24 CHARACTER OF THE MORE IMPASSIONED WOMAN. 



other, with conspicuous eyebrows, taking after a more 

 impassioned parent. The first tends to be the more 

 active, mobile, bright, and helpful ; she is perhaps the 

 greater favourite ; the second tends to have more of 

 quietness, of greater tenacity of purpose, it may even 

 be of comparative dulness. 



Let us turn now and look at two boys young, but 

 strong and active and firm on their feet. Say we are 

 travelling with them in railway carriage or boat. 

 Everybody has met them. One never rests a single 

 moment. No human power could keep him still. He 

 runs blindly hither and thither; he turns, and twists, 

 and wriggles ; one moment he climbs, another moment 

 he tumbles ; he babbles, and shouts, and laughs, and 

 cries in turns. Perhaps an unimpassioned mother, 

 the parent he takes after, is with him. She, too, is 

 unrestful ; she scolds and threatens and chides, and 

 now and then she caresses. It is all in vain. They 

 may be better or worse from circumstance, but both 

 are obeying irresistible anatomical construction and 

 physiological proclivity. The other boy is quiet in 

 body, intent in mind, steady in eye though possibly 

 obstinate, and possibly subject to paroxysms of violent 

 temper. He sees and notes and moves and speaks 

 with an object in view. Perhaps an impassioned but 

 tranquil mother gives patient replies to his queries. 

 Now and then she may need to give a word of firm 

 reproof. Both mother and child have their failings, 

 but they also, in fundamental matters, are the creatures 

 of organisation and inheritance. 



Early and undeveloped impassioned life when of high 

 intellectual inheritance is apt to be dreamy, unprac- 

 tical, and sometimes to be injured by excess of reverie 

 and castle-building. Girl and boy have been told that 



