Denys Finch Hatton and fatherhood

A. When Karen Blixen became pregnant with Finch Hatton's child in 1926, he wrote to her, "I should like to offer partnership, but that is impossible." He seems not to have wanted to marry anyone. There is no evidence that he was interested in women or marriage.

For a historian, one notices that he belonged to a generation that lacked an interest in the future. (His interest in wildlife conservation was an isolated event, and dependent on his livelihood.) Some say this attitude was a reaction to Victorianism, a rejection of the fathers' passion for responsibility and family life. The generation was satirized by P.G. Wodehouse in the character of Bertie Wooster. You can see the attitude reflected in literature as far separated as Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Family and children were far from the thoughts of the major characters in these works.

Denys Finch Hatton was interested in neither wife, nor marriage, nor profession, nor fame, nor the demands of posterity. "He never did in life but what he wanted to do."

One characteristic that endeared Denys Finch Hatton to a wide group of friends was his ability as a raconteur. His wit, mimicry and wide-ranging talents made him, in a certain way, an artist. Karen Blixen writes about the artist as a figure alienated from normal society. She describes Denys Finch Hatton as an outcast from his own century:

"Denys could indeed have been placed harmoniously in any period of our civilization, tout comme chez soi, all up till the opening of the nineteenth century. He would have cut a figure in any age, for he was an athlete, a musician, a lover of art and a fine sportsman. He did cut a figure in his own age, but it did not quite fit in anywhere. His friends in England always wanted him to come back, they wrote out plans and schemes for a career for him there, but Africa was keeping him" [Out of Africa, p. 224].

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