When most of them
are browsing a few are always watching, and at the least signal of
alarm the whole herd takes fright simultaneously. Gregarious animals
are quickly alive to their mutual signals; it is beautiful to watch
great flocks of birds as they wheel in their flight and suddenly
show the flash of all their wings against the sky, as they
simultaneously and suddenly change their direction. Much of the
tameness or wildness of an animal's character is probably due to the
placidity or to the frequent starts of alarm of the mother while she
was rearing it. I was greatly struck with some evidence I happened
to meet with, of the pervading atmosphere of alarm and suspicion in
which the children of criminal parents are brought up, and which, in
combination with their inherited disposition, makes them, in the
opinion of many observers, so different to other children. The
evidence of which I speak lay in the tone of letters sent by
criminal parents to their children, who were inmates of the Princess
Mary Village Homes, from which I had the opportunity, thanks to the
kindness of the Superintendent, Mrs. Meredith, of hearing and seeing
extracts. They were full of such phrases as "Mind you do not say
anything about this," though the matters referred to were, to all
appearance, unimportant.

The writings of Dante on the horrible torments of the damned, and
the realistic pictures of the same subject in frescoes and other
pictures of the same date, showing the flames and the flesh hooks
and the harrows, indicate the transforming effect of those cruel
times, fifteen generations ago, upon the disposition of men. Revenge
and torture had been so commonly practised by rulers that they seemed
to be appropriate attributes of every high authority, and the
artists of those days saw no incongruity in supposing that a
supremely powerful master, however beneficent he might be, would
make the freest use of them.

Aversion is taught as easily as terror, when the object of it is
neutral and not especially attractive to an unprejudiced taste. I
can testify in my own person to the somewhat rapidly-acquired and
long-retained fancies concerning the clean and unclean, upon which
Jews and Mussulmans lay such curious stress. It was the result of my
happening to spend a year in the East, at an age when the brain is
very receptive of new ideas, and when I happened to be much
impressed by the nobler aspects of Mussulman civilisation, especially,
I ma