IV

Traits that make a child disagreeable are apt to be perpetuated in the
adult. The bumptious, impudent, selfish, "hateful" boy may become a man
of force, of learning, of decided capacity, even of polish and good
manners, and score success, so that those who know him say how remarkable
it is that such a "knurly" lad should have turned out so well. But some
exigency in his career, it may be extraordinary prosperity or bitter
defeat, may at any moment reveal the radical traits of the boy, the
original ignoble nature. The world says that it is a "throwing back"; it
is probably only a persistence of the original meanness under all the
overlaid cultivation and restraint.

Without bothering itself about the recondite problems of heredity or the
influence of environment, the world wisely makes great account of
"stock." The peasant nature, which may be a very different thing from
the peasant condition, persists, and shows itself in business affairs, in
literature, even in the artist. No marriage is wisely contracted without
consideration of "stock." The admirable qualities which make a union one
of mutual respect and enduring affection--the generosities, the
magnanimities, the courage of soul, the crystalline truthfulness, the
endurance of ill fortune and of prosperity--are commonly the persistence
of the character of the stock.

We can get on with surface weaknesses and eccentricities, and even
disagreeable peculiarities, if the substratum of character is sound.
There is no woman or man so difficult--to get on with, whatever his or
her graces or accomplishments, as the one "you don't know where to find,"
as the phrase is. Indeed, it has come to pass that the highest and final