“By what then are the appetites restrained?”

…so pleads Herbert Beerbohm Tree as the High Priest petitioning virtue in False Gods, a cobwebby tragedy by Eugene Brieux set in the upper reaches of the Nile during the Middle Empire.

But this time-honored question of restraint is not one which genealogists of the family ‘Tree’ would recognize—certainly not if bound by moderation or bond of matrimony. For instance, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, priest though he portrayed, was appealing enough to be patriarch to three families across two continents, with a composite of ten children—seven of whom were illegitimate. Evidently he didn’t walk about dressed like an ancient Egyptian priest all the time.

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