THE CAUSE OF CHARACTER. 825 



throughout. Not a feature of the face that is not true at bottom, in 

 one point or another, to both its ancestries ; not a shade of expression 

 that does not recall in varying degrees some mingled traits of either 

 parent. 



The number of possible traits, then, are so immense, and the modes 

 of their possible combination so infinite, that no two people, not even 

 twins, ever come out exactly similar. Box and Cox are twain, not 

 one ; the Corsican Brothers are known as a pair to their intimate cir- 

 cle. Nevertheless, brothers and sisters do, on the whole, closely re- 

 semble one another, and this we all of us instinctively recognize when- 

 ever we talk of a family likeness. These family likenesses are almost 

 always far stronger, both in mind and body, than members of the in- 

 criminated family itself ever care at all to recognize. It often hap- 

 pens, for instance, that Fred and Reginald fail to perceive the faintest 

 resemblance between their sisters Maud and Edith. But a stranger 

 looking through the family album (poor victimized martyr) says to 

 Fred, as he comes upon one of their photographs, "I'm quite sure 

 that's one of your sisters, but which is it. Miss Maud or Miss Edith ? " 

 Nay, I have even known a father himself mistake a portrait of Maud 

 for Edith. The photograph obscured some external difference of tint 

 or complexion, and therefore brought out in stronger relief the under- 

 lying similarity of feature and expression. It must have happened to 

 most men to be mistaken for their own brothers by people who had 

 never seen them before, though they themselves, looking complacently 

 in the truth-telling glass, can hardly imagine how any one on earth 

 could take them for such a fellow as Tom or Theodore. Tom's so very 

 much plainer than they are, and Theodore looks so infinitely less gen- 

 tlemanly. All round, in short, families resemble one another, and it is 

 only after a considerable acquaintance with their minuter details that 

 strangers really begin accurately to distinguish certain of their mem- 

 bers. To themselves the differences mask the likeness, to outsiders the 

 likenesses mask the difference. 



It is just the same, be sure, in mental matters. There are family 

 characters and family intelligences, as there are family faces and family 

 figures. Each individual member of the brood has his own variety of 

 this typical character, but in all its basis is more or less persistent, 

 though any one particular trait, even the most marked, may be want- 

 ing, or actually replaced by its exact opposite. Still, viewing the family 

 idiosyncrasies as a whole, each member is pretty sure to possess a very 

 considerable number of peculiarities more or less in common with all 

 the remainder. True, Jane may be passionate while Emily is sulky ; 

 Dick may be a spendthrift, while Thomas is a miser. But Jane and 

 Dick are both humorous, Emily and Thomas both musical, Thomas and 

 Dick both sensitive, Emily and Jane both sentimental, and all four of 

 them alike vindictive, alike intelligent, alike satirical, and alike fond of 

 pets and animals. Look at the persistent Tennysonian tone in Charles 



