“BRED IN THE BONE”
Whether due to my reading, or almost wholly to observations and
conclusions, I cannot say, but I began early to feel the potency
of heredity; to lament certain tendencies in my kindred which I
saw cropping out in myself, and to realize the gravity of marrying
and having offspring. I saw my grandfather’s ungovernable temper
exaggerated in one of his daughters and in my brother; saw in myself,
though naturally of a mild disposition, a tendency to give away, on
occasion, to intense anger; saw queer traits in aunts and cousins that
frightened me; knew that tuberculosis had attacked some members of my
father’s family; that certain cousins on both sides were neurotic; that
my maternal grandmother had carcinoma; that a cousin was an epileptic;
and that on both sides were intemperate uncles--these were the chief
reasons contributing to my early, deep-seated resolution never to marry.
As a family, one trait which we have in common is intemperance, though
Sister is less so than the rest of us. My father would be surprised
to be charged with intemperance, for all his life he has waged war
against intemperance (in its restricted sense--the excessive use of
strong drink); but he has been intemperate in his zeal for the “Cause
of Temperance.” I remember the “Temperance Movement” in our village,
in my early childhood. Mother and other women went around to the
saloons praying and singing and beseeching the liquor dealers to close
out their business. I have heard them tell that when one obdurate man
finally yielded (pouring barrels of liquor into the street) there was
such rejoicing that staid citizens like my father threw their hats
in the air and shouted for joy. This was years before Father left
the Republican Party to espouse the cause of Prohibition--perhaps
long before there was a Prohibition Party. Of course the reform
wave subsided, the liquor dealers bought more whisky, and the curse
continued. But although that early warfare died out, Father’s zeal, I
might almost say his fanaticism, has ever been unceasingly directed
toward efforts to quell the liquor traffic. So it was not surprising
that, in time, ardent Republican though he was, he allied himself
to the party bent on fighting this evil. It is sad to think of him
expending energy on what seems to me a lost cause; but Prohibition is
no lost cause for him.[3] Logical and clear-sighted as he is, he seems
to me to take a one-sided view in this matter, and to be following a
chimera. He says Prohibition will yet prevail, whereas I feel that the
prohibition--the inhibition--must be in the individual himself. The
long years of character-building determine whether one shall succeed or
fail. Legislative measures, I fear, can never be effective for those
suffering from ingrained weakness, and dragged down by tyrannical
habits. But Father firmly believes that the good time is coming toward
which he labours unceasingly.
Father’s excesses in minor matters also show the intemperance to which
I refer. I mention them only to show that in certain things I am a
“chip of the old block”: Many years ago he had the croquet craze. He
and other business men would play that silly game for hours. I recall
Mother’s disapproval and Father’s lame defence. She was not opposed to
a reasonable amount of playing; it was the intemperate, inopportune
indulgence that disturbed her. The same with chess and checkers. He
and his chess-loving friends pursued these with a fervour prejudicial
to business. Often when I have gone to the lawyer’s office where they
were wont to play, or in the back of Father’s store, I would find him
so absorbed that my timid request would remain long unnoticed. If some
other player would call his attention to me, his preoccupation was
such that I verily believe a moment later he did not know I had been
there. He contended that he never neglected customers for the pastime,
but Mother would tell him that his impatience to get back to his game
made him attend grudgingly to them, and that feeling this they would go
elsewhere. Of course he disavowed this, but it was true.
I can see the same trait strong in myself. Given to riding my hobbies
hard, everything else is relegated to the background. I attend to all
else as expeditiously as possible that I may “return to my knitting,”
whatever it happens to be, though I do try to conceal my lack of
interest in the work at hand. Perhaps I flatter myself that I do, as
Father flattered himself; doubtless onlookers see that “my heart’s in
the Highlands chasing the deer.” For games I have cared but little,
except tennis--that draws me as croquet used to draw my father. My hand
itches for the racquet as his itched for the croquet mallet and the
chess-men, though it is not the ultimate winning I care so much about
as to make good plays, and have an exciting game--I get positively
despondent when I make a succession of poor plays, while with a good
audience, I can sometimes play a brilliant game. I can seldom remember
the score after the game is over.
