Those feelings (imperishably summed up by Jack London in the title of his masterpiece) which, coming out of a remote past, beckon back the only supposedly or but half-made-up civilized amongst us, from late into early conditions, were not, as I say, his heritage; and this was equally (or even more) the case with his brothers--my two uncles--and as far as I know or have ever heard, all the precedent members of the family. I believe, therefore, that by the intervention--merciful or otherwise--of the Bruce, Sherborn, and Holgate families, between them, my brother was saved, or debarred, from going either into the Stock Exchange or one of the settled professions. Which kind of phraseology best suits the conjuncture I know not, but I think I know what my brother's own opinion would be, since it put the particular circumstances of that event of his life, in which, of all others, he would esteem himself most happy and fortunate--I mean his death--upon a footing of certainty. "I have alluded to my brother's independence of home (or, I think, of any) influence. I look upon him as a salient illustration of Darwin's finding that the force of heredity is stronger, in the individual, than that of education and surroundings. So far back as I can remember--at least with any distinctness--he was always just himself, with a settled determination that, in its calm, unobtrusive force (giving the idea of inevitability) had in it something elemental. He may not have lisped Africa (which was far from the family thoughts) but, if not, he, at least, came so near to it, as to have made us all almost remember that he did. He seems to have brought with him into this world 'from afar,' a mind long made up as to the part he should play in it, and his career was more than half run before any circumstance admitted by him as deflective from its true course, arose..." Mrs. Jones (Ann Selous) also paints a pleasing picture of the early life of the family in their London house:--