FAMILY PORTRAITS.
[Illustration]
One day a very grand and, as she conceived, original idea came into
my grandmothers head. She was resolved to represent pictorially, on a
sheet of cartridge-paper, all the confluent streams of blood in her
children's veins, of the families to which they were entitled to draw
blood through past alliances.
So my grandmother got out her ruler and colour-box, and a pallet and
brushes, and filled a little glass with water. Presently a pedigree
was drawn out by the aid of compasses and a parallel ruler. Then she
rubbed her paints and set to work colouring. She dabbed some vermilion
on Father A, and gamboge on Mother B; then on the next in the same
generation, Father C, she put sage-green; and his wife, Mother D, she
indicated with Prussian blue. The son of vermilion A and gamboge B
was R. That was simple enough; in his arteries flowed a vivid tide of
combined vermilion and gamboge. He married S, who was the offspring
of sage-green C and Prussian blue D; consequently her arteries were
flowing with rather a dingy mixture of sage-green and Prussian
blue. Now R and S had a child, P, and his veins were charged with a
combination of vermilion and gamboge and sage-green and Prussian blue.
When my grandmother had got so far, she bit the end of her paint-brush;
for P, who was her husband's father, of course married, and her
mother-in-law must be also represented by a combination of four
colours. She took the end of the brush out of her mouth and rubbed
emerald green and carmine. E and F should symbolize her husband's
mother's grandparents. E brought into the family a stream of carmine
blood, and F one of vivid emerald. Then the veins of her step-mother
represented a mixed tide of carmine and emerald and of two other
families, as yet unindicated. To these she promptly appropriated violet
and orange. Now at last was she able to tabulate the constituents of
her husband's blood; it was composed of minute rills of vermilion,
gamboge, sage-green, Prussian blue, carmine, emerald green, violet,
and orange. Already she had trenched on the composite colours. Now a
great dismay fell on my grandmother; for she had to complete the same
process for the exemplification of her own blood; and for her ancestry
not only were no primary colours left, but even no secondary. She had
to represent them with brown, lavender, slate,--yes, oh joy! there
was another blue, cobalt!--verdegris, lemon yellow, black, and white.
She hesitated some while before employing the verdegris. She never
completed that table; for she was aghast at the rivers of mud, literal
mud, which, according to her scheme, flowed through the arteries of
her offspring. Now look at this table. Consider, it is only one of a
pedigree through five generations.
[Illustration:
(Vermilion) A
= --+
(Gamboge) B | R Paternal
= Grand-
(Sage-gr.) C | S father ---+
= --+ |
(Prus. bl.) D |
= --+
(Carmine) E | | (Verm. +
= --+ | | Gamb. +
(Emerald) F | T Paternal -+ | Sage-gr. +
= Grand- | Pruss. Bl. +
(Violet) G | U mother | Carm. +
= --+ | Emerald +
(Orange) H Father Violet +
= SELF Orange +
(Brown) I Mother Br. +
= --+ | Lav. +
(Lavender) K | V Maternal | Slate +
= Grand- | Cob. +
(Slate) L | X father ---+ | Verd. +
= --+ | | Lemon +
(Cobalt) M | | Black +
= --+ White.)
(Verdegris) N |
= --+ |
(Lemon) O | Y Maternal -+
= Grand-
(Black) P | Z mother
= --+
(White) Q
]
Every one of my readers, every human being, nay, every beast, and bird,
and fish, and reptile, represents the 16 ancestors of four generations,
that means 32 independent streams of blood in the fifth generation,
and 1004 currents in the tenth generation, and 32,128 rivulets of
distinct blood in the fifteenth generation, and 1,028,096, if we go
back to the twentieth generation. Take thirty years as a generation,
then, in the reign of Henry III., there were over a million independent
individuals, walking, talking, eating, marrying, whose united blood
was to be, in 1889, blended in your veins. Why, that ogre of a sailor
in the Bab Ballads, who represented a whole ship's crew, because, when
shipwrecked, he had eaten them, is nothing to you. The whole population
of London, of Middlesex, was not a million, then. You represent a large
county--Yorkshire, for instance.
Our arteries are very sluices, through which an incredible amount
of confluent rills unite to rush, the drainage of the whole social
country-side.
Such being the case, does it not seem a farce to talk about family
types, and family likenesses, and family peculiarities beyond one or
two generations at most? And yet it is not a farce; for what comes out
abundantly clear is, that certain streams are stronger than others,
and colour and affect for several generations the quality of the blood
with which they mingle. Not so only, but earlier types reappear after
the lapse of time as distinct as though there had been no intermediate
blood mixture, as though there had been filiation by gemmation, as is
the case with sponges.