Many and varied have been the things I have taken up with an ardour
that, bred in the bone, persists in coming out in the flesh--tennis,
bicycling, amateur theatricals, the study of wild flowers, of the
birds, palmistry, handwriting and character, the Romany jib, the
spasmodic study of German and French--for the time these are the things
for which I live; incidentally I followed my profession. Perhaps I
deceive myself in thinking I have more moderation than my father. At
least I can see my tendency and attempt some self-discipline. There
is this marked difference between us: He makes himself believe what
he wants to believe, while the more I want a thing to be so, the more
I am afraid of being deceived into thinking it is so. I want to face
things as they are always; endure them, yield to them, or forego them,
as my will elects, or circumstances decree, but never to cheat myself
into thinking that they are so, if such is not the case. If Father
and I wanted to do a given thing, and the weather threatened to be
unfavourable, Father would be likely to scrutinize the sky, announce
that it was not going to rain, and start out hopefully; I should know
I couldn’t tell if I did scan the sky, but, with a strong feeling that
it probably would rain, would start out, in spite of misgivings, taking
the precaution, however, to carry my umbrella.
Mother’s excesses take her into other fields: Always she has been a
lover of flowers; garden flowers and houseplants have been her hobbies.
How she would pore over the Vick’s catalogues, and stoop for hours over
her flowerbeds, and go miles to lug black dirt to enrich the soil!
Indifferent to sun, rain, heat, and cold, pulling weeds and caring for
her treasures, she would forget her rheumatic tendencies and the pain
that would make her groan outright when under a roof. As a young girl
it tried me sorely that she would do these things at such unseasonable
times, pottering in the yard in her old clothes when I wanted her to
look tidy in the afternoon. But what especially disturbed me was that
she would leave the dinner table standing to pursue her craze. It was
not so much that I objected to doing the dishes after school; if they
had been piled away in the kitchen, and the dining room put in order, I
believe I should not have said a word--it was that sickening feeling on
coming home and seeing the table just as we had risen from it that was
one of the real trials of my girlhood. I used to plead with her, but
all in vain. My training with Cousin Prudence had made me particular
about these things, but I should doubtless have been much the same
anyhow. I would urge how much more she would enjoy the afternoon if she
would give up a half hour to doing the work. I never could understand
her perversity in this, for she knew it distressed us girls, and, in a
way, seemed sorry. Many and bitter are the tears I have shed over the
dish-pan at five in the afternoon; and how ashamed I was if other girls
came home with us and saw the table standing! But, oh, joy! the nights
I opened the door and found the table cleared, and the work done! I
never failed to mention this delight, either, though I am sorry to say
I expressed the opposite feelings when the more accustomed sight met my
eyes. I purposely slammed things to make a commotion, so she could no
longer enjoy in peace her persistent weed-pulling.
In those days I sometimes went down into the basement and banged an
old pie-tin around; this, though, not so much from anger as from a
feeling of inward irritation and pent-up energy--a desire to make a
racket. One day I made such a dent in a tin that Mother told me I had
better keep that one downstairs just for that purpose when the mood
came on. So whenever the desperate spell would come over me, I would
go down there and kick the old tin about; the cat would jump in terror
out of the window, and I’d bang away till the noise, the exercise, and
the absurdity of it all exorcised the demon, when I would go upstairs
flushed, relieved, and good-naturedly at ease. I suppose I did not have
enough play, and this furnished a needed outlet. Mother was wise to
indulge me in it--I often wish I had that pie-tin now!
As to Mother’s habit of leaving the dishes, I used to quote to her,
“Parents, provoke not your children to wrath,” as I would tell her
how other girls’ mothers did. But she would only say, “Don’t touch
the dishes, I’ll do them--I only wanted to put in those bulbs,” or
“transplant that shrub”--“I only went out for a few minutes”; the same
old story--it never appeased me. I wonder now if it was not something
she was practically powerless to resist. She was not very well those
years; it was probably during a crisis in her woman’s life when she
had need of relaxation, and felt difficulty in concentrating on the
common round of duties. It was doubtless a salutary thing for her. Not
always flowers, in winter it was piece-work, carpet rags, or quilting,
pursued to the exclusion of regular tasks, and always from her the
lame excuses! It grieves me now to think how impatient and critical
Sister and I were because she would not conform to our wishes. Now I
believe she could not. Since then I have seen other women pushed on in
a similar manner by an imperative need of some absorbing diversion, and
have come to regard it as a safety-valve at certain periods in their
lives. Mother was not a poor housekeeper in the ordinary sense; she was
neat and fastidious and a good cook; her house was sweet and clean
from top to bottom--this of which I speak was a surface disorder, due
to lack of method and to postponing things, the neglect of which gave
a cluttered appearance to kitchen and pantry which sorely tried my
methodical soul.
