Morgan family

“ Once upon a time there was a family called Morgan—Mr. Morgan the father, Mrs. Morgan the mother, Christopher Morgan, aged twelve, Claire Morgan, aged nine, Betty Morgan, aged seven, a fox-terrier, a cat, a bullfinch, a nurse, a cook, a parlourmaid, a housemaid, and a boy named William. William hardly counts, because he came only for a few hours every day, and then lived almost wholly in the basement, and when he did appear above-stairs it was always in the company of a coal-scuttle. That was the family; and at the time this story begins it had just removed from Bloomsbury to Bayswater. ”

“ She remembered them each one: Father Morgan, with his old, worn face, and his heart among the fields and barns; Mother Morgan, with her cold eyes, and cold hand, and cold voice; Dorothy and John, and the fair, yellow-haired Nellie, whom a special touch of motherliness had left still sleeping that morning; and remembering them each, this young wife turned from the window, and, kneeling, presented them each by name and desire to her "elder Brother."
CHAPTER V. BEDS AND BUTTON-HOLES.
How to fit in with the family life lived at the Morgan farmhouse was one of the puzzles of the new-comer. ”

“ Besides, you have never had a little sister, and would not understand. Family relations are mysteries."
"No, I have never had a little sister." And then Challis felt like a liar, and heart-sick as he thought of the thoroughness with which he had accepted Kate's "little sister" as his own. What a compensation he had thought her for a mother-in-law his most gruesome anticipations had not bargained for! When did the change come about?—when?—when? Why need the memory of it all come on him now, of all times? But Judith stopped his retrospect short with: "Get me that rose-bud, if you have a knife. ”

“ Harry owns sheep by thousands, and rents a mighty mountain, and has as many sons as brothers, and the same number of daughters, who have come to the point of resembling Jessie: so says Ann, who has a hundred photographs. Mr Morgan is back at Abercorran. When good fortune returned to the Morgans the whole family went there for a time, leaving Ann behind until the house should be let. ”

“ In the meantime, a man isn't called upon to travel with a family tree under his arm and show it to every one who questions him. Morgan is a gentleman, sans peur et sans reproche. If he is not, I do not know the breed.
"So far as the charge of Royson is concerned," continued the general, "let me calm your mind on that point. I have never entered upon this matter with you because the mistakes of a man's kindred are things he has no right to gossip about, even among friends. The woman, Rita Morgan, has always been free; she was given her freedom in infancy by John Morgan's father. ”

“ The Lord Mayor has hoped that he will prove to be a member of the Tredegar family. The name of Morgan is a splendid name. You can, with that name, get your pedigree from wherever you like. Whenever I talk of bishops, I remember to speak of Bishop Morgan. If I speak to a football player, I talk of Buccaneer Morgan, and so it goes on in any subject you wish. I do not care—even if there is a great murder—a Morgan is sure to be in it! I do not wish to detract from the Lord Mayor's desire to be in the pedigree, but, at all events, we can all belong to a Morgan Brotherhood. ”

“ Morgan acquiesced, but Emma did not in this decision.
She had, at first, felt extremely hurt that Mrs. Watson should make her circumstances and situation the subject of unreserved discussion with a man totally unconnected with her family—and that in so loud a tone as to be perfectly audible to any one within a dozen yards of where she sat. But the accent of real interest in Mr. Morgan's voice—and above all, the prospect which he held up of a release from the galling thraldom of her present situation, served to compensate for the want of delicacy in her sister-in-law. ”

“ He became reconciled to his son-in-law, and provided him a well-paid position in his own mercantile establishment, and provided rooms in the Madison-avenue mansion for the little family whom Frank had first visited in the squalid tenement-house in Fourteenth street, and the glad voices of children made the house no longer lonely.
"You must call and see us often," said Ellen Morgan to our hero. "I shall always remember you as the messenger who brought us good tidings at the darkest hour in our fortunes. We shall always welcome you as a friend." ”

“ Very few daughters-in-law have such experiences. I do consider my mother an unusual woman, and my wife an unusual wife. And I tell you in all honesty, mother, that we of the Morgan family thank God every day of our lives for the vine from your branch that was grafted into ours. ”

“ Sally wasn't an angel—not a bit of it—no such embarrassment to a merely human family. But her mother could see her truth, honour, purity—call it what you will—in every feature, every movement. As she stood there, giving injunctions to Vereker to look alive or he'd be late, her huge coil of sea-soaked black hair making her white neck look whiter, and her white hands reestablishing hair-pins in the depths of it, she seemed the very incarnation of non-inheritance. ”

“ You are to be despatched to England to await the King's pleasure. I am sent by Lord Carlingford to fetch you to the jail at Port Royal."
"You seem to find it a pleasant task."
"By heaven, I do, sir!" cried the soldier fiercely. "I am a gentleman born, of the proudest family in the Old Dominion, and have been forced to bow and scrape and endure your insults and commands, you bloody villain, but now——"
"'Tis no part of a soldier's duty, sir, to insult a prisoner," interrupted Morgan, not without a certain dignity. ”

“ Every relationship recognized under the system is thus explained from the nature of the consanguine family, founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group. Relationships on the father’s side are followed as near as the parentage of children could be known, probable fathers being treated as actual fathers. Relationships on the mother’s side are determined by the principle of affinity, step-children being regarded as actual children. ”

“ Indeed, Aunt M'riar was able to add that Widow Druitt his mother couldn't call her soul her own for that boy's goings on.
"He'd got a tidy good punishing afore I got hold of the scruff of my man's trousers," said Uncle Mo, who seemed well contented with the culprit's retribution; and, of course, he knew. "Besides," he added, "he had to get away over them bottles." That is to say, the wall-top, bristling with broken glass. Humanity had paved the way for the enemy's retreat. Uncle Mo added inquiry as to how the freckly one's behaviour to his family had come to the knowledge of Sapps Court. ”