One day I was visiting a friend, when I was struck by the excellence
of a portrait in his hall of a very refined and beautiful old lady;
there was nothing characteristic in the dress. Being a fancier
in portraiture, and being mightily ill-contented with modern
portrait-painting, this picture pleased me especially; it was a picture
as well as a portrait, harmonious in colour and tone, and artistically
focussed. Moreover, it was a perfectly life-like "presentiment" of my
friend's wife. He and she were both old people. Said I to my friend,
"What an admirable likeness! The artist has not only made a good
picture, but he has caught your wife's expression as well as features
and peculiar colouring. Who is the painter? I did not know we had the
man nowadays who could have painted such a portrait."
"Oh," he answered, "that is not my wife--it is her great-grandmother."
Thus the wife represented _four_ united streams of two generations
back, but she represented in face, and represented exactly, only one of
them.
Now for another instance. In a certain family that I know intimately,
a son and a female cousin are as much alike as though they were twin
brother and sister; what is the more remarkable is, that they deviate
altogether from the type of their brothers and sisters, parents,
uncles, and aunts. _But_, and here is the curious fact, they resemble,
even ludicrously, an ancestor whose miniature and portrait in oils
are in the possession of the family. I draw out the pedigree. I must
premise that the portrait is of a gentleman in forget-me-not blue
velvet, and he goes in the family by the name of the Blue Man.
[Illustration:
Blue Man = A
|
|
|
B = C
|
|
D = E
|
|
+--------+---+
| |
| |
G = F H = I
| |
| |
+---+ +---+
| |
| |
M N
]
M and N are the cousins, male and female, who are as alike as twins,
and they are exact reproductions of the Blue Man, notwithstanding
that through C, D, G, and I come in fresh streams of blood, that two
entirely independent rivers flush the veins of M and N respectively,
coming in from G and I. They have the blood of C and D in common, but
alike disregard their qualities; so also do they reject the blood of
their respective mothers, and go back to a common ancestor in the reign
of Queen Anne.
But I can give a still more remarkable instance of atavism, which
also must be illustrated by a table. Here the likeness goes back even
further, and, like that above, also through the maternal line.
There is in the same old manor-house as that in which hangs the Blue
Man another picture, painted by Carlo Maratti, in or about 1672, of
a certain Sir Edward, a dandy, in long flowing curls, a beautiful
Steenkirk, a cherry ribbon round his neck, and also about his wrists.
The face is fine, haughty, somewhat dreamy. It was painted of him
when he was a young man of about five-and-twenty. Hanging near him
is his elder brother, also with flowing hair, a bluff, good-natured
man in appearance, quite different in character from the knight, one
may judge, and certainly not like him in feature. Now the knight,
Sir Edward, died without issue, and left all his property to his
great-nephew, the grandson of his elder brother James. That nephew
bought estates in Nottinghamshire, and for two hundred years the
family he founded has been apart from the elder branch, which lives in
the west of England, and which owns the picture.
[Illustration: Sir Edward, A.D. 1668. _From a painting by_ Carlo
Maratti.]
[Illustration: N. A.D. 1888. _From a Photograph._]
One day recently there came into the neighbourhood a descendant of
James, and calling at the house of his kinsman, unconsciously seated
himself beneath the picture of Sir Edward. He was a young man of
about four-and-twenty. He was at once greeted with an exclamation of
astonishment and amusement. He was extraordinarily like the portrait;
had he but been dressed in stamped black velvet, worn curls, a
Steenkirk, and cherry ribbons, he might have been the same man. Now
look at this pedigree, and note the remarkable fact. He did not hail
from the knight, whom he resembled, but from his brother James, whom
he did not resemble. The knight, Sir Edward, must therefore have
inherited the features of an earlier ancestor, who was also, of
course, the ancestor of his brother; so that this young man in 1888
bore the face and features of a still earlier member of the family,
whose likeness has not been preserved, if it were ever taken. Here is
a family likeness going back six or seven generations. We cannot be
certain that the characteristic features of Sir Edward were derived
from his father or his mother. Nor is this likeness found only in N. It
exists also in his father L, though not in so strong a degree, or, at
all events, it is less apparent in an old man of sixty than in a young
man of four-and-twenty. Curiously enough, the portrait of Elizabeth,
the ancestress through whom these two, L and N, derive their likeness
to Sir Edward, shows none of these characteristics. They remained
latent in her, but reappeared in her grandson and great-grandson.
