How we cite our quotes: Possession: A Romance. London: Vintage Books, 1991.
Quote #10
How may what is born, is formed by gradual causes, transmit this form to its offspring—transmit the type—tho the individual may fail? This if I mistake not, is not known. I may cut off a sprig of a tree—and grow a whole tree—roots and crown and all from that—and how may that be? How does the twig-slip know to form root and branch? (12.26)
In this passage from one of Randolph Henry Ash's letters to his wife Ellen, we hear an echo of his earlier words on the significance of the individual life within the life of the species. Although Ash is puzzling over a scientific question here, his musings have deeper symbolic meaning: he's thinking about generation and continuity—the history and the future of species—in terms that apply to his own significance as a human being—and, though he doesn't know it yet, as a father-to-be.