Letters io 
 My Son 

 
 II I 
 
 T 
 
 /OO
 
 Letters to My Son
 
 Letters 
 
 to 
 
 My Son 
 
 Houghton Mifflin 
 Company : Boston 
 and New York. 1910
 
 COPYRIGHT, IpIO, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published May iqio
 
 Preface 
 
 LITTLE son, these letters are for you, so 
 that if I should not live to see you grow 
 up, if I should have to leave you before ever 
 your eyes could look at me, or your voice cry 
 to me, you should know how much I had 
 loved you and longed for you, and you would 
 be able to come to them for the comfort I 
 would have given to you if I had lived. 
 
 And you will come to them, won't you, just 
 as you would to me ? And they shall comfort 
 you as I would comfort you if I were really 
 there for indeed I shall always be * really 
 there,' my blessing, even though you may not 
 be able to see me. When you 're a baby, and 
 v 
 
 2082698
 
 Preface 
 
 a boy, and a man; when you're good, and 
 when you're bad; when you're victorious, 
 and when you're defeated, I shall be near 
 you, grieving for you in your sorrow, laughing 
 with you in your joy, teaching you to know 
 your mistakes and helping you to overcome 
 them. You won't be your mother's own son 
 unless you make a good many, and she will 
 be so sorry for the birthday present she has 
 given you, that if she did n't love you with 
 every breath of her body, common decency 
 would make her that she would have to share 
 that burden. 
 
 There will be times, both as a child and as 
 a man, when it will seem as if an end has 
 come to everything, and there is not one per- 
 son on earth who can help. It will not be 
 true, for while life and reason last the end 
 does not come. But when it happens, laddie, 
 come away to me and we will talk it out to- 
 gether. We will be foolish together and wise 
 vi
 
 Preface 
 
 together and at last strong together, because 
 when I was in the world it seemed as if there 
 were no furnace that I did not tread, and even 
 though it blistered and seared, yet it taught 
 me to know all the pain and all the joy 
 that the earth holds. 
 
 And remember that whatever I tell you 
 will not be ' preaching.' I only speak as a man 
 would if he were to say, 'Friend, the road is 
 rough; take my staff and let it help you.' I 
 would help you when you were perplexed or 
 sorrowful, but I know that I cannot live your 
 life for you and I do not want to. I want you 
 to make your own and to make it well. But 
 which ever way you make it I am waiting for 
 you just the same ; never forget that. 
 
 Oh, little thing, if your mammy has to 
 leave you and by any chance gets to Heaven, 
 they won't want her there very long ! She '11 
 always be leaning out of a top-storey window, 
 trying to catch sight of her baby as he goes 
 vii
 
 Preface 
 
 out for his walk, or else forgetting to do her 
 singing while she worries about his gaiters 
 being long enough, or his vests warm enough. 
 Heaven and earth will have changed places 
 then and I shall be on the wrong side. 
 
 But I shall have had you all the beautiful 
 time you were coming. 
 
 God bless you, little precious.
 
 Contents 
 
 I. ON A DISCOVERY i 
 
 II. ON SHOPPING FOR A VERY 
 
 YOUNG MAN 17 
 
 III. ON DAY-DREAMS AND CRICKET 25 
 
 IV. ON LOVE AND A MISUNDER- 
 
 STANDING 43 
 
 V. ON FATHERS AND MOTHERS 83 
 
 VI. ON ANGER 101 
 
 VII. ON RELIGION in 
 
 VIII. ON RESPECTING THE BODY 129 
 
 IX. ON A HAIR-BRUSH 141 
 
 X. ON FEAR 149 
 
 XI. ON LIVING HEARTILY 161 
 
 XII. THE LAST 173
 
 I 
 
 On a Discovery
 
 I 
 
 On a Discovery 
 
 IT was not for some time that I could make 
 up my mind to tell Oliver that is your 
 father, little son about your coming. After 
 seven years it seemed too good to be true, and 
 if it were not true I would not have him dis- 
 appointed ; for, although he never said much, 
 I knew he wanted you very badly. 
 
