Here is
one whose father was an Irishman and his mother a Scotchwoman; here is
another whose paternal line were country parsons, while his maternal
ancestors were city merchants or distinguished soldiers. Take almost
anybody's 'sixteen quarters'--his great-great grandfathers and
great-great grandmothers, of whom he has sixteen all told--and what do
you often find? A peer, a cobbler, a barrister, a common sailor, a Welsh
doctor, a Dutch merchant, a Huguenot pastor, a cornet of horse, an Irish
heiress, a farmer's daughter, a housemaid, an actress, a Devonshire
beauty, a rich young lady of sugar-broking extraction, a Lady Carolina,
a London lodging-house keeper. This is not by any means an exaggerated
case; it would be easy, indeed, from one's own knowledge of family
histories to supply a great many real examples far more startling than
this partially imaginary one. With such a variety of racial and
professional antecedents behind us, what infinite possibilities are
opened before us of children with ability, folly, stupidity, genius?
Infinite numbers of intermixtures everywhere exist in civilised
societies. Most of them are passable; many of them are execrable; a few
of them are admirable; and here and there, one of them consists of that
happy blending of individual characteristics which we all immediately
recognise as genius--at least after somebody else has told us so.
The ultimate recipe for genius, then, would appear to be somewhat after
this fashion.
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