54 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



children will have high artistic talent. But if the unartistic 



parent have artistic ancestry there will be artistic children. 



. From 15 such matings there were derived 37 children of whom 15 were 

 poor in artistic abihty and 22 medium. Among the 120 children derived 

 from the mating: non-artistic parent having some artistic ancestors X 

 artistic parent, there were 43 with exceptional artistic ability. 



9. Ability in Literary Composition 

 The inheritance of the ability to express oneself in hterary 

 form is commonly recognized. ''Poets are bom; not made." 

 Many literary men show their talent very early, before they 

 had received much training in expression. Burns, the plow- 

 boy, was celebrated as a poet at 16, Calderon at 14, Goldoni 

 produced comedy at 8, Charlotte Bronte published "Jane 

 Eyre" at 22, Fenelon was known at 15, Sir Philip Sidney 

 was famous at 21. As illustrations of heredity we have 

 two of Charlotte Bronte's sisters writing a famous book, 

 besides a brother Patrick said to be the greatest genius of 

 them all. The father and the father's father of T. B. Ma- 

 caulay, two uncles, a cousin and a nephew were all writers 

 of note. Four generations of Taylors in England were 

 authors of an ''evangelist disposition." 



The precise method of inheritance of literary ability has 

 not hitherto been made clear; but a study of the Family 

 Records seems to justify the following conclusions. 



When both parents have high to good literary ability 

 all (or nearly all) of the children will have Ukewise good 

 literary ability. 



There are 643 offspring of such matings in the Family Records and of 

 them 93 per cent have medium to high hterary capacity. No doubt these 

 terms are used somewhat loosely and this may account for the exceptional 

 cases. 



ter, Mary L. B., had a decided artistic talent which she inherited from her 

 father's family as well as her mother's. 



It may be of interest to state further that VI, 3, possessed a mechanical 

 genius, as did his great-grandfather, Joseph B., Ill, 6, a skilled jeweler, many 

 of whose descendants to the fourth generation were also skillful jewelers. 



