Thinking it better that I should not see Christina, I left Theobald near
Battersby and walked back to the station. On my way I was pleased to
reflect that Ernest's father was less of a fool than I had taken him to
be, and had the greater hopes, therefore, that his son's blunders might
be due to postnatal, rather than congenital misfortunes. Accidents which
happen to a man before he is born, in the persons of his ancestors, will,
if he remembers them at all, leave an indelible impression on him; they
will have moulded his character so that, do what he will, it is hardly
possible for him to escape their consequences. If a man is to enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven, he must do so, not only as a little child, but as
a little embryo, or rather as a little zoosperm--and not only this, but
as one that has come of zoosperms which have entered into the Kingdom of
Heaven before him for many generations. Accidents which occur for the
first time, and belong to the period since a man's last birth, are not,
as a general rule, so permanent in their effects, though of course they
may sometimes be so. At any rate, I was not displeased at the view which
Ernest's father took of the situation.
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