Time Enough for Love
But what sort of man is he? You must judge for yourself. In condensing this memoir to manageable length I
have omitted many verified historical incidents (the raw data are available to scholars at the Archives) — but I
have left in lies and unlikely stories on the assumption that the lies a man tells tell more truth about him — when
analyzed — than does “truth.”
It is clear that this man is, by standards usual in civilized societies, a barbarian and a rogue.
But it is not for children to judge their parents. The qualities that make him what he is are precisely those
needed to stay alive in a jungle — or on a raw frontier. Do not forget your debt to him both genetic and historic.
To understand our historic debt to him it is necessary to review some ancient history — part tradition or myth,
and part fact as firmly established as the assassination of Julius Caesar. The Howard Families Foundation was
established by the will of Ira Howard, who died in 1873. His will instructed the trustees of the foundation to use
his money to “prolong human life.” This is fact.
Tradition says that he willed this in anger at his own fate, for he found himself dying of old age in his forties
— dead at forty-eight, a bachelor without progeny. So none of us carries his genes; his immortality lies only in a
name, and in an idea — that death could be thwarted.
