RELATIONS.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 havenotbeen 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 donotpull together? Then, surely the bond between them is most deplorable, and a divorcea vinculoshould 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 tomewho 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.[Illustration]
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 havenotbeen 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 donotpull together? Then, surely the bond between them is most deplorable, and a divorcea vinculoshould 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 tomewho 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.
[Illustration]