Unfortunately the pictures of D and F, who intervened, have not been
preserved, or their whereabouts have not been discovered, so that it
is not possible to track the likeness through two generations that
intervene between Elizabeth in 1780 and James in 1680.
[Illustration:
A = B
b. 1602. | m. 1638.
+ 1659. | + 1688.
+-----------------+------------+
| |
Sir Edward James = C
b. 1648. b. 1641. | m. 1676.
+ 1728. + 1680. | + 1697.
+-----+
|
D = E
b. 1677. | m. 1701.
+ 1721. | + 1747.
+----+
|
F = G
| m. 1725.
+ 1775. | + 1811.
+------------+
|
H = Elizabeth
| m. 1781.
+ 1833. | + 1821.
+-----+
|
I = K
+ 1848. | m. 1819.
+-----+
|
L = M
b. 1827. |
+-----+
|
N
]
It has been conjectured that a child sitting daily in the presence of
a certain portrait insensibly assumes a likeness to it; but such a
conjecture will not satisfy the case just mentioned, for L and N till
recently had never seen the picture which they so closely resembled.
There is another point connected with family portraits that has given
me occasion of thought and speculation; and that is, the way in
which those children who are named after an ancestor or ancestress
sometimes, I do not say often or always, but certainly sometimes, do
in a very remarkable manner receive the stamp of the features of that
ancestor after whom named. This has nothing to do with the naming of
the child at baptism because of a supposed resemblance, for in very
young infants none such can be traced, but the likeness grows in the
child to the person whose name it bears.
Now here is a bit of pedigree, with the likenesses that exist
curiously agreeing with the Christian names. In this relation of a
new generation to an old there is a point to be remarked. E^2 is
in character, in manner, and in tastes and pursuits exactly what E
was, but does _not_ resemble him in face. W D^2 is just like W D,
his great-great-great-grandfather, whose double Christian name he
bears. M B^2 and M B^3 are like M B in face, and M B^2 resembles her
great-great-grandmother in face and in character. D A^2 is absurdly
like her great-grandmother, whose double name she bears, but is as yet
too young for the mental characteristics to show themselves, or at all
events to have become sufficiently emphasized to enable one to say
whether, in mind as in face, she resembles her great-grandmother.
[Illustration:
W D = M B
|
+---+
|
C B = M
|
+---+
|
W D = D A
|
+---+
|
E = S C
|
+----------+-+
| |
M B^2 S = G T
|
+--------+-------+---+---+
| | | |
E^2 W D^2 M B^3 D A^2
]
Now this may be accidental, but if so, it is a very curious and
remarkable accident. Noticing it in other cases, I have sometimes
wondered whether there may be in it more than accident. The old
Norsemen believed that by calling a child after a certain great man,
some of that great man's luck and spiritual force passed with his name
to the child. The idea among Roman Catholic parents of giving their
offspring the names of saints is, that they put the children under the
special patronage, influence, and tutelage of the saint after whom
they are called. Now--is there in these ideas anything more than a
fancy, a delusion, a superstition? Is it possible that a mysterious
effluence should pass from the spirit of the departed to the child that
reproduces his or her name, and that this effluence should affect,
modify, and impress the features and character of the child?
It is remarkable the way in which tricks perpetuate themselves. I know
some one who, when a boy, had to be broken of the absurd habit of
slapping the sole of his right boot with his right hand every now and
then behind his back, as he walked. An old aunt saw him do this one
day, and she said, "How odd! we had a world of trouble with his father
when he was a child--about this very thing."
[Illustration: Lady Northcote (Jacquetta Baring).]
[Illustration: Lady Young (Emily Baring).]
I may, in connection with this, mention a personal matter. My paternal
grandfather's sister, Jacquetta Baring, married Sir Stafford Northcote,
in 1791; she was the grandmother of the late Lord Iddesleigh, who was,
accordingly, my cousin, but whom I never met. One day I was with one of
his sons, who, whilst in conversation with me, laughed, and then said,
"Excuse me, but there are many little ways you have, both of turn of
the head and movements of the hand, that bring my father continually
before my mind whilst you are speaking with me."
These little tricks of manner are therefore not personal, are not the
result of association and imitation, but travel through the blood.
But to return to family portraits. That, in spite of the influx of
fresh blood from all quarters, a certain family type remains, one can
hardly doubt in looking through a genuine series of family pictures.
