The speaker in Anna Wickham’s “Eugenics” reflects on her housekeeper, a woman who cooks her meals but also shows surprising sensitivity to art and real warmth of heart. She learns that this woman’s father was a small-town draper who sometimes left his shop to gamble at the races. By respectable standards, he was a sinner and a failure. The speaker admits she should harden her heart against his thriftlessness. Yet she draws a wry, ironic conclusion: if he had lived and died a dull, proper churchwarden, his daughter would probably have been dull too. The title is a pointed joke about heredity—not respectability, but a spark passed down. The mood is fond, amused, and lightly rebellious.
Eugenics — Summary
In this woman, whose business it is to prepare my dinner, I find the most surprising sensitiveness to works of art, With splendid qualities of sympathy and heart, And now I learn her father was a sinner.
His lines were laid in unadventurous places; He was a tradesman in a little town. But whiles, he laid the yardstick down And went and lost his money at the races.
The draper had his quiver very full: At the thought of his thriftlessness my heart should harden. But had he lived and died like a churchwarden, I know my housekeeper had been dull.