 When he said, one morning at breakfast, 
 'I am going to drive over to Hopwood's 
 Farm this morning/ I said, 'Well, you can 
 drop me at the station on the way'; and I 
 came up to town and saw the doctor. 
 
 It was as I had thought, but to know it to 
 be true took all my strength away. I wanted 
 3
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 no one just then but Nanny, the old Nanny 
 who had washed and dressed and scolded and 
 kissed me ever since I was a little scrap of a 
 wriggling squealing baby just like you, 
 my precious, and by the time you can read 
 this she will have done the same to you many 
 times, I know; so I got into a dingy old 
 four-wheeler, because it seemed safer, and 
 was trundled round to Clarges Street, where 
 Nanny and Miles Mr. Nanny, I used to 
 call him have their house. 
 
 Nanny opened the door to me herself. 
 Miles was busy attending upon the second 
 floor, she explained. Then she led the way 
 into the sitting-room. 
 
 'Come in here/ she said. 'These are your 
 own rooms by rights, even though some one 
 else has got them now; but he's away.' She 
 shut the door and came towards me. ' Ye 're 
 looking tired, my bairn. What is it ? ' 
 
 I put my hands on her shoulders, and 
 4
 
 On a Discovery 
 
 looked into her kind old anxious face. 
 
 'Nanny, dear,' I said, trembling all over, 
 ' I 'm going to have a baby. It 's quite true. 
 The doctor says so ! ' Then I broke down ; 
 it was all so strange and unbelievable ; and 
 Nanny's breast was there for me to cry upon ; 
 and I was tired. 
 
 We never quite get over being babies, no 
 matter how old we grow; you'll find that, 
 mannikin. Nanny's arms were round me and 
 her voice was mumbling tendernesses as she 
 put me on the sofa and took off my hat. 
 
 'There, there! Nanny '11 find the pins. 
 Don't you bother, my precious.' She 
 plumped up the cushions. ' Now lie back and 
 rest : that 's better. To think of it ! My bairn, 
 that I 've nursed and smacked, with a bairn 
 of her own at last ! What a limb he '11 be, too ! 
 I 'm thinking ye '11 have to hand him over to 
 me right away, or else there '11 be no doing 
 anything with him. Just a moment now/ 
 
 5
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 She went out of the room and came back with 
 a cup of tea. 'Drink this, dearie; it'll keep 
 you going till you get some lunch. And Mr. 
 Nanny shall do you some cutlets his very 
 own self. You don't forget Mr. Nanny's cut- 
 lets, do you ? ' She pulled down the blind, 
 and covered me over; then, when she had 
 petted and coaxed and fussed, she said, 
 'Now sleep, till I come to you again.' 
 
 'Nanny,' I said, holding on to her hand 
 hard, 'you will have your lunch with me ? ' 
 
 'Of course I will, dearie, if you wish it; 
 though what Miles will say to me eating his 
 best cutlets in the best parlour, and him by 
 hisself out in the kitchen I don't know.' She 
 laughed at her joke, but her eyes were glis- 
 tening. Then she bent over me and kissed 
 me. 'Ye '11 have a good rest, won't ye? For 
 the bairnie's sake/ she whispered. 
 
 My son, you will never forget to be good to 
 Nanny, will you ? 
 
 6
 
 On a Discovery 
 
 When I got home again it was half-past 
 three, and Oliver had gone out for a ride. I 
 told the maid to tell him when he came in 
 that I had gone up to rest, and would come 
 to the drawing-room for tea. But there was 
 no rest for me. After I had chosen the gown 
 that I knew he liked me in best, I went to my 
 own little room to lie down. That room was 
 just papered with pictures of your father, my 
 precious, and I lay awake looking from one to 
 the other, till at last I had to get up and visit 
 them all in turn, from the fat one in the shell, 
 that always makes him wild when he sees it, 
 to the one in the leather frame on the mantel- 
 piece, the one he had taken for me the day 
 before we were married. 
 
