Your immediate purpose is fulfilled; but you resolve, let us say, to make the acquaintance of more of the gens, whose number you have perceived to be legion.  You are duly introduced to the following:  genus, generic, genre, gender, genitive, genius, general, Gentile, gentle, gentry, gentleman, genteel, generous, genuine, genial, congeniality, congener, genital, congenital, engender, generation, progeny, progenitor, genesis, genetics, eugenics, pathogenesis, biogenesis, ethnogeny, palingenesis, unregenerate, degenerate, monogeny, indigenous, exogenous, homogeneous, heterogeneous, genealogy, ingenuous, ingenious, ingenue, engine, engineer, hygiene, hydrogen, oxygen, endogen, primogeniture, philoprogeniture, miscegenation.  Some of these are professional rather than social; you decide not to leave your card at their doors.  Others have assumed a significance somewhat un_gen_-like, though the relationship may be traced if you are not averse to trouble, Thus engine in its superficial aspects seems alien to the idea of born.  But it is the child of ingenious (innate, inborn); ingenious is the inborn power to accomplish, and engine is the result of the application of that power.  Whether you care to bother with such subtleties or not, enough gens are left to make the family one well worth your cultivation.

Thus by studying two words, conchology and eugenics, you have for the first time placed yourself on an intimate footing with three verbal families—­the ologies, the eu’s, and the gens.  Observe that though you studied the ologies apart from the eu’s and the gens, your knowledge—­once you have acquired it—­cannot be kept pigeonholed, for the ologies have intermarried with both the other families.  Hence you on meeting eulogy can exclaim:  “How do you do, Mr. Eu?  I am honored in making your acquaintance, Mrs. Eu—­I was about to call you by your maiden name; for I am a friend of your sister, the Miss Ology who married Mr. Conch.  And you too, Mr. Eu—­I cannot regard you as a stranger.  I have looked in so often on the family of your brother—­the Euphony family, I mean.  What a beautiful literary household it is!  Yet it has been neglected by the world-yea, even by the people who write.  Well, the loss is theirs who do the neglecting.”  And genealogy you can greet with an equal parade of family lore:  “Don’t trouble to tell me who you are.  I am hob and nob with your folks on both sides of the family, and my word for it, the relationship is written all over you.  Mr. Gen, I envy you the pride you must feel in the prominence given nowadays to the eugenics household.  And it must delight you, Miss Ology-that-was, that connoisseurs are so keenly interested in conchology.  How are Grandfather Gen and Grandmother Ology?  They were keeping up remarkably the last time I saw them.”  Do you think words will not respond to cordiality like this?  They will work their flattered heads off for you!