Why?

Horowhenua Chronicle, 5 July 1910, Page 4

Why?

GMOAT MEN'S SONS SELDOM

GREAT

Why the sons of grefltmenso seldom inherit the geinins of thoiir fath<w.s is t>l io subject ol' a very thoughtful article in .Munscy's M.a gamine, by Harry Thrrston Pock. Pie admits, of course, that Ithere have l>eeii. occasional !y great sons o ; f ex! fa-Miei'S, but points out that the exceptions are not of sufficient ini--portniK-e to do more than prove what is apparently th<? rule. Do we not, he asks, "too easily forget tlmt great men's .sons have also mothers? And do we not at the siime time forget that, in the main, it is the mother who most contributes to the intellect and diameter of the son, while the fa.tli'or is more accurately reflected; in the daughter?

Tlie writer gives many remarkhie samples to prove his thesis, but re have iroom for only one, the most •enwrka'ble of all. Hα asks: How '-in wo account for tiho, career of Vbra'ha.m Lincoln, a man born into lie most aibjeot poverty, hred un-To-r the most depressing and dislearteniiur conditions, -and apparentv do owed by sheer force of oireuni?t^.iKH 2 f? to poipetunl obscvidty, ami iruf, w>v« -—'— w liir. i/l-ayr 'lpsido the ptately "Washington in die nap'thron of all time Lincoln's father was of the extreme '•v-po of "poor wfti.it es," thriftless, airorfint. inefficifMi.t—one who was lovf.r nblr , . unaided, to earn: evon «t DisrraiMo livii'rr. How came such l mnn to be the father of such . n ;on? Tn .answering this question, some have inmeiiltec! a, to :he effect frhnt Lincoln was mot tlie )fF«pring of liis pnta.tive father, but if a moinber of the Afarslball family >f Vii'giiaia, and that in conseqnonce ic had in h.is veins tlio blood of the rreat jurish who initenpretod tlie Constitution when the I?-t?piiiblic was ;t.ill young. There nover dias been ldd'ueed a scrap of evidence to smplort this story; and ,it is 'refutod >y the (net that in his .physical anleara.nce A'br.jili.ain LiiK'oln ilyore tdif -■Uvrnp of Thomas—'iii the coarse clack hair, tho ungainly limibs, and ;he abnormal stature. Tihe true wlutioii 'ivas 31V011 hy Lincoln himself in 1850 to hiis frioml: and bio?rtipliw, Mr W. H. Horndon. He ■aid that his mother was tho natu•al da lighter of an mi-known VirT.inr.an fylanter—a inaiii of wealith a-ind 2;ood position. "He argued"—so Eierndon states—"that from this? source on mo his power of analysis, iis loyjc, his mental and iis ambition." Tn a wortl, A'bralam Lincoln was his 'mother's son, jik] .froji her lie dreu- the qualities ivhiich wnde him what ho finailly benine. Here, then, is tiho answer to i quest ion- itihat is .often askod; and >y it \io may recionoile the aipparititlv conflicting views to which I ma do a reference at the beginn.iii'o nf this piper. Blood will tell, Anfestrv moans much. Yet great men's sciiis, nevertheless, are seldom ffreat;. for in the male descendants their characters are wven, not by tho fathers wiho begot them, but by mothers who bore them, either to tho lot of ordinary monthils or to a. ls<M-i'i!ge of imperishable fame.