 There was a funny little blur of an Oliver 
 in a long embroidered robe and shoulder- 
 knots ; a cross little Oliver in a full frock and 
 a top-knot; a jaunty little Oliver in a velvet 
 suit and pearl buttons, with his legs carefully 
 7
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 crossed and his head thrown back; a solemn 
 little Oliver in an Eton collar; a fine young 
 swaggering Oliver, with a pencil-mark of 
 down on his lip, sitting astride the horse he 
 had brought in a length ahead of the others 
 at a country race-meeting; and the steady- 
 eyed straight-browed Oliver who is the man 
 of to-day. The one in the shell I call the little 
 bath Oliver, beloved, because he has n't a 
 stitch on. Don't you ever, if I am not there to 
 protect you, let any one take you in a shell, no 
 matter bow beautiful your legs are! It's a 
 shabby trick to play on a man when he 's not 
 able to choose for himself. Just you yell and 
 slip and slither till they lose patience and 
 have to dress you like a Christian, or at least 
 like a Christianised heathen. Insist, at any 
 rate, that there shall be a wisp of something 
 behind which you can shelter from a jeering 
 and a heartless posterity. 
 
 I found the shell portrait one day when I 
 8
 
 On a Discovery 
 
 was turning out a drawer in an old desk. On 
 
 the back was written, 'Oliver John T , 
 
 aged one month ; weight, thirteen pounds/ 
 
 'Oh!* I said, 'you improper person! 
 Come and look at this/ 
 
 He was reading the paper by the fire. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' he said, in a preoccupied sort 
 of voice ; then he looked up and caught sight 
 of the picture. 
 
 'That beastly thing cropped up again ! ' he 
 said (quite crossly for him, because he is n't 
 at all a cross person really as you will have 
 found out by this, for yourself, honey). 'I 
 thought I 'd torn them all up/ He held out 
 his hand for it. 
 
 I looked at it hard for a while. 
 
 'Give it to me, Madge/ He still held out 
 his hand. 
 
 But I shook my head. 'No,' I said, stuffing 
 it into the front of my blouse ; ' I have another 
 use for it/ 
 
 9
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 'You 're not to go showing it round at your 
 tea-parties/ he said in a panic. 
 
 'You can trust me to do nothing that is un- 
 scrupulous,' I said mysteriously; and he 
 laughed and went back to his paper. 
 
 A week or two later I said, one day after 
 lunch : 
 
 'I invite you to tea in my boudoir this 
 afternoon.* 
 
 He made a bow. 'It will give me very 
 much pleasure/ he said formally; then he 
 looked at me out of the tail of his eye. 'I 
 wonder what you are up to now/ 
 
 I said nothing. That afternoon, when we 
 had finished our tea, and he was hunting 
 about on the mantelpiece for matches to 
 light his cigarette with, he stopped suddenly. 
 
 ' Hullo, what 's that ? ' he said, pointing to 
 the wall. 
 
 'That/ I said, 'is what I invited you up to 
 see. It is arranged on the principle of the old 
 10
 
 On a Discovery 
 
 masterpieces in the continental cathedrals. 
 Here you have a small brown frame; inside 
 the frame is a curtain hung from a minute 
 steel rod in reality a knitting-needle. 
 There is a cord attached to the curtain, and 
 secured at the side upon this hook. I detach 
 the cord from the hook, draw the curtain 
 aside, and the masterpiece is exposed to view 
 so/ Oliver stared mutely at the hated 
 photograph, under which were written the 
 words, 'My Husband/ 'Then I pull the 
 other end of the cord, and the picture is cov- 
 ered up again till the next party of tourists 
 have paid their francs to see it. Neat, is it 
 not?' 
 
 'Oh, you little stupid! ' he said, w!.cn at 
 last he had got his breath. 'Who rigged it up 
 for you ? ' 
 
 'Old Jonas' He is the carpenter, be- 
 loved ' did all the mechanical part, and I 
 put the finishing touches, which were the 
 ii
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 picture and the curtain. I explained exactly 
 what I wanted and he carried it out, well, 
 I think/ 
 
 He put his arm round my shoulders and 
 stared at the frame, his mouth twitching. 
 
