Transmission; or, Variation of Character Through the Mother

Here is a counterpart to the preceding narrative.

We had gone to visit an invalid friend who himself had climbed these mountain heights to escape the fogs below on the sea-shore. Here, cosily sheltered by the summit, surrounded by peach and cherry-trees, and looking down on wooded heights and gorges, we found a most excellent hotel. The host, a mild, intelligent man, was himself quite delicate; his wife, on the contrary, was one of those rarely met with, magnetic, generous-natured women, whose coming affects one like the ocean breezes. She had, so she told us, nine children living and one dead. Only such a brave, bounteous creature could have been equal to this, and never in one instance bring reproach on her motherhood. It is of the tenth I would speak, now a lad of sixteen, observing whom the invalid remarked: “I shall get well just looking at that boy. What a manly, affectionate fellow!”

“I call him my consolation,” said his mother. “He can do anything, and he does it so easily, so quietly.” And, indeed, the way in which this refined lad handed you your plate, your glass of milk, or cup of coffee, gave a dignity to the meal, while conferring honor on all parties concerned. The phrase “menial labor” had no significance when he was basting the meat or ironing the “belated” table-cloths for his mother.

Usually, when a woman in very straitened circumstances has an extremely large family, she presently becomes oppressed and discouraged. Her ambition is foiled. She can neither clothe, educate, nor train the children properly, and the latest comers are apt to have a poorer make-up—a fag-end sort of air. Here, on the contrary, was the flower of the flock, a youth full of faculty, at home on the piano-forte stool as at the knife-board, determined to sustain his mother at all hazards.

I sought eagerly the explanation of this phenomenon, and the happy mother in full, varied, and affectionate tones, gladly replied to my inquiries.

“When I found myself pregnant with my tenth child, the nine were living and all at home. My husband’s salary—he was a preacher—was between three and four hundred dollars a year. Fortunately, we owned the little place on which we lived, and yet, if you will recall those Eastern winters, you will realize the great difficulty I had in keeping us all clothed as well as fed. It seemed to me not a virtue, but a sin, to bring more children into the world, and I made up my mind that this should be the very last. I would take matters into my own hands.

“But the thing now to be thought of was a little clothing for the expected baby. I had not a rag to make over, not a dollar for the purpose.

“At this juncture a gentleman, an agent for some religious publication house, called, and as the custom was, I asked him to spend the day, which he did, and I had considerable talk with him. He left, and returned while I was preparing supper, and seemed greatly surprised to find that I had no help. ‘What! nine children to cook and sew for, and no help!’ He had never supposed such a thing possible. I explained that I had a primitive constitution, but still I found myself giving way lately. Whenever I had a trifle ready to pay out, which was very seldom, I employed, it was true, a woman poorer than myself, but less burdened, to do the washing. His astonishment, however, continued.

“A week or two after this visit, I received a letter from a distant city, saying that my case had made a profound impression on him, and that having met with a coterie of ladies belonging to a certain congregation who were anxious to assist some missionary, or help in some other good cause, he had mentioned me and my circumstances, and they were of one mind, eager to help me, and wished to know if I would accept a present in the spirit in which it was offered; and if so, would I indicate what things would be most useful to me.

“I was glad, and willing to accept anything, and in replying mentioned infants’ wear and children’s clothes as most needed.

“In return came a large box with every sort of child’s garments, a roll of flannel, and a complete infant’s wardrobe of the nicest material and most beautifully made—embroidered flannel, dresses prettily tucked and edged—things lovely to look at.

“An immense load was taken off my mind. I was actually filled with delight whenever I thought of these delicate, pretty things, and how comfortable my baby would be. I went about my tasks after this in a spirit of love and thanksgiving. You see Paul! He has been my consolation since his babyhood. No temptation could make him less positively good, less conscientious, or less affectionate than he is.”

As this large-hearted woman related to me these interesting facts, I could not help wishing that the kind ladies who had been instrumental in bringing about so happy a result, as well as the gentleman who had given the impetus to their benevolence, could know how valuable had been the effects.

KLEPTOMANIA.

The word kleptomania is used to indicate the habit of stealing, by those persons with whom wealth precludes the ordinary temptation to the act. Certain women of position are regularly watched by clerks in stores because they are known to carry off laces, ribbons, etc., when they fancy themselves unobserved. Such women have very inferior minds independent of this one vice. In the mother of such an one the desire to get and to keep things of material value, must have been exceedingly prominent. Many an honest mother mourns over the unscrupulous dishonesty of her son, while all unwittingly she conveyed to him the overpowering impulse; or there was not rigid probity enough in her own life to overrule the dishonest tendency conveyed by her husband.

In the first case, her desire to get and to keep would be harmless and justifiable as a temporary state of mind, if she were not pregnant. She knows, although she does not often dwell on the fact, that she is working assiduously for legitimate ends. But as she is, in truth, mainly engrossed in getting and saving, thus using a very limited part of her mind, she does the harm. The selfish, grasping spirit increases on itself through generations of similar experience. On the same principle, the remarkable singer is the product of two or three generations of love of song.

A childish inclination to appropriate that which belongs to another, yields readily to wise treatment, where the intellect, the nature, is not cramped and dull.

SPECULATIVE INTELLECT.