“ Morgan was undoubtedly the greatest sociologist of the past century, and in his monumental work (1871) laid a solid foundation for the study of the family and kinship systems; he formulated a scheme of the evolution of the family based on a study of the classificatory system of relationships, [105] of which he was the discoverer. 134According to this scheme, human society has advanced, through gradual evolution, from a state of complete promiscuity to one characterised by monogamy. ”

“ Slade, prompted as well by humanity as a sense of justice. With one hand her husband has taken the bread from the family of his old friend, and thus with the other she restores it.
And now Morgan and his wife are alone with their sick child. Higher the fever rises, and partial delirium seizes upon her over-excited brain. She talks for a time almost incessantly. All her trouble is about her father; and she is constantly referring to his promise not to go out in the evening until she gets well. How tenderly and touchingly she appeals to him ”

“ Nash says so."
Keziah waited for Mrs. Lamprey to depart, and then went on:—"They do say marriages are made in Heaven, and 'tis not unlike to be true. 'Tis all one there whether we be high or low." This was a tribute to Omnipotence, acknowledging its independence of County Families. So august a family as the Earl's might wed as it would, without suffering disparagement. Anyway, there was her young ladyship driving off this very morning to Pensham, so there was every sign at present that the decrees of Providence would hold good. ”

“ There's folks enough trying at it, and making failures, without me to swell their number. Till I see somebody who is succeeding a little better than any one I know, I haven't got the courage to begin."
"Leaving us an example, that ye should fellow His steps," quoted Lewis Morgan solemnly. "After all, father, the true pattern is certainly perfect; why not follow that? Who ever asks the school-boy to imitate the scrawl of some fellow-pupil, so long as the perfect copy is just before his eyes, at the top of the page?" ”

“ And he dodged out at the back door just as the front one opened, and a shoving of trunks sounded on the oil-cloth floor of the great old-fashioned hall, and Lewis Morgan's voice said cheerily, "Where are you all?" and the mother rolled up the stocking, and stabbed it with the darning-needle, and shook out her check apron, and stood up to give them greeting; and Louise Morgan had reached her home. ”

“ Morgan, seriously, many of our young people, or at least some of them, have so slight a knowledge of the world that they really cannot realize the possibility of persons being led astray by such causes; and where they have not wise mothers and tender fathers to influence them, in whose superior wisdom they can trust, how can I reach such?"
"There is one line of argument that ought to reach all such, I think. Take, for instance, my brother John; isn't it evident, Mr. Butler, that he doesn't consider dancing consistent with a Christian profession?" ”

“ I forgot how much I told you about the family, but I know I said something in yesterday's letter. Anyhow, 'old Mrs. Prichard' was not new to me, and I was very curious to see her. So when more than five minutes had passed and no Dave reappeared, I proposed that Dolly and I should go up to look for him, and we went, Aunt Maria following in our wake, to cover contingencies. She went back, after introducing me to the very sweet old lady [Pg 354] in a high-backed chair, who comes in as the explanation of the beginning of this illegible scrawl. How funny children are! ”

“ As a result of his enquiries into terms of relationships, mainly in North America and Asia, Morgan drew up a scheme of fifteen stages, through which he believed the sexual relations of human beings had passed in the interval between utter savagery and the civilised family. ”

“ Of all the passions in the mind thou vilest art." Spenser. Evening, October 19th.
We reached B—— on Tuesday evening, September 22d, where we were cordially welcomed by Mrs. Morgan, a sister of Frank's father. The family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, and their son Joseph Lenox, named for his uncle. There was also Mrs. Fidelia Schuyler, an orphan niece of aunt Morgan, who had been married but a few months. She is a child of aunt Morgan's brother, who has been deceased many years. ”

“ Among the Indian tribes, in whatever stage of advancement, the family was found in the pairing form, with separation at the option of either party. It was founded upon marriage between single pairs, but it fell below the monogamian family of civilized society. In their condition it was too weak an organization to face alone the struggle of life, and it sought shelter in large households, formed on the basis of kin, with communism in living as an incident of their plan of life. ”

“ Did John Morgan intend ever to settle the question? He looked the thought, for almost the first time, squarely in the face. He believed that the man who had been speaking was in earnest. He believed that he knew what he was talking about. Somehow the network of unbelief in which this foolish young wanderer had intrenched himself so long would not bear the piercing light of one solemn Bible question, one gospel sermon; it slipped away from him and left him refugeless.
"Come," said the preacher. "Be men now and be women. Be worthy of your position as reasonable beings. ”

“ Whether there could be connection between marriage, defined sociologically, and kinship is another and more complicated problem. In any case Morgan uses throughout his book the word consanguinity, and he defines it as the tie of common blood arising from the sexual act. In other words he sets forth the problem in a simplified and incorrect form. The question how kinship may be conceived in a given society, especially in a low one, naturally presents itself as a very important point of investigation. ”

“ On that very next evening, after tea, with Nellie among the pillows in the rocking-chair that had been brought from Louise's room for her use, the mother said: "Now, Lewis, I have made up my mind that I want family prayers in this house after this, and on Nellie's account we will have them right after tea, if it is just as well for you.—Dorothy, get mother's Bible. Sing a hymn, if you like, before reading. I like singing, if I can't help; and your father used to be a good singer when he was young." Farmer Morgan made no remark upon this change in the family arrangements. ”

“ Our discussion of consanguinity shows how great a mistake it was on the part of Morgan to impute to the primitive mind a whole series of ideas which absolutely and necessarily must have been foreign to it. As was said above, primitive mankind was certainly wholly ignorant of the process of procreation, and the relation of the sexes cannot possibly have been the source of kinship ideas. ”