 'And what are you going to do with it, now 
 you Ve got it ? ' 
 
 'Nothing; believe me, nothing/ I said 
 earnestly. 'I only wanted to complete the 
 collection, and as you seemed sensitive about 
 it, I did it in a way least calculated to give 
 you pain. You trust me, don't you ? ' 
 
 'Ab-so-/ttte-ly,' he said, kissing me a lot of 
 times. 'You're a miserable little humbug/ 
 
 And that 's the story of your father in the 
 shell, my son. 
 
 After I had gone round all the photographs, 
 I drew a chair up to the fire and sat listening 
 for the sound of his horse's hoofs. Then it 
 came to me that this was where I would like 
 to tell him: in this little room that had all 
 12
 
 On a Discovery 
 
 sorts of sweet memories stored up in it. I 
 rang the bell. 
 
 'Tell the master I am here, when he comes 
 in, Ellen, and we will have tea here instead 
 of in the drawing-room.' 
 
 She went away. Presently I heard him 
 ride into the yard. Ellen met him on the 
 stairs. 
 
 'The mistress is in her own room, sir,' I 
 heard her say. 
 
 'All right, thank you. I '11 have my bath 
 first. Just turn on the water for me, will 
 you?' 
 
 He went off to his dressing-room and in a 
 little while he was singing in his bath. Is n't 
 it odd, sonny, how all people, always, 
 whether they make a beautiful noise or an 
 ordinary noise or a hideous noise, sing in 
 their bath ? It just seems as if they 'd got to. 
 Ever since baths with taps began, they've 
 done it; and as long as the world with
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 taps lasts, they '11 go on doing it. I 'm 
 sure you make an awful noise in your bath, 
 now don't you ? 
 
 And soon my heart jumped, for I heard 
 him coming along the passage. There was a 
 knock on the door and then it opened. 
 
 * Madge, are you here ? ' 
 
 He came into the room. I got up and went 
 towards him. He put his arms round me and 
 kissed me. 
 
 * I have n't seen you since breakfast. What 
 have you been doing with yourself in town ?' 
 
 Ellen came in with the tray. He went and 
 sat in the easy-chair by the fire and pulled 
 Trixie's ears as she lay at his feet: she is 
 never far away from either his or his horse's 
 heels. 
 
 *I had lunch with old Nanny,' I said, 
 watching Ellen light the spirit-lamp under 
 the kettle. 
 
 'Oh! How is she?'
 
 On a Discovery 
 
 'Very well/ 
 
 Ellen went out and closed the door behind 
 her. 
 
 * Oliver, I went up to see the doctor/ I said 
 quickly. 
 
 He turned round sharply in his chair. 
 'There 's nothing wrong, surely ! Why did n't 
 you tell me ? What is it ? ' 
 
 'No, there is nothing wrong. I went to see 
 him to make sure of something before I told 
 you. I did n't want you to be disappointed/ 
 
 He sprang up out of his chair. 
 
 'It is not-?' 
 
 I nodded quickly. 'Yes; he said I was 
 right; it is true/ 
 
 He stood quite still, his arms down by his 
 sides. 
 
 'O Margie!' he said at last. 
 
 And the tea was like ink when we came 
 to drink it. 
 
 My little son, if you could have seen your 
 '5
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 father's face and heard his voice as he said, 
 'O Margie!' you would never hesitate to go 
 to him with all your troubles, great and 
 small.
 
 II 
 
 On Shopping for a 
 Very Young Man
 
 II 
 
 On Shopping for a 
 Very Young Man 
 
 SUCH a day I've had to-day, babykin; 
 spending money all the time ! Indeed, if 
 you're not the handsomest man-child that 
 ever lay in a bassinette it won't be the fault 
 of Nanny and me, for we 've set all the peo- 
 ple working to weave you clothes that will 
 make the fairies feel that they must put up 
 their shutters at once and take to road-mend- 
 ing. 
 
