Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-05-04
BLOOD DOES NOT TELL
The Didactic Cast of Mind Often In
herited, but Fancy and I'm
agery Rarely.
Frem the Literary Digest

Fren the Literary Digest
Like father, like son." Is hou5eIv
aphorism. which, according to the late
t.'eiiaro Holt Hutton. misses the mark In
."e case OF poetic genius of the first cali
1"' buttons observations convinced
| ~, .ae .he general attitudes of mind. like
eic or ironic or self-consclous or
|, ,',. OF matter-of-fact, are freouentlv
| -,'. from father to son. b,,, that ,ha
| -. Va Imagination and fancy arc lese
| ,to.,,,- 1 'fe highest poetic gifts are nrac-
iS never, so transmitted T, -
ro'aihe OF brief essays collected f-on, ~
.iu''oh s contributions to the ronaor 60
| 'a'or' MS niece. Elizabeth NJ posooe -
GUIDES one dealing with this ou..t,o,, =. ,'i-
, ,ia literary talent. The inber,,oa a.
| sion is 80. shat mas gained literary expres-
| -, iouno, says the writer I'm tbs "a
mu,.hs, the Woriswprths tba c,.t Suse
y'ueriorces, and, most of AIN ar , tsie
etc., .a'.er case there was a notobIe in
OIL, oI .ne transmission of the attituda
my; LOT Matthew Arnold set bInsai. -.
teach almost nothing thai bJs fa.hs. 10
.4iousht true Instances OF eraatar -.
are , CITED in the following: 10y
q, ie Is probably no turn of mind u,ntch
&C a. o an transmitted from father to SON
s .ne dldactic turn of mind On the other
u' imagination and fancy are NOT ofton
transmitted. though there are No, q g.,
oases IN which father and son. or mother
the sar,, Vi rather and daughter have had
s sle same grit for holding up the mirror 10
az ety. There is Dumas mere and pn,,a.
his ior instance; there is Mrs Trolinne
a.. Anthony Trollope. who not only both
NOR h,,. sacters with great skill and hu-
LII 10 ou. grew characters after a fashion In
WHICH II is impossible not TO recoppfza ,ba
sans inoid or mind. Again. there is the
th hse oi a.. thaekeray and his daughter, though
tbere - he type is greatly modified And
mere is the case of Nathaniel Hawthorne
ana ms son. In all these instances there
10 se. IN the case of a definitely imaginative
sht' transmission Nof power as distinct
as III the case of the engineering genius on
~ N"o ofuheIs and the two Stepheusous"
The Few Instances.
When we come to survey the field Of
po'ers the instances are extremely few
eie Inc talent has been transmitted Mr..
,u''on cites the notable exception of tho
Coieridges: Hartley. he thinks. "could nor
nave conceived or written tho Ancient
Mariner or Christabel.' but the lyrical
cry in him was even more exouisiteI. -,
ana tender than it was in his faith :; -r,,e,,
there were the two Aubrey De Veres father
ana ana son; the three Roscoes. grandfather.
!ather ana son, and the two Lord Ho.yh
tons, and with these the possible caees
cease. Says the writer.
among the greatest poets. I know Of no
instance of Inheritance OF this particular
FACULTY. There is no tradition that cen
David or Isaiah or Homer or aescbyInS o-
virgil or Horace or Dante or Petrarch or
1asso or Goethe or Schiller or Beranger or
hugo or Chaucer or Shakespeare or Milton
or Spenser or Burns or Scott or Shelley mr.
Byron transmitted any spark of his noefic
genius to descendants. Not very Frequently
does there appear to have been anv special
power even of another kind in the descend
ants of poets. Byron's daughter was a
| considerable mathematician which seems a
curious transformation for force like
Byrons to undergo. Chaucer's son was
speaker OF the house of commons and am
passador to France. Many of Coeridge's
nephews and grandnephews were disffn-
guished as lawyers and writer's. More than
one or Wordsworth's sons, brothers and
iepheWs We're or are worthy divines and
coiIege teachers But except in the case of
the Coleridges, the De Veres the Roscoes
and the two Lord Houghtons we can trace
no transmission of poetic genius"
Poets Go Astray.
Mr. Hutton regards as Inadequate the
theory OF Gallon that poets have. as n
rule strong sensuous tastes, and that peo-
PIE VINO have strong sensuous tastes arc ant
10 go astray in life and squander Wat
ever power they have This theory fails
TO account for the failure of the rIsb,o,,,
prophets among the greatest poets Of
e eai 10 transmit in one single Instance
Nnar,
no reason of the kind referred n by, NJ
uaftoh why Aeschylus or Sophocles or VII
81 OF Dante or Milton or Scott or uorda
worth should not have founded a fanoIi,,
iHherltlng his@great poetic gifts Mr. TIut,
ton concludes: '' nut
The greater poetical gifts are do uot
say untransmissible, but exceedingly rnraiy
transmitted. Like the inspiration of The
prophet or the self-forgetfulness of the
SAINT, they are apparently the unioiIe nro1
uct OF fusion between the creative spirtt
ana the individual human being to WHOM
IRE communicates some spark or flash of his
own unapproachabie thought or shirt os
self-forgetfulness Of l NAV nronerII IN,
pute such quality to the Infinite Nind1
anu 1t does not seem his will or babit 20
produce replicas of genius IN any of ifs
highest forms. Even in the excentfonaI
cases have noticed, there will be found
to be variations so remarkable that n Js
rather the constitutional poetic teronar
which Is inherited than the individuaI
genius. Still 1t Is rare enough for even
that TO be inherited. AS a rule there &c q
curious correlation among the forms Of
genius and the poets descendant is mora
likely to turn out a barrister or a fudge on
an artist or even an antiquarian than A
poet. A portion of the energy remains but
II takes TO new channels. The light that
never was on sea or land, the consecra tion
ana the poets dream, is the rarest OF ali
inheritances."
A reader of Mr.. Huttons essay humor-
ousiy remarks that the writer oSerlooks a
very plausible economic explanation Of The
dearth of poets among poets sons Nav
1t not be, he suggests, that the sons had
too ample opportunities to observe how, nm
remunerative a commodity 1t was in which
their fathers dealt7
Why Nurse Doesn't Hold Job Long.