I have heard Mother plead with her mother, in much the same way (only
more kindly) that Sister and I would plead with her--concerning
Grandma’s queer way of doing her work. For example she would put the
scouring-board on the floor to scour her knives. But she could not
persuade her to adopt the easier, rational way. We wondered, when
Mother would marvel at Grandma’s obstinacy, why she could not see that
she, in turn, was equally obstinate.
One of Mother’s sisters was such a strenuous housekeeper that she lost
sight of what it means to make a home, so intent was she on having
things immaculate, and in maintaining a painful orderliness from cellar
to garret. The habit grew on her in later years. I can remember when
she used to get up delicious dinners at our family reunions, opening
her house with real hospitality; but a few years after her late
marriage to a widower with a large family, her peculiarities developed
and, taken with a captious disposition and shrewish temper, made her a
trying person to deal with. Yet she had a generous nature and could not
do enough for one at times. But let some little thing displease her and
a tantrum would result; she would twit the one at whom she was enraged
of every trifle she ever gave him and would rake up every little and
big grievance against him. These tirades would be as likely to occur
on the street as elsewhere. We learned not to cross her, even if she
made statements that we knew were wrong; for to disagree with her was
to see the fur fly. Yet how amiable she was to strangers--to everyone,
for that matter, when in her good moods! and she was kind at heart,
even to those she would on occasion rake over the coals. Mother could
not bear to have us criticize her. “I know--I’m sorry, but it’s her
way, you mustn’t stir her up,” she would say. She was a woman of keen
intelligence, well educated, public-spirited, and with a distinct gift
for composition. She dressed much younger than her years, with a marked
individuality in dress. In later years she seemed obsessed with a love
of fine clothes, which she kept in a wardrobe full to overflowing,
wearing her plainer ones as a rule.
Another queer aunt, perhaps in the late thirties, also married a
widower--such a timid, docile creature that we children wondered how he
ever got up spunk enough to propose to Aunt Ann. Though having marked
peculiarities, she had a keen, quick mind and a phenomenal memory. She
was very obstinate.
It was years before we children learned of the skeleton in her house.
We knew that when visiting her, Mother took along sheets, towels, etc.,
but supposed it was to save work for Aunt Ann--the excuse usually
offered. Later we learned that, spic and span as was her house in
general appearance, and neat as she was about her cooking, she had an
unheard-of peculiarity in that she never did any washing nor had any
done. This queerness must have grown on her in middle life. At the time
I learned of it, her washtubs had fallen down, and her flatirons were
covered with rust. Shrewd as she was in concealing this singularity, a
close observer could discern abundant evidence of it. We learned that
Mother had laboured with her all to no purpose. So Sister and I decided
to make Aunt Ann a visit and see what we could do to effect a change.
Talking about it at first with our uncle, we told him our intention.
He said it would do no good, and that it would not be safe for him if
she knew he had discussed it with us. He startled us by saying that
she had a violent temper, and had often berated him so loudly that
the neighbours heard her; that she had even used profane language and
threatened his life--she, a regular church-goer and apparently an
exemplary woman!
“She can’t help it, she’s crazy,” the husband said. This seemed so
incredible that we almost thought him the crazy one; still, there were
these incomprehensible things which we knew _were_ true, and the others
might be so, too.
As Aunt Ann took pride in us and our pretty clothes, we conceived the
plan of appealing to this pride to bring her to terms, an invitation to
a neighbourhood party hastening our preliminary attack. That afternoon
she had said, “Girls, you will wear your velveteen dresses to-night?”
We would, we agreed, if she would let us do her washing the next day.
