There were several brothers and
sisters, and one of the sisters, named Eunice, was most loved by all of
them and was her father's favourite on account of her beauty and sweet
disposition. Unfortunately she became engaged to a young man who was
not liked by the father, and when she refused to break her engagement
to please him he was dreadfully angry and told her that if she went
against him and threw herself away on that worthless fellow he would
forbid her the house and would never see or speak to her again.
Being of an affectionate disposition and fond of her father it grieved
her sorely to disobey him, but her love compelled her, and by-and-by
she went away and was married in a neighbouring village where her lover
had his home. It was not a happy marriage, and after a few anxious
years she fell into a wasting illness, and when it became known to her
that she was near her end she sent a message by a brother to the old
father to come and see her before she died. She had never ceased to
love him, and her one insistent desire was to receive his forgiveness
and blessing before finishing her life. His answer was, "As a tree
falls so shall it lie." He would not go near her. Shortly afterwards
the unhappy young wife passed away.
The landlady added that the brother who had taken the message was her
father, that he was now eighty-two years old and still spoke of his
long dead and greatly loved sister, and always said he had never
forgiven and would never forgive his father, dead half a century ago,
for having refused to go to his dying daughter and for speaking those
cruel words.
IV
"BLOOD"
A STORY OF TWO BROTHERS
A certain titled lady, great in the social world, was walking down the
village street between two ladies of the village, and their
conversation was about some person known to the two who had behaved in
the noblest manner in difficult circumstances, and the talk ran on
between the two like a duet, the great lady mostly silent and paying
but little attention to it. At length the subject was exhausted, and as
a proper conclusion to round the discourse off, one of them remarked:
"It is what I have always said, - there's nothing like blood!" Whereupon
the great person returned, "I don't agree with you: it strikes me you
two are always praising blood, and I think it perfectly horrid. The
very sight of a black pudding for instance turns me sick and makes me
want to be a vegetarian."
The others smiled and laboriously explained that they were not praising
blood as an article of diet, but had used the word in its other and
partly metamorphical sense. They simply meant that as a rule persons of
good blood or of old families had better qualities and a higher
standard of conduct and action than others.
The other listened and said nothing, for although of good blood herself
she was an out-and-out democrat, a burning Radical, burning bright in
the forests of the night of dark old England, and she considered that
all these lofty notions about old families and higher standards were
confined to those who knew little or nothing about the life of the
upper classes.
She, the aristocrat, was wrong, and the two village ladies, members of
the middle class, were right, although they were without a sense of
humour and did not know that their distinguished friend was poking a
little fun at them when she spoke about black puddings.
They were right, and it was never necessary for Herbert Spencer to tell
us that the world is right in looking for nobler motives and ideals, a
higher standard of conduct, better, sweeter manners, from those who are
highly placed than from the ruck of men; and as this higher, better
life, which is only possible in the leisured classes, is correlated
with the "aspects which please," the regular features and personal
beauty, the conclusion is the beauty and goodness or "inward
perfections" are correlated.
All this is common, universal knowledge: to all men of all races and in
all parts of the world it comes as a shock to hear that a person of a
noble countenance has been guilty of an ignoble action. It is only the
ugly (and bad) who fondly cherish the delusion that beauty doesn't
matter, that it is only skin-deep and the rest of it.
Here now arises a curious question, the subject of this little paper.
When a good old family, of good character, falls on evil days and is
eventually submerged in the classes beneath, we know that the aspects
which please, the good features and expression, will often persist for
long generations. Now this submerging process is perpetually going on
all over the land and so it has been for centuries. We notice from year
to year the rise from the ranks of numberless men to the highest
positions, who are our leaders and legislators, owners of great estates
who found great families and receive titles. But we do not notice the
corresponding decline and final disappearance of those who were highly
placed, since this is a more gradual process and has nothing
sensational about it. Yet the two processes are equally great and far-
reaching in their effects, and are like those two of Elaboration and
Degeneration which go on side by side for ever in nature, in the animal
world; and like darkness and light and heat and cold in the physical
world.
As a fact, the country is full of the descendants of families that have
"died out." How long it takes to blot out or blur the finer features
and expression we do not know, and the time probably varies according
to the length of the period during which the family existed in its
higher phase.
