changes all the household arrangements entirely, and in such a
manner that the greatest tact and care is necessary to readjust the
establishment, or else misery and discomfort will be rampant, in the
once happy and well-managed home.
Above all, let the young wife remember that her baby and her experience
are not either wonderful or unique; that she only possesses what
millions of women possess and know of; and let her rely just a little on
her own mother, who may have old-fashioned notions, but who has brought
her up successfully, and so doubtless has that best of all gifts,
experience, to hand on to her daughter, who cannot do better than listen
to her; the while she recovers her strength, keeps calm, and does her
best to get well, and looks out for all the assistance she can obtain
from her nurse, and further on from her own experience of what her
children are.
Just one other thing: it is absolutely necessary in legislating for our
children to remember what they are likely to inherit in the way of
_tendencies_.
We have long ceased to regard either the souls or the brains of our
children as strictly new and original compositions, as clean white paper
over which we and time can write exactly what we wish; for science has
taught us all about ‘heredity,’ and convinced us that we are all of us
bundles of odds and ends, or scraps of this grandparent, with curious
‘sports’ of that uncle or aunt suddenly cropping up; and so, if we
remember tendencies to consumption, or fevers, or gout, or, in fact,
anything that we or our forefathers have shown a tendency for, we shall
be able to manage our children much better than we otherwise should; for
those children who are constantly ‘catching’ things, or meeting with
accidents because of the brittleness of bone, or careless heedlessness
inherited from some ancestor, must be more carefully watched and looked
after than those who, coming of a healthy, splendidly constituted stock,
are rarely ill, and only require water, air, and a pure, good diet to
grow up splendid specimens of humanity, enjoying their lives thoroughly,
and fully appreciating every day they live.
Heredity is a great, a most important fact; and if only this could be
taught in schools, if young men and women would recognise the wickedness
of cousins marrying, and of passing on sickly or vicious tendencies to
their children, we should look forward more and more hopefully to a
future, when health should be demonstrated as the best possession a man
can have--the best inheritance he can demand of his parents; for health
means happiness and beauty and pleasure, and without health we cannot be
either happy, good-tempered, or prosperous, or succeed in a world where
life is one constant procession of beauty and surpassing interest, to
those whose hearts are in the right place, and whose pure, wholesome
blood courses vigorously through the veins and arteries of the whole
body.