The reason for my foolishness was analyzed. “Her mother is to blame.”
“It is her father,” says another. “Bad training,” says the third. I
don’t know what the fourth said, but I assure you that my parents
and their ancestors are not to be held responsible for me. There is
a conviction that abides with me that I did not inherit any foolish
notions. I think all of them are my very own. For my ancestry is
replete with scintillant examples of the wisdom of the various eras
through which man has progressed.
Tracing my pedigree back to the beginning of history, and even into
prehistoric times, I find that I descend from illustrious houses on
both sides. One of my progenitors was a great military chieftain.
His brother was a high priest of Baal, at that time one of the most
respectable of the gods. His son was a learned judge. He had a daughter
whose beauty was the envy of all heathendom. She is said to have had
red hair and green eyes, and perhaps my own auburn locks--but this is
scarcely germane to the subject in hand--and she was virtuous and holy.
She avoided doing anything that could be subjected to criticism. She
would not associate with men, because men in her day were abominably
wicked. She never broke her vow to refrain from marriage; and her son
was just as holy as she was. The military chief crucified a rebel, that
his son, the judge, had condemned, and the vast majority of the people
of the country voted him a medal. By the time the judge’s son had grown
to manhood the people, who were very changeful in those ancient times,
repented of the medal their fathers had bestowed on the sapient judge,
and the son contributed it to a fund that was being gathered for the
erection of a monument to the memory of him that had been crucified.
He also helped to support the priests who were now preaching that
the man who had been done to death in his father’s day and at his
father’s judgment was a prophet and a martyr. He demonstrated his good
citizenship by helping to stone to death another rebel, who in turn
also became the central figure in a religious system. And all the way
down through my lineage, my forebears have been crucifying rebels,
and building temples in their names after a generation or two. Thus
my forefathers have always protected the gods of their day against
innovations, and erected new gods when they discovered material for
deification in the victims of their righteous wrath. At any rate, they
were always right and respectable while they lived. Respectable people
are always right. To be respectable it is necessary to choose to be
right while we live, no matter how wrong our actions may be considered
after we are dead.
If we are to take our choice between being right while we live and
being right after our death, the respectable people will always choose
to be right while they live. To be right after you die you will have
to be disreputable sometimes while you live, and thereby suffer
inconvenience. So he chose to be right while he lived.
The same story repeats itself again and again. The son following the
opinion of the public as it changed, and praising the dead one his
father helped execute. And so on along the line up to the more recent
eras, the history of which is being taught in the public schools.
The children in our schools of to-day are taught to revere the names of
the rebels of the past, and to crucify the rebels of our own day. All
of which goes to show that no matter how far I delve into the past of
my ancestry, they never violated the canons of true respectability.
Mother still has a manuscript certificate to prove that she and all
her people were loyal subjects of King James of blessed memory--and
my father has a peck or more of medals that have come down to him as
testimonials of the favor which our house has ever enjoyed in the
eyes of royalty. This genealogy ought to admit me anywhere. So I
cannot understand why the nice little daughters will not play with me.
However, the sons are not so distant, and I am just fool enough not to
care so very much about the daughters after all.