INHERITANCES 23 



idiocy in the direct or collateral kindred. There has been some 

 drunkenness in the collaterals, but, so far as I have been able to 

 learn, none in the direct ascendants. So, too, they have been 

 spared the more terrible maladies. In my large kinship there is 

 no trace of cancer or tuberculosis. My father, who was curious 

 in such matters, and had so far as possible informed himself 

 concerning the diseases of my stock, told me that he believed 

 that those ills had never visited any of my kindred, except in 

 the case of one cousin, who inherited consumption from her 

 mother, who was not of my blood. I have never known of any 

 kindred who were deformed : they have often enough been good- 

 for-nothing, but their shapes testify to wholesome physical in- 

 heritances. 



So far as I can judge what I have from my ancestors comes 

 mainly from my mother's side of my house. I am evidently 

 nearer akin in spirit to Richard Southgate than to any other of 

 my forbears. His eager interest in men and things, his skill in 

 memorizing, his love of the land and desiring of it, his taste for 

 literature, especially for poetry, were clearly sent on to me. 

 From my father's side I inherit a combativeness which curiously 

 contends with the eminently peaceful humor which came through 

 the Southgates, who were disinclined to any kind of warfare. 

 Even before his people came to this country to settle, they 

 appear in tradition as buccaneers on the Spanish Main; but 

 among the Southgates of the direct line, or in my collateral 

 ancestors of that side, I have not been able to learn of a soldier. 

 As a whole, none of my ancestry ever came near to greatness, 

 yet they sent on to me a good inheritance of sufficiency, both of 

 body and of mind. The best of these gifts has been a capacity 

 for an intense interest in tasks without much reference to per- 

 sonal comfort in doing them, along with a power for keeping at 

 work, whatever might be the discouragement from illness or 

 ill-success, and also a certain unconscious talent for seeing the 

 situations in which I have been involved as parts of the whole 

 of actions a talent that may be termed the historic sense in 



