Sir Charles Santley thought so highly of it, “that he much regretted that the public would not let him sing any new things or he would have rendered it himself,” but, as he sadly remarked, “I am never allowed to sing anything but the old songs,” and at seventy two, when he retired, he was still “singing the old songs.” That is the worst part of being a celebrity. The moment a man makes a name in any particular line, whether singing a song, acting a particular style or part, painting a certain type of tree, scenes of snow or what not—along that line he has to go for evermore, for the public to consider anything else from that particular person an imposition. People do not naturally become groovy. It is the public that makes them so. The next development of Leland’s palmist theory, which begun in my youth, took place some years later, when a man arrived one day asking permission to make an impression of my hand. If I remember correctly, it was for a series of magazine articles upon the resemblance between the hands of persons occupied in the same professions. He showed impressions of the hands of many well known folks, and it was strange to see how inventive minds, like Sir Hiram Maxim, that delightful man of leonine appearance, had blunted tips to their fingers. That artistic and musical people should have long and tapering fingers was not surprising, but he pointed out other characteristics. Smearing a sheet of white paper with smoke, he pressed the palm of my hand on it, ran round the fingers with a pencil, and the trick was done. Anything more hideous or like a murderer’s fist one has seldom seen, but the lines were there as distinctly as those of prisoners’ fingers when their impressions are taken for purposes of identification. This discovery, that the lines of the human thumb do not change from cradle to grave—was one of the brilliant achievements of Sir Francis Galton (the founder of Eugenics). I remember the great kindly, soft-voiced scientist in my father’s house speaking enthusiastically of Darwin—who was his relative—and his work. He was as determined to improve the race as Darwin was to prove its origin. Sir Francis Galton was one of the kindest old gentlemen. Benevolence, goodness, and sympathy were written large all over his face. It was his very sympathy with mankind that made him wish to better the lot of the degenerate, while preventing their marriage, and improve the condition of the unsound. He even went so far as to wish rich folk to gather about them fine, sturdy young couples, to protect them and look after their children for the good of the race. He saw that the human race is deteriorating, while different breeds of animals are improving under care. The tiny seeds of the environment of youth are what blossom and ripen in later years. And here, again, my childish environment bore ultimate fruit. As a child I met Galton, and as a woman I went on to the Council of the Eugenic Society of England.