Heredity

(Mary Casey is my name and with
my needle wrought, silk on linen
needlework sample, believed to be
from Newport, Rhode Island, circa
1763)

Our present is informed by many things, including our own past and the past of our family over many generations.

“A man’s Self is the sum total of all the he can call his,” wrote William James, “not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank account.” ~ from The Principles of Psychology

HEREDITY

I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.

The years-heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance — that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die.

~ Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), English novelist and poet