I found that in 5 per cent.
cases (certainly much below the real mark) of the British people of
genius, one parent, generally the father, had shown abnormality from a
social or parental point of view. He had been idle, or extravagant, or
restless, or cruel, or intemperate, or unbusinesslike, in the great
majority of these cases "unsuccessful." The father of Dickens
(represented by his son in Micawber), who was always vainly expecting
something to turn up, is a good type of these fathers of genius.
Shakespeare's father may have been of much the same sort. George
Meredith's father, again, who was too superior a person for the
outfitting business he inherited, but never succeeded in being anything
else, is another example of this group of fathers of genius. The father
in these cases is a link of transition between the normal stock and its
brilliantly abnormal offshoot. In this transitional stage we see, as it
were, the stock _reculer pour mieux sauter_, but it is in the son that
the great leap is made manifest.
This peculiarity will serve to indicate that in a large proportion of
cases the parentage of genius is not entirely sound and normal. We must
dismiss absolutely the notion that the parents of persons of genius
tend to exhibit traits of a grossly insane or nervously degenerate
character. The evidence for such a view is confined to a minute
proportion of cases, and even then is usually doubtful. But it is
another matter to assume that the parentage of genius is absolutely
normal, and still less can we assert that genius always springs from
entirely sound stocks.
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