 Oliver drove me to the station and put me 
 into the train, and Nanny met me at Padding- 
 ton with a brougham and Jenks on the box. 
 Jenks used to drive for an uncle a long time 
 ago, when I was a little girl; now he has re- 
 19
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 tired from service and bought a carriage of 
 his own, and he hires it out. 
 
 First we went and chose your cot and your 
 basket: they're just the whitest, softest 
 things that ever grew in a shop; and do you 
 know, honey, the cot has got ribbon-bows on 
 its ankles! It's too sillyanlovely ! 
 
 That kept us busy till lunch, when Nanny 
 and I and Jenks and the horse had a rest for a 
 while, and after that we all started out again. 
 I wonder if you '11 ever have to shop for a 
 baby ? I don't mind telling you you '11 have 
 to have a very firm equilibrium, not to lose it, 
 if you do. I '11 just make a list for you now of 
 a few of the things necessary to keep a little 
 crumpled thing, that might n't weigh much 
 more than half-a-dozen pounds, happy and 
 warm. There are woven swathes and flannel 
 swathes and night-flannels and day-flannels 
 and night-gowns and day-gowns and long 
 slips and embroidered robes and head- 
 so
 
 Shopping for a Young Man 
 
 squares and flannel squares and bibs and 
 shoes and I won't tell you any more things 
 because I 'm tired of writing them. 
 
 I would n't let them send the things from 
 the shops because I wanted to look at them 
 again before I went to bed ; so Nanny stacked 
 them on the seat beside me and I took them 
 down in the train. When the porter had put 
 them into the cart and we were driving 
 home, Oliver said : 
 
 'You seem to have brought the best part 
 of London down with you/ 
 
 I said, 'Oh, no; I've only brought a few 
 things; most of them are being made to order, 
 and I am going to make the others myself. 
 These are just some for patterns.' 
 
 'Good heavens, Margie! we'll have to 
 move into the Town Hall if that's the truth.' 
 
 Belovedest, I '11 tell you a secret. When he 
 lifted me out of the cart, he kissed me. No 
 one saw. There was Jackson at the pony's 
 21
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 head, and Ellen at the door, and he stole it 
 under their very noses. There was just one 
 second when my face brushed his, and in that 
 second he did it. Some day, my son, when 
 you have a woman of your own, she '11 tell 
 you, if she 's a real one and speaks the truth, 
 that it is these little unexpected things that 
 turn an ordinary world into a paradise. 
 
 After dinner that night we went to my 
 room and undid the parcels; and I made 
 Oliver guess what some of the most puzzling 
 things were. It was lovely to see him turning 
 a binder slowly round in his hands, his eyes 
 going from it to me and back again to it, 
 helplessly. 
 
 * Those are his corsets,' I said. 
 
 'Corsets!' he repeated bewilderedly. 
 
 'Yes; you don't know that all the very 
 newest things, boys and girls both, have to 
 wear corsets till their little insides have 
 learned their proper place ? ' 
 
 22
 
 Shopping for a Young Man 
 
 ' I 'm sure / did n't,' he said, putting it 
 down and taking up a wisp of white stuff. 
 'And what do you call this ? It looks like a 
 doll's handkerchief with holes in it.' 
 
 * I 'm sure you did, or you would n't be 
 such a nice shape now,' I said. 'That is 
 a shirt.' 
 
 He put two fingers through the arm-holes 
 and looked at it wonderingly. Such a scrap of 
 a thing it was, beloved, with its tiny little 
 lace-edged armholes and its ridiculous little 
 flaps. I watched Oliver. 
 
 'Surely nothing ever born could be small 
 enough to go inside that?' he said in an 
 awe-struck voice. Then a great tenderness 
 seemed to come into his face and he looked 
 up at me. 
 
 'The little thing!' he said slowly; and he 
 held out his arms to me. I felt a laugh and a 
 sob break in my throat, and I ran to him. 
 Oh, honey! 
 