Bridling up, she said she guessed she could do her own washing when she
needed to. This gave us the opening. Beginning guardedly, not letting
her know that we knew the extent of her negligence, we said we knew
she was not strong, and we wanted to help her. But as she persisted
in saying that nothing needed to be done, we were obliged to instance
this, and that, that were so obvious; and finally laid all pretense
aside. Yet, when confronted with the facts, she stoutly maintained that
everything was as it should be. Then we told her how ashamed we were;
how Grandma and Mother grieved over these queer ways; and how it was
the talk of the neighbourhood. We said we did not care to go to any
parties there, or to church, or anywhere, when one of our own flesh and
blood was such a disgrace to us. Then we threatened to leave her, never
to come there again, unless from that day she would do differently.
It was a tragic afternoon--that middle-aged woman convicted of these
unheard-of things, and berated by her nieces whose family pride was
stung, yet whose affection for her persisted in spite of it all. We
were baffled and bewildered by her conduct in the first place, and her
inaccessibility to reason in the next. She attempted no defence; would
not meet our arguments; would declare things that were so were not so,
till repeatedly confronted with them; then would stand there, sad-eyed,
like a creature at bay, sometimes darkly hinting, “You don’t know, you
can’t understand.”
“What is it we can’t understand? Tell us, let us try,” we urged.
Convinced that there was a dread mystery somewhere, we tried in vain to
fathom it. Was there some terrible thing concerning the poor-spirited
uncle about which we did not know? But all the time we would come back
to the thought that nothing, _nothing_ excused this strange conduct.
We cried, we pleaded, we threatened, we entreated; she would not
promise to mend her ways or even admit that they needed mending; yet
with a strange insistence showed as much persistence in urging us to
go to that party and wear our velveteen gowns as we showed in urging
her to begin a radical reform in this matter of household management,
concerning which there could be no two rational opinions.
In the heat of argument, and knowing her strong interest in church
affairs, I said, “Why, Aunt Ann, how _can_ you do as you do? You know
the Bible says that ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’” Her eye
lighted in triumph, and quick as a flash she retorted, “That isn’t
in the Bible, you can’t find it in the Bible.” For a minute I was
chagrined, and she harped on it unmercifully; but I finally told
her it ought to be in the Bible, if it wasn’t; after which I railed
against the kind of Christianity that would let one teach a class in
Sunday school while leading such an unclean daily life. Sister and I
alternated between righteous indignation and crying for shame. Aunt
Ann seemed to harbour no resentment toward us but remained unmoved. I
am convinced now that there was some delusional development back of
those strange ways; yet those who knew her then, and who have known her
since, who see her only as she appears when out among folk, would say
one must be crazy to suggest that she is not in her right mind.
All this gave me an ominous feeling as to my inheritance. It also
served to make both Sister and me extremely fastidious in matters of
personal neatness. We made a kind of god of cleanliness from that
dreadful afternoon when we realized that one of our own kin had
developed these strange ways. I resolved that whatever else heredity
developed in me, I would steer clear of that particular line of offense.
We made good our threats and soon left our Aunt’s to visit a cousin in
the same village. While there I was invited by a young man to drive
out one Sunday evening--my nearest experience to having a beau. I was
pleased but embarrassed. I was probably then seventeen. Rallied by my
cousins before I went, I was laughed at unmercifully on return, early
in the evening, because I had not invited the young man in to call, as
he evidently expected I would. During the drive, when I had mentioned
my plans for further study on leaving school, he had questioned the
wisdom of them, saying a woman should choose no career that would
interfere with her home life, as that assuredly would, if followed.
“But I am not going to marry,” I promptly announced, and then how he
“squelched” me!
“Don’t ever be heard saying that again. When a young girl says that,
it is either because she is so ignorant of life that she doesn’t know
what she is talking about, or else she says it for effect and to be
contradicted.” I think he added that he did not believe I meant to
be insincere; but I felt his rebuke keenly. My cheeks flamed at the
suggestion that I might be saying this for effect. I suppose I did
think it was “smart” to be different from the other girls, though
beneath this was a settled purpose. His advice stung me, but taught me
a lesson. Since then I have been guarded in expressing my intention in
this respect, but my attitude has never changed.
