Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1889-09-18
"TM LIKE MY EATHER."
The Foolishness of Persons Who Live Un-
der an Ancestral Shadow.

young"
/ The speaker was PLAYING the arrant fool
and / told him so, writes Harkley HarkeI
in the New York Weekly. He was a bit
ailing, had been for some months of color
l called on him in his sick-room and found
him much depressed. He had the notion
that he had inherited "a short-lived consti-
tution," whatever that may be. The life
insurance people had asked him, in their
curious catechism, whether he resembled
his father or his mother the more strongly,
and If either, which. This was revela-
tion TO him; he had never thought Of il be-
fore. He concluded that he resembled his
father, who had died at thirty years Of age.
Ny friend is already forty His ply
sician assured both his wife and me that
nothing gravely threatening was the mat
ter with him We found-his devoted wife
and THAT his father had died of fever
contracted on the Isthmus. But it is no use /;
the poor Ounce has the notion that he is to
fade away "like his father" OF course
this is nervous fatigue, nothing more nor
less; it Is incipient nervous prostration. But
the item Of heredity in the case presents a
common delusion.
People presume on longevity as well, be-
cause they "come Of a long Lived family"
Singularly, gentleman boasted this other
cAbICuIO W Wtch DtlOT6 ldSU. ne
was quite sure Of advanced age, "because
his father, grandfather, and away back ali
his ancestry were long-livers." And yet as
write, that very gentleman is dead.
am certain that both hope and fear are
inspired, without reason and against rea-
son, by the popular notion. 1t may be true
that longevity or short life is inherited; but
the trace is so feeble that in the battle of life
it Is not worth either expecting or dreading
IL you get such notion into your head it is
a fatuous demon. Your father, for in
stance, died at sixty years OF age. You
will dread the epoch. You will erect a
stone wall Of fatalism for yourself right
there. Unconsciously to yourself you will
continually be calculating upon it with ap-
prehension. You will not talk about It,
even to your wife, till you have approached
your ffty-eighth year; then, as you get
trifie worn, and perhaps sick, some day,
you will let out your fear. 1t will torture
your loved ones; it will battle your physi-
clans as they wonder what can all you, and
you are ashamed to tell them. 1t will actu-
ally cripple your nervous force, subtract
from your stock of vitality; and there is lit
tie doubt that the pure, unmixed foolish
ness may hasten your death. Your father
will have had nothing to do with your
death; but you may hasten your own death
by psychic depletion. There is far more
evidence that men do actually cause their
own premature death by apprehension
than that hereditary limit causes it.
To presume that you inherit the longevity
Of grandfather who lived to four-score is
even more absurd. 1t may not have been
vitality with the old gentleman at all. He
may have had no more powerful organism
than ordinary men. But quiet, unevent-
f,tl 10 ll,y f,a fu,o,.
strain, may have kept his heart throbblng
80 long. If you are hard pushed and over
doing; II you solace your alarm by refer
ring your guilty mind back to the shadowy
grandsire rather than taking wholesome
rest, the probabilities are that you will
snap your handspring before you know it,
The theory will make one more victim, and
you are the man. Theory is one thing, but
facts are better. Quite likely your grand
motner VIII tell you that you look and act
older at forty-five than her husband did at
sixty. You live in more exciting and ex-
acting age You are city man; he was a
country man. You like fancy dishes; he
homely food. You sleep mornings; he
nights You are fretted by money, as by
politics; he was fretted by nothing worse
than an unruly OK or a shower on his new
mown hay. You are housed in a shop, or
factory, or office, with the devitalized air of
modern furnace heat; he, this noble octo-
genarian, lived among mountains, or
breathed the breath of the wide, wide sea-
DO not presume on the venerable fellows |
that went before you; there is a temptation |
and a snare IN 1t every time.
Every man must sail his own ship. In |
the name Of the kind Creator, do not think |
you are gong to cough your life away be- |
cause consumption is hereditary in our |
family" Facts show that the decided major
ity of victims OF this terrible malady are the |
original cases; no taint can be discovered |
In ancestry. Think OF it, The majority Of |
reassert, are the first cases
in the family. / have it on good au.
thority in pulmonary malades that de-
cidedly the vast majority of the offspring of
finally die of other diseases.
1t Is not to be denied that there is law OF
heredty in disease. But the children pre-
disposed toconsumption, for instance, being
are forearmed TO caution; TAX
ing excellent care of themselves they out
last their more thoughtless neighbors
Probably over eighty per cent of the insane
are original cases; that is, IN neither branch
of the family, within three generations, can
be found an insane ancestor. will not at
.empt figures, but medical authority tells us
hat disease of the heart, the liver, the kid
iey Is almost always original.
Reader, live under no ancestral shadow.
Live In your own sunshine. A merciful
creator has given us each our day. The
lead can neither hinder nor help us much.
We have our chance, Each life is unique
n its own Individual beauty or deformity.
I Is my fathers good example, which, ad-
hiring, l purposely copy, which benefits
ne. IL is the heritage OF his worthy name
hat helps me, more than blood or gold. 1t
3 the subtle copying of his virtues or vices
hat no doubt is a powerful impulse. To be
Ike my father In character is quise possible;
nut even this must seek after with reso-
ate purpose, The bugbear OF hereditary
rief life Is too shocking, isa cruel fetish Of
that would be glad 10 drive
ut OF the home OF many a sufferer There
}, however, this curious discovery that l
ave made; Many people seem to actually
egard such respect for their hereditary ,
onts in the nature OF tilial piety They
link It sacreligious 10 die of any but an in I
credited malady. They insist ON IT,
Fine a Coll~ction of pearlx I