I knew a case of an artist who had been employed in a certain house,
where he had become familiar with the family portraits, which he had
cleaned, relined and restored. Some of the early pictures of the
family had been lost, in fact sold, by a spendthrift--another Charles
Surface--who did not shrink from disposing of his mother's picture by
Sir Joshua Reynolds. The head of the family knew where some two or
three of these pictures had gone; they had been bought by a family
akin to his, and the representative of that family very kindly acceded
to his request that he might have them copied. The artist was sent
to that gentleman's house to do what was desired. He was introduced
into the dining-room, where hung over a score of portraits, but he
went directly to the two which belonged to the family whose paintings
he had cleaned, singled them out from the rest, and said, "These I am
sure belong to the X--s. I know the type of face." He was right; he had
spotted the only two which were not pictures of the A family, but were
of the family X.
The delight of watching the re-emergence of a disappeared family
likeness, as generations pass, is, no doubt, the chief delight of
having a good series of family pictures. But there is an advantage in
such a series which is not perhaps much considered, and that is the
linking of the present generation in thought with the past. Since,
with the Reformation, prayer for the dead ceased, our association with
the world of the departed has fallen into total disregard, and we
neither think of holding any communion of thought and good-will with
our forebears, nor suppose that they can entertain any kindly thought
of and wishes for us and our welfare. And yet, how much we owe them!
Our beautiful estates, our dear old houses, the laying out of the parks
and grounds, the cutting of the terraces, the digging of the ponds,
the planting of the stately trees, the gathering together of our plate,
our books, our pictures, our old furniture. Nay, more, if we have not
inherited these, we have from them some twists in our mind, some terms
in our speech, some physical or psychical characteristics, some virtues
and some faults.
We owe to those old people more than we suppose. To their
self-restraint, their guileless walk, their frugal ways, we owe our
own hale bodies and strict consciences. Consider what misery a strain
of tainted blood brings into a family--a strain of blood that carries
vicious propensities with it. Well, if we have good in us, if we are
scrupulous, honest, truthful, self-controlled, it comes to us in a
large measure along with our pure blood from honest ancestry.
How can we sit in the beautiful halls and panelled boudoirs of the old
people, and not be thankful to them for having made them so charming?
How can we walk in the avenues they planted, pick the flowering shrubs
they grouped and bedded, and not be grateful to them?
To plant a tree is a most unselfish work, for very few men live to see
the trees they have planted reach such a size as to give pleasure to
themselves. Men plant for their sons and grandsons; and their sons and
grandsons who enjoy these trees should think for a moment of those to
whose forethought they owe them. I confess I like, when I have enjoyed
the beauty of some avenue, or clump of stately trees, to look at the
picture of the planter of them, and say, "Thank you, dear old man, for
the pleasure you have given to me, and will give to my children after
me."
We have something yet to learn from the Chinese. The only religion of
the Celestials is the worship of their ancestors. Every race probably
inherits some truth that it can and is destined to impart to the world.
The Chinese lack the deeper vision which can look up to the great
Father of spirits above, but yet from them we may acquire thought of
and love for our forebears.
"They are all gone into a world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts does clear.
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove;
Or those faint beams in which this hill is dressed
After the sun's remove."
So sang Vaughan, a poet of the Restoration; and if one attempts it one
can feel with him, that it is a pleasure and a rest to think of, and
cultivate affection for, those of our family who belong to the past.
In many an old mansion the story goes that an ancestor or ancestress
_walks_ there, is to be seen occasionally between the glimpses of the
moon visiting the old house, and generally as foretoken of some event
intimately concerning the family. Such a story is common enough. We
think that possibly these ancient ghosts may reappear to acquaint
themselves how we are getting on, but it never occurs to us to visit
them, and walk in spirit their desolate region, and cheer them with a
kindly expression, and a word of good-will. Well, I think that a set
of family portraits does help one to that, does link us somehow to
these dead forefathers, and serves as a vehicle of mental communication
between us.
Then, again, the family scamp is of use. We had one in our family.
I am thankful to say we do not inherit his wild blood, as he died
unmarried. He sold the bulk of the ancestral estates, and got rid of
everything he could get rid of. But then--since his death he has stood
as a warning to each successive generation. The children go before his
picture and hear the story of his misdeeds, and it sinks into their
hearts, and they learn frugality. They go over the acres that would
have been theirs, _but for the scamp_; they see the old mansion, a
quadrangle, which they would have had a dance about, _had it not been
for the scamp_; they know that there are gaps in the series of family
portraiture, because _the pictures were sold by the scamp_; and so they
grow up with great fear in their minds lest they also should by any
chance be even as he; and so the scamp is of good after all.
[Illustration]