THE RECIPE FOR GENIUS 339 



Iiac'kinpjdown enemies, or buildinpf steam-enfj;incs, a healthy 

 cross with other castes is Hablo to brinj? in all kinds of new 

 and valuable qualities, each of which, thoiiurh acquired per- 

 haps in a totally different line of life, is apt to bear a new 

 application in the new complex whereof it now forms a part. 



In our very varied modern societies, every man and 

 every woman, in the upper and middle ranks of life at 

 least, has an indiviiluality and an idiosyncrasy so com- 

 pounded of endless varyin}^ stocks and races. Hero is one 

 whose lather was an Irishman and his mother a Scotch- 

 woman ; liere is another whose putcrnal 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 — ajid what 

 do you often find ? A peer, a cobbler, a barrister, a com- 

 mon sailor, a Welsh doctor, a Dutch merchant, a Hugue- 

 not 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 par- 

 tially imaginary one. With such a variety of racial and 

 professional antecedents behind us, what infinite possi- 

 bilities 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 recog- 

 nise as genius — at least after somebody else has told us so. 