The habit of reasoning independently, of investigating without reference to authority, is by no means a common one. Most people have their thinking done for them, and are content to quote their clergyman, their doctor, or their great-grandmother, as the case may require. We say a man or woman is “original” when they seek Truth wherever she may be found, regardless of popular opinion.

My friend, though quite practical, loved dearly to wander in the higher regions of thought. Such an one is apt to suffer for the want of sympathy, and situated as she was in an obscure inland town, where living literature was unappreciated and congenial companionship did not exist, her first year of married life was not all that she had anticipated. Her husband was “all business,” but he wanted his wife to be happy, and he induced her to send for an old schoolmate “for company.”

After Miss Wood’s arrival there was no time for morbid regrets or dissatisfaction. She brought a year’s later news of the old circle of friends, was full of piquant personal reminiscence, could discuss the merits of the latest noteworthy literature, and entered heartily into the political reform movements of England and Italy. The days were now only too short for the duties and sympathy that had to be crowded into them.

After the birth of Mrs. Roche’s first child her friend married, and moved on to a farm some miles away. Mrs. R. had more domestic occupation, but a close communication was kept up. Then the anti-slavery agitation was beginning to be felt all over the country, and Mr. R., to his wife’s great delight, flung himself with all his compact executive energy into it. During this period another child, a girl, was born. Suddenly and unexpectedly business losses occurred, which obliged a removal to a new place.

“It so happened,” said Mrs. R., referring long years later to the marked difference in her children, “that the months before Cecil’s birth, I met with no book or person that appealed to me, and I was always so helplessly dependent on outside influences when I was enciente. The dear boy, in his early youth, gave evidence of the absence of the speculative intellect. He hates discussion and theories of every sort. Philosophy is his abomination. The day is good enough for him without analysis. He likes a fine poem, and adores Ruskin, and his order and system make him invaluable to his father. But in comprehensiveness, in capacity for ideas, he ranks far below his brother and his sister.”

INTEMPERANCE.

In the preceding pages I have endeavored to show what manner of living favors the transmission of noble and beautiful qualities from mother to child; what conditions tend to produce unbalanced, vicious, unlovely character. I have dwelt principally on the moral aspects of maternity, because that is the side hitherto overlooked. But I can not close without saying a word respecting the baleful influence of intoxicating drinks.

Nothing is more certain than that the desire for alcoholic drinks is inherited, and all degrees of mental dullness and incapacity, from one grade below the parental endowment, to idiocy, may be distinctly referred to habits of intoxication.

We have seen that the abnormal sensibility of a pregnant woman insures large effects (on the child) from small causes. Thus a joy is absorbed by the young life that the mother outgrows; and depression that was but temporary with her, leaves its mark on the temperament and disposition of her offspring.

Thus the habit of taking just a drop to sustain your fainting spirits during the day, and a glass of something hot at night, added, most likely, to the father’s moderate drinking, gives the child an uncontrollable passion for stimulants. Now, the life you live may be all that is desirable, but if your brain is put under this influence occasionally, all the good is weakened, vitiated, undermined. Alcohol breaks down the WILL, and what is a human being without a will? A vacillating, unreliable creature. It deadens the mental sensibilities and arouses the passions.

Friends will often advise a pregnant woman to drink beer or spirits, assuming that nature at such times requires it. Now, nature is equal to her own emergencies, and pregnancy is not a disease. The brooding mother needs plenty of sunlight and fresh air, abundant sleep, moderate exercise, wholesome food, and congenial surroundings. Let her listen to no one who prescribes a stimulant which holds disease in itself.

There is such a thing as intemperance in eating, and I would counsel any woman to demand of herself a perfect self-control at the table. Nothing less than this, with entire abstinence on her part, will suffice to neutralize in most cases the desire for liquor, communicated, in so many cases, by the father; and the firmness exercised by her in denying the appetite, will give her child the firmness to resist the temptation to drink. Without this will in the matter, the inclination would be communicated and not the power to resist, as, for instance, if she merely abstained because she could not obtain what she longed for.

The Germans sodden their brains with lager-beer; the English brutify themselves on gin and porter. We ruin soul, body, and worldly prospects on adulterated whisky.

Our husbands and fathers license thousands of groggeries, corner groceries, saloons, that they may be free to indulge out of sight of home. In this way they prepare places wherein their sons may be initiated into vice. Thus the crop of drunkards never fails in village, town, or city, nor the supply of criminals, large and small, made criminals by these means provided.

The “deficient” child and the predestined drunkard, are cradled as softly as are the children of temperance. The mother handing her babe round for the admiration of her neighbors, is shaken by no prevision of what it will one day become. Her fair, rosy-cheeked boy destined to be the inmate of an inebriate asylum? She will not believe it. Yet only obedience to the higher law on her part will have saved him from it.

CONCLUSION.

It has been clearly demonstrated in these modern days that nothing is to be had without paying the full price. The more valuable the thing desired, the greater the price to be paid. Thus the satisfactions and joys of parentage can only be had by the study of, and obedience to, natural and spiritual law, at the cost of much effort, self-denial, and self-control. (Self-indulgence and indifference do not produce fine offspring).

It has also been proved, to the simplest observation, that woman has the large balance of power in the formation of character, and it is for her to assume the responsibility. Genius is dependent on a combination of influences outside our control, but good sense, integrity, generosity, and chastity take their growth from thoughts, emotions, and acts, over which we have control to a very great extent. Let women take courage. The larger their responsibility, the nobler their reward.