XIII

The inquisitiveness of Keith with regard to his ancestors and the past
life of his parents continued for quite a while. Other family
connections seemed unreal and did not interest him. Having no sister or
brother of his own, relationships of that kind were meaningless to him.
Parents, on the other hand, constituted a tangible personal experience,
and the presence of Granny taught that this experience was common to
grown-up people as well as children.

The curiosity he evinced was queerly impersonal, however, and might well
be called intellectual. The information he received had no power over
his own life. He could have been told anything, and he would have
accepted it calmly as something not affecting himself. The only thing
that influenced him was the manner of the person answering his
questions. To that manner he was almost morbidly sensitive, and from it
he concluded whether the various details related should please or
disturb him.

Instinctively he pressed his inquiries at points eliciting marked
resistance. And it was not what he actually learned, but the evasions
encountered, that produced the sensitiveness about his own backgrounds
which later often influenced his attitude harmfully at moments when he
most needed complete self-assurance. It was the reluctance with which
certain parts of the family history were told, and the total
withholding of others, that taught him to be ashamed of things for which
he could not be held personally responsible. The effect of this lesson