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Hereditary Genius
365
an illustration as any of which I can think. It is often hardly possible
to trace its first beginnings: two or three houses were perhaps built
for private use, and becoming accidentally vacant, were seen and
rented by holiday folk, who praised the locality, and raised a demand
for further accommodation; other houses were built to meet the
requirement; this led to an inn, to the daily visit of the baker's and
butcher's cart, the postman, and so forth. Then as the village
increased and shops began to be established, young artisans, and
other floating gemmules of English population, in search of a place
where they might advantageously attach themselves, became fixed,
and so each new opportunity was seized upon and each opening filled
up, as soon or very soon after it existed. The general result of these
purely selfish affinities is, that watering-places are curiously similar,
even before the speculative builder has stepped in. We may predict
what kind of shops will be found and how they will be placed; nay,
even what kind of goods and placards will be put up in the windows.
And so, notwithstanding abundant individual peculiarities, we find
them to have a strong generic identity.
The type of these watering-places is certainly a durable one; the
human materials of which they are made remain similar, and so are
the conditions under which they exist, of having to supply the wants
of the average British holiday seeker. Therefore the watering-place
would always breed true to its kind. It would do so by detaching an
offshoot on the fissiparous principle, or like a polyp, from which you
may snip off a bit, which thenceforward lives an independent life and
grows into a complete animal. Or, to compare it with a higher order
of life, two watering-places at some distance apart might between
them afford material to raise another in an intermediate locality.
Precisely the same remarks might be made about fishing villages, or
manufacturing towns, or new settlements in the
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