The Ingram
family kept much to their English ways and knew little or nothing of
society. The English and Germans cling tenaciously to their old habits
and customs which they carry across seas and over mountains. Generations
must elapse before it will be safe to predict what the national type of
an American citizen will be. One discovers on the British Isles the
mixture of centuries of European blood which has developed a virility of
body and brain that dominates the globe. "More honor to be a British
subject to-day than to have been a Roman in Rome's palmiest days," thought
James Ingram, who was proud of his race and his family blood.
James Ingram came from a well-bred English household. His environment now
hedged him in. In England ill-health, and now, in America, ill-treatment
made him miss golden opportunities. Except good qualities are inbred, it
is almost as impossible for a person in one stratum of society to be
lifted up into another as it is for the geological strata of the earth to
change positions.
The grandmother of James Ingram had good blood in her veins; she came
from a family that had performed valiant deeds in war and in peace. James
Ingram's father had erred in judgment, and a large estate, partially
inherited, had been swept away as by a flood.
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