St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1888-07-28
BEING AN ANCESTOR.
The Least Satisfactory of All the Bless
ings Bestowed on Mankind.

ings Bestowed on Mankind.
OF all the benefits and blessings which
fame may be supposed to confer upon man
kind it is difficult to think of any thing
which brings to the honored individual
less satisfaction than the glory of being an
ancestor. Posthumorous honors must al
ways be regarded as barren an unprofita
BILE, but in the case of most of them there
is sone faint foretaste in anticipation
Whatever man has done, he has not only
the satisfaction Of actual achievement,
but he may enjoy the hope, more or less
tangible. that some time his merit may be
recognized and due credit be given to him
by posterity, although his contemporaries
deny his need Of praise In the case Of
descent, however, the men who appreciate
the fact that they are founding families
are so few as not to count in the argument;
while no PRECEDENCE yet vouchsafed to or
binary mortals can put an individual in
possession of the knowledge that century
or two after his grave is filed in he will
become famous as the great-great- great
grandfather OF poet, statesman or 9
hero. ~
And when one comes to think Of it, it is
doubtful if one deserves any especial credit
for being an ancestor. Even the principles
ing mans greatness or his virtues too ex-
chsively to his forbears, and, in any case,
the remoteness of an ancestor from the
glory Of his descendants makes it difficult
to regard him in any way out as Pigment
Of the brain. THERE'S a shadowy unreality
about the whole troop of progenitors which
renders them at best little more than mere
names; and indeed ancestors are mostly
fictitious beings, creations OF the brain
conveniently fashioned to suit the taste Of
whoever devises them, and then ticketed
with the misappropriated name OF some
defunct worthy, probably as unlike this
false image as possible.
There are plenty Of people whose only
exhibition Of imagination Ia in this direc-
ton, and their conjuring up of fictitious
forms is generally the most effective when
It is least conscious. The bygone person
ages whose names are applied as labels to
the fanciful Great ons of the ancestor
maker would doubtless have been suffi-
GENTLY astonished could they hare seen or
foreseen what thcir alleged presentiments
would be like. Indeed, it is to be feared
that they would have been keenly pricked
by unavailing remorse, because they in
reality fall so far short of this more thar
human perfection of these shadows, and
perhaps that is one of the compe.sations
to be set down as balancing the privation
Of getting no satisfaction In being an an
cestor. 1t is just as well, alter all, to
know nothing about it. Our descendants
will not know US, and, looked at i.a a large
sense, no human being is even really hon.
ored as an ancestor at all, but at most lends
his name to Pigment of the brain of some
later generation Boston Courier.
WE are born with faculties and powers
capable almost Of any thing-such at least
as would carry us further than can easily
be imagined; hut 1t is only the exercise OF
those powers which gives us ability and
skill in any thing, and leads US towards
ferfactinn Locke