It was rather the parable of family life that I read in this succession of fair faces and shapely bodies.

Never before had I so realised the miracle of the continued race, the creation and recreation, the weaving and changing and handing down of fleshly elements.

That a child should be born of its mother, that it should grow and clothe itself (we know not how) with humanity, and put on inherited looks, and turn its head with the manner of one ascendant, and offer its hand with the gesture of another, are wonders dulled for us by repetition.

But in the singular unity of look, in the common features and common bearing, of all these painted generations on the walls of the residencia, the miracle started out and looked me in the face.

And an ancient mirror falling opportunely in my way, I stood and read my own features a long while, tracing out on either hand the filaments of descent and the bonds that knit me with my family.
At last, in the course of these investigations, I opened the door of a chamber that bore the marks of habitation.