Children, my dear Wilton, especially the offspring of strong characters,
_inherit the suppressed tendencies of their parents_. They bring into
action the unexhausted impulses and the ungratified desires of those
parents.
The greatest singers are almost invariably the offspring of mothers or
fathers who _were music hungry_, and who were given no complete
gratification of this craving.
The poet, you will find, is the voice of an artistic-natured parent, who
was forced to be emotionally dumb.
And the proverbial clergyman's son is merely the natural result of the
same cause. He is charged with the tendencies and impulses which his
father crucified.
That your son loathes study, and hates church-going, and adores a brass
band and a circus, and runs away to the races, does not in the least
surprise me. Nor that your sixteen-year-old daughter grows hysterical at
the sound of dance music, and prefers a theatrical show in your village
hall to a Sunday-school picnic, and is mad to become an actress.
_They are your own wronged and starved emotions personified, and crying
out to you for justice.
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