It is a favourite utterance of a much 'put-upon' Paterfamilias of my
acquaintance, when he finds his family more than usually too much for
him, and cynically confesses his own shortcomings, that 'children
cannot be too particular in their choice of their parents, or begin
their education too early.'
But not only are children a necessity—that is, if the world of men and
women is to be kept going, concerning the advantage of which there
seems, however, just now, to be some doubt,—but when they have arrived,
they cannot, except in very early life, be easily got rid of. In this
respect they differ from the relations whose case I am about to
consider, and also possess a certain claim upon us over and above the
mere tie of blood, since we are responsible for their existence. The
obligation on the other side is, I venture to think, a little
exaggerated. If there is such a thing as natural piety, which, even in
these days, few are found to deny, it is the reverence, it is true,
with which children regard their parents; but their moral indebtedness
to them as the authors of their being is open to doubt. That theory,
indeed, appears to be founded upon false premises; for, unless in the
case of an ancestral estate, I am not aware that the existence of
children is much premeditated. On the contrary, their arrival is often
looked upon, from pecuniary reasons, with much apprehension, or, at
best, till they do arrive, they may be described, in common phrase, as
'neither born nor thought of.' I am a father myself, but I wish to be
fair and to take a just view of matters. If a mother leaves her child
on a doorstep, for example, the filial bond can hardly be expected to
be very strong. In such a case, indeed, the infant seems to me to have
a very distinct grievance against its female parent, and to be under no
very overwhelming obligation to its father. 'Handsome is as handsome
does' is a principle that applies to all relations of life, including
the nearest; and if duty never absolutely ceases to exist, it is, at
all events, greatly moulded by circumstances.
Patriotism, for instance, is very commendable, but your country must be
worth something to make you love it. It is next to impossible that an
inhabitant of Monaco, for example, should be patriotic. He can at most
be only parochial. The love of one's mother is probably the purest and
noblest of all human affections; but some people's mothers are habitual
drunkards, and others professional thieves. Even filial reverence, it
is plain, must stop somewhere. That is one of the objections which,
with all humility, I feel to the religion of M. Comte. The worship of
my grandmother would be impossible to me, unless I had reason to
believe her to have been a respectable person. Her relationship, unless
I had had the advantage of her personal acquaintance, would weigh I
fear, but little with me, and that of my great-grandmother nothing at
all. The whole notion of ancestry—unless one's ancestors have been
distinguished people—seems to me ridiculous. If they have _not_ been
distinguished people—folks, that is, of whom some record has been
preserved—how is one to know that they have been worthy persons, whose
mission has been to increase the sum of human happiness? If, on the
other hand, they have been only notorious, and done their best to
decrease it, I should be most heartily ashamed of them. The pride of
birth from this point of view—which seems to me a very reasonable
one—is not only absurd, but often very reprehensible. We may be
exulting, by proxy, in successful immorality, or even crime. Our
boastfulness of our progenitors is necessarily in most cases very
vague, because we know so little about them. When we come to the
particular, the record stops very short indeed—generally at one's
grandmother, who, by the way, plays a part in the dream-drama of
ancestry little superior to that of that 'rank outsider,' a
mother-in-law. 'Tell that to your grandmother' is a phrase that
certainly did not originate in reverence; and even when that lady is
proverbially alluded to in a complimentary sense, her intelligence is
only eulogised in connection with the 'sucking of eggs.'
It so happens that I have quite a considerable line of ancestors
myself, but only one of them ever distinguished himself, and that (he
was an Attorney-General) in a doubtful way; and I confess I don't take
the slightest interest in them. I prefer the pleasant companion with
whom I came up in the train yesterday, and whose name I forgot to ask,
to the whole lot of them.