As a family all five of us have alike a strong love for children. The
others have the natural outlet for it which I have never had, and early
knew I should never have. I was perhaps sixteen when I discovered how
strong this feeling was in myself. A friend of Mother’s was visiting
us with her two-year-old child. We girls were planning to go out that
evening for a frolic, but just before starting I had taken that baby
in my arms, and the delicious feeling I had as he nestled up to me
acted like a charm. In spite of the coaxing of the girls I stayed at
home. Left alone in the house, I had a precious hour holding that baby
and singing him to sleep. After all the years, that evening stands out
as a blessed experience, but even then I believe I was more sad than
glad. Possibly I am mistaken, but I think I felt convinced then that no
child of mine would ever nestle in my arms. I remember my voice broke
as I sang to him. The experience was too sacred to repeat. I have never
mentioned it before.
Not long after my sister’s first child came (several years later
than the foregoing incident) I dreamed of being back home, and that a
neighbour boy, running through our yard, in reply to some remark which,
on waking, I could not remember, called out derisively, “Genie’s baby!
you mean Kate’s--who ever heard of Genie’s baby!” (Dream analysts would
find in this a good example of wish-fulfilment.) That dream marked an
epoch in my woman’s life. I realized then and there, how acutely only
a childless woman can know, that I should never be a mother. Till then
I had given the subject but little thought. Occupied with my work, and
having known from girlhood that I should not marry, yet the knowledge
of this other thing came to me like a stab--never a baby of my own! And
then I knew that, fill my life with whatever work and interest I might,
nothing could compensate for missing this supreme joy.
The positive notions I held as to heredity, the traits and diseases
in my kindred which I took so seriously, the disagreeable and morbid
tendencies I noted in myself, had, as I have intimated, all combined to
make me feel it would be wrong for me to marry. I used to argue with
myself: “A man that I could esteem and love would be so far above me
that he could never stoop to love me; if he did, he would not be the
hero I thought him; and if I _were_ to marry, and bring into the world
children like myself, it would be a calamity indeed.” No, I would stop
the perpetuation of beings like myself. It was a blind kind of altruism
that actuated me, and not till I had the dream just mentioned did the
personal side of the question occur to me; and then I learned how, as
an individual, I should suffer in abiding by the stand I had taken. A
lover at this time would probably have swept away all my fine theories
and resolutions; but I had none, and serious work and interests were
filling my days. But how illogical I was! It seemed never to occur to
me that the same conditions that debarred me from marriage should debar
my sister also; I was even anxious for her to marry, while so firmly
convinced that it would be wrong for me. I evidently thought that all
the seeds of disease and crankiness were in me alone and that I must
let them die out.
Now I know, too, that I exaggerated greatly the unfortunate family
inheritance. My studies in this field, in subsequent years--inquiries
into the family histories of many hundreds of persons--have shown me
that my inheritance averages up well with that of most families. My own
little knowledge in girlhood was a dangerous thing. Hypersensitive, and
introspective to a degree, I took my own adolescent impressionability
too seriously, losing sight of the fact that good as well as bad traits
and tendencies are inherited; and that training, environment, and
self-culture may do wonders to counteract undesirable proclivities.
I assuredly locked the barn door before the horse was stolen and
threw away the key. Though perhaps, in a way, so far as my sister was
concerned, I was right, for she is of a more harmonious nature, more
normal and typical, than I am. As to my brother, however, had I spent
my life trying to bring about a deplorable hereditary combination, I
could hardly have succeeded better than when, by the merest chance,
and by my own act, I unwittingly enlisted Propinquity, which lost no
time in bringing about his marriage with a neurotic girl who has since
become the mother of his children. And yet four beautiful little beings
(who seem to be unusually well endowed physically and mentally) gladden
the lives of all of us, and as I reflect how much of the good and true
there is in their inheritance, I am hopeful that, with such training
and fortuitous environment as can be compassed, much can be done to
counteract undesirable tendencies. But my soul sometimes contemplates
all this--my early theories, and the actual conditions--with a grim
smile: that it was I who brought it all about, I, the prudent one, the
far-seeing, the stickler for observing the inexorable laws of heredity!
FOOTNOTE:
[3] The above was written in 1902. Now his hopes are nearly fulfilled,
but he is no longer here to rejoice. All honour to him, and to others
like him, who, true to their vision, were untiring in their efforts to
bring it to realization!