Page:Bierce - Collected Works - Volume 09.djvu/57

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JOHN SMITH'S ANCESTORS
READER mine, wisest of mortals that you are, do you feel sure that you know how to deal with a proposition, which is at the same time unquestionable and impossible — which must be true, yet can not be true? Do you know just what degree of intellectual hospitality to give to such a proposition — whether to receive and entertain it (and if so how) or cast it from you, and how to do that? Possibly you were never consciously at bay before a proposition of that kind, and therefore lack the advantage of skill in its disposal. Attend, then, O child of mortality — consider and be wise:

You have, or have had, two parents — whom God prosper if they live and rest if dead. Each of them had two parents; in other words, you had at some time and somewhere four grandparents, and right worthy persons they were, I'll be sworn, albeit you may not be able to name them without stopping to take thought. Of great-grandparents you surely had no fewer than eight — that is to say,