And if I don't care about ancestors on canvas (for their pictures, of
course, are all we have seen of them), I have good cause to be offended
with them on paper. My favourite biographies—such as that of Walter
Scott, for example—are disfigured by them. When men sit down to write a
great man's life, why should they weary us with an epitome of that of
his grandfather and grandmother? Of course, the book has to be a
certain length. No one is more sensible than myself of the difficulty
of providing 'copy' sufficient for two octavo volumes; but I do think
biographers should confine themselves to two generations. For my part,
I could do with one, but there is the favourite theory of a great man's
inheriting his greatness from the maternal parent, which I am well
aware cannot be dispensed with. It is like the white horse, or rather
the grey mare, in Wouvermanns's pictures; you can't get rid of it any
more than Mr. Dick could get Charles I. out of his memorial. For my
part, I always begin biographies at the fourteenth chapter (or
thereabouts)—'The subject of this memoir was born,' etc.; and even so I
find I get quite enough of them. In novels the introduction of ancestry
is absolutely intolerable. When I see that hateful chapter headed
'Retrospective,' I pass over to the other side, like the Levite, only
quicker. What do I care whether our hero's grandfather was Archbishop
of Canterbury or a professional body-snatcher? I don't even care which
of the two was my own personal friend's grandfather, and how much less
can I take an interest in this imaginary progenitor of the creation of
an author's brain? The introduction of such a colourless shadow is, to
my mind, the height of impertinence. If I were Mr. Mudie, I would put
my foot down resolutely and stamp out this literary plague. As George
III., who had an objection to commerce, is said to have observed, when
asked to confer a baronetcy on one of the Broadwood family, 'Are you
sure there is not a piano in it?' so should Mr. M. inquire of the
publisher before taking copies of any novel, 'Are you sure there is not
a grandfather in it?'
Again, what a nuisance is ancestry in our social life! It cannot,
unhappily, be done away with as a fact, but surely it need not be a
topic. How often have I been asked by some fair neighbour at a
dinner-table, 'Is that Mr. Jones opposite one of the Joneses of
Bedfordshire?' One's first impulse is naturally to ask, 'What on earth
is that to you or me?' But experience teaches prudence, and I reply
with reverence, 'Yes, of Bedfordshire,' which, at all events, puts a
stop to argument upon the matter. Moreover, she seems to derive some
sort of mysterious satisfaction from the information, and it is always
well to give pleasure.
A well-known wit was once in company with one of the Cavendishes, who
had lately been to America, and was recounting his experiences. 'These
Republican people have such funny names,' he said. 'I met there a man
of the name of Birdseye.' 'Well, and is not that just as good as
Cavendish?' replied the wit, who was also a smoker. But the remark was
not appreciated.
Ancestral people do not, as a rule, appreciate wit; but, on the other
hand, it must be admitted that this is not a defect peculiar to them
alone. I once knew a man of letters who, though he had risen to wealth
and eminence, was of humble descent, and had a weakness for avoiding
allusion to it. His daughter married a man of good birth, but whose
literary talents were not of a high order. This gentleman wrote a
letter applying for a certain Government appointment, and expressed a
wish for his father-in-law's opinion upon the composition. 'It's a very
bad letter,' was the frank criticism the other made upon it. 'The
writing is bad, the spelling is indifferent, the style is abominable.
Good heavens! where are your relatives and antecedents?' 'If it comes
to that,' was the reply, 'where are yours? For I never hear you speak
about them.' Nor did he ever hear him, for his father-in-law never
spoke another word to him.
Nothing, of course, can be more contemptible than to neglect one's poor
relations on account of their poverty; but it is very doubtful whether
the sum of human happiness is increased by our having so much respect
for the mere tie of kindred, unaccompanied by merit. Other things being
equal, it is obviously natural that one's near relatives should be the
best of friends. But other things are not always equal. Indeed, a
certain high authority (which looks on both sides of most questions)
admits as much. 'There is a friend,' it says, 'that sticketh closer
than a brother. The connection, with its consequences, is somewhat
similar to a partnership in commercial life. If partners pull together,
and are sympathetic, nothing can be more delightful than such an
arrangement. The tie of business clenches the tie of social attraction.
For myself, I am not commercial; but I envy the old firm of Beaumont
and Fletcher, and the modern one of Erckmann and Chatrian. But if the
members of the firm do _not_ pull together? Then, surely the bond
between them is most deplorable, and a divorce _a vinculo_ should be
obtained as soon as possible.