 23
 
 Ill 
 
 On Day-Dreams 
 and Cricket
 
 Ill 
 
 On Day-Dreams 
 and Cricket 
 
 I'VE begun my sewing for you and I keep 
 it in two baskets. Into the one I put all 
 the pernickety things, like the shirts and the 
 tops for the robes and the night-gowns. You 
 see, they take a lot of thinking out and plan- 
 ning and arranging ; and to do them well you 
 have to give the whole of your attention to 
 them. There are sleeves no bigger than a 
 good-sized finger-stall, and shoulder-seams 
 quite an inch and a half deep, and neck- 
 places that look like wrist-holes, and wrist- 
 holes that look like nothing. Then, when the 
 bodies have had the sleeves set into them, 
 and the sleeves have had the bands put on to 
 27
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 them, and the bands have had the lace 
 whipped round them, you 've got to turn the 
 whole thing on its face and make the loops for 
 the buttons ! It 's no light matter, I can tell 
 you, beloved, because you have to sew it all 
 with stitches no bigger than a fairy's first 
 tooth ; and you '11 know better than I can tell 
 you what that means ! 
 
 But into the other basket I put all the 
 things with the long seams, and all the time I 
 am sewing I am thinking of you and of what 
 it will be like when you come. 
 
 There have been some fine spring days 
 lately, and whenever the sun is shining Ellen 
 carries a chair and the basket with the long 
 seams out to the little grass-plot, where the 
 apple trees grow ; and I sit and sew and dream 
 the whole of the lovely warm morning 
 through. 
 
 I don't think there could be a lovelier spot 
 than this in the world. This morning, as I 
 28
 
 Day -Dreams and Cricket 
 
 sat sewing, a little breeze was ruffling the 
 stream that runs by the garden, and a great 
 white butterfly was making love to a purple 
 iris growing down by the rushes. On the 
 other side of the stream the meadows were 
 gold with buttercups. And every now and 
 then, honey, the breeze would climb up into 
 the apple tree overhead and whisper some- 
 thing to the blossom, and down would come 
 a soft little fluttering petal as pink as the sole 
 of your foot will be. I heard what the breeze 
 said, although it never knew I did. It thought 
 it was being very cute and quiet, but it wasn't 
 as cute as I was. I listened for it every time, 
 and every time it went by it gave a nudge to 
 the old tree and said, 'Blow him a kiss; go 
 on, blow him a kiss ' ; and down would come 
 the petals, and ofF would go the breeze, very 
 satisfied with himself. He was a hearty little 
 breeze, beloved, and I liked him extra well 
 because he seemed so fond of you. 
 29
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 And as I sit sewing, all your life opens out 
 before me. I see you a little tender help- 
 less thing, lying close in the hollow of my 
 arm; I see you hoisted on your father's 
 shoulder, shouting and beating the top of his 
 head, your little legs twisted round his neck 
 for safety, your limbs as lusty as your lungs. 
 And I sit and watch the two of you come up 
 from the meadows towards me, scarcely dar- 
 ing to believe that such joy could at last be 
 my own. 
 
 This morning I was basting a long seam, 
 and before I had done three inches of it you 
 were ten years old and going to bat in your 
 first school match. All the mothers and the 
 fathers were going and it was to be a great 
 day. Do you know, beloved, I could n't 
 make up my mind which frock to put on ! I 
 had them all out on the bed and as fast as I 
 chose one and got it half on it had to come 
 off again. At last I put on a white linen and 
 30
 
 Day-Dreams and Cricket 
 
 a big hat with roses. No one can make a 
 mistake with white, and when you were a 
 baby you were very fond of roses. 
 
 Oliver and I drove over in time to get 
 good seats in the little stand. You had gone 
 directly after breakfast; you were a per- 
 son that day and had to be on the ground 
 early, so we did n't see you till you came into 
 the field. Your side had lost the toss: that 
 meant we were not going to see you cover 
 yourself with glory for quite a long time. 
 I 'm sure all the boys who went in to bat did 
