A Traveller in Little Things | Page 4

sorely to disobey him, but her love compelled her, and by-and-by
she went away and was married in a neighbouring village where her
lover had his home. It was not a happy marriage, and after a few
anxious years she fell into a wasting illness, and when it became known
to her that she was near her end she sent a message by a brother to the
old father to come and see her before she died. She had never ceased to
love him, and her one insistent desire was to receive his forgiveness
and blessing before finishing her life. His answer was, "As a tree falls
so shall it lie." He would not go near her. Shortly afterwards the
unhappy young wife passed away.
The landlady added that the brother who had taken the message was her
father, that he was now eighty-two years old and still spoke of his long
dead and greatly loved sister, and always said he had never forgiven
and would never forgive his father, dead half a century ago, for having
refused to go to his dying daughter and for speaking those cruel words.

IV
"BLOOD"
A STORY OF TWO BROTHERS
A certain titled lady, great in the social world, was walking down the

village street between two ladies of the village, and their conversation
was about some person known to the two who had behaved in the
noblest manner in difficult circumstances, and the talk ran on between
the two like a duet, the great lady mostly silent and paying but little
attention to it. At length the subject was exhausted, and as a proper
conclusion to round the discourse off, one of them remarked: "It is
what I have always said,--there's nothing like blood!" Whereupon the
great person returned, "I don't agree with you: it strikes me you two are
always praising blood, and I think it perfectly horrid. The very sight of
a black pudding for instance turns me sick and makes me want to be a
vegetarian."
The others smiled and laboriously explained that they were not praising
blood as an article of diet, but had used the word in its other and partly
metamorphical sense. They simply meant that as a rule persons of good
blood or of old families had better qualities and a higher standard of
conduct and action than others.
The other listened and said nothing, for although of good blood herself
she was an out-and-out democrat, a burning Radical, burning bright in
the forests of the night of dark old England, and she considered that all
these lofty notions about old families and higher standards were
confined to those who knew little or nothing about the life of the upper
classes.
She, the aristocrat, was wrong, and the two village ladies, members of
the middle class, were right, although they were without a sense of
humour and did not know that their distinguished friend was poking a
little fun at them when she spoke about black puddings.
They were right, and it was never necessary for Herbert Spencer to tell
us that the world is right in looking for nobler motives and ideals, a
higher standard of conduct, better, sweeter manners, from those who
are highly placed than from the ruck of men; and as this higher, better
life, which is only possible in the leisured classes, is correlated with the
"aspects which please," the regular features and personal beauty, the
conclusion is the beauty and goodness or "inward perfections" are
correlated.

All this is common, universal knowledge: to all men of all races and in
all parts of the world it comes as a shock to hear that a person of a
noble countenance has been guilty of an ignoble action. It is only the
ugly (and bad) who fondly cherish the delusion that beauty doesn't
matter, that it is only skin-deep and the rest of it.
Here now arises a curious question, the subject of this little paper.
When a good old family, of good character, falls on evil days and is
eventually submerged in the classes beneath, we know that the aspects
which please, the good features and expression, will often persist for
long generations. Now this submerging process is perpetually going on
all over the land and so it has been for centuries. We notice from year
to year the rise from the ranks of numberless men to the highest
positions, who are our leaders and legislators, owners of great estates
who found great families and receive titles. But we do not notice the
corresponding decline and final disappearance of those who were
highly placed, since this is a more gradual process and has nothing
sensational about it. Yet the two processes are equally great and far-
reaching in their effects, and