One of the greatest mistakes—and there are many—that we fall into from
a too ready acknowledgment of the tie of kindred is the obligation we
feel under to consort with relations with whom we have nothing in
common. You may take such persons to the waters of affection, but you
cannot make them drink; and the more you see of them the less they are
likely to agree with you. Not once, nor twice, but fifty times, in a
life experience that is becoming protracted, I have seen this forcible
bringing together of incongruous elements, and the result has been
always unfortunate. I say 'forcible,' because it has been rarely
voluntary; now and then a strong, though, I venture to think, a
mistaken sense of duty may lead a man to seek the society of one with
whom he has nothing in common save the bond of race; but for the most
part they are obeying the wishes of another —the sacred injunction,
perhaps, of a parent on his death-bed. 'Be good friends,' he murmurs,
'my children,' not reflecting, in that supreme and farewell hour, how
little things, such as prejudice, difference of political or religious
opinions, conflicting interests, and the like, affect us while we are
in this world, and how perilous it is to attempt to link like with
unlike. I am quite certain that when relations do not, in common
phrase, 'get on well with one another,' the best chance of their
remaining friends is for them to keep apart. This is gradually becoming
recognised by 'the common sense of most,' as we see by the falling-off
in those family gatherings at Christmas, which only too often partook
of the character of that assembly which met under the roof of Mr,
Pecksniff, with the disastrous result with which we are all acquainted.
The more distant the tie of blood, the less reason, of course, there is
to consider it; yet it is strange to see how even sensible men will
welcome the Good-for-nothing, who chance to be 'of kin' to them, to the
exclusion of the Worthy, who lack that adventitious claim. The effect
of this is an absolute immorality, since it offers a premium to
unpleasant people, while it heavily handicaps those who desire to make
themselves agreeable. To give a particular example of this, though upon
a large scale, I might cite Scotland, where, making allowance for the
absence of that University system, which in England is so strong a
social tie, there are undoubtedly fewer friendships, in comparison,
than there are with us; this I have no hesitation in attributing to
clanship—the exaggeration of the family tie—which substitutes nearness
for dearness, and places a tenth cousin above the most charming of
companions, who labours under the disadvantage of being 'nae kin.'
Again, what is more common than to hear it said, in apology for some
manifestly ill-conditioned and offensive person, that he is 'good to
his family'? The praise is probably only so far deserved that he does
not beat his wife nor starve his children; but, supposing even he
treated them as he should do, and, moreover, entertained his ten-times
removed cousins to dinner every Sunday, what is that to _me_ who do not
enjoy his unenviable hospitality? Let his cousins speak well of him by
all means; but let the rest of the world speak as they find. I protest
against the theory that the social virtues should limit themselves to
the home circle, and still more, that they should extend to the distant
branches of it to the exclusion of the world at large.
Of Howard, the philanthropist, it is said—and, I notice, said with a
certain cynical pleasure—that, notwithstanding his universal
benevolence, he behaved with severity ta his own son. I have not that
intimate acquaintance with the circumstances which, to judge by the
confidence of their assertions, his traducers possess, but I should be
slow to believe, in the case of such a father, that the son did not
deserve all he got, or was not forgiven even to the seventy times
seventh offence. There is, however, no little want of reason in the
ordinary acceptation of the term, 'loving forgiveness.' He must be a
very morose man who does not forgive a personal injury, especially when
there has been an expression of repentance for it; but there are
offences which, quite independently of their personal sting, manifest
in the offender a cruel or bad heart, and 'loving forgiveness' is in
that case no more to be expected than that we should take a serpent who
has already stung us to our bosom. 'It is his nature to,' as the poet
expresses it, and if that serpent is my relative it is my misfortune,
and by no means impresses me with a sense of obligation. Indeed, in the
case of an offensive relation, so far from his having any claim to my
consideration, it seems to me I have a very substantial grievance in
the fact of his existence, and that he owes me reparation for it.
It is perhaps from a natural reaction, and is a sort of unconscious
protest against the preposterous claims of kinship, that our
connections by marriage are so freely criticised, and, to say truth,
held in contempt. No one enjoins us to love our wife's relations,
indeed, our own kindred are generally dead against them, and especially
against her mother, to whom the poor woman very naturally clings. This
is as unreasonable in the way of prejudice, as the other line of
conduct is in the way of favouritism. It is, in short, my humble
opinion that, if everyone stood upon his or her own merits, and was
treated accordingly, this world of ours would be the better for it; and
of this I am quite sure—it would have fewer disagreeable people in it.
I am neither so patriotic nor so thorough-going as the American
citizen, who, during the late Civil War, came to President Lincoln, and
nobly offered to sacrifice on the altar of freedom 'all his able-bodied
relations;' but I think that most of us would be benefited if they were
weeded out a bit.
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