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].
| Coulsong