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
that, do what he will it is hardly possible for him to escape their
consequences. If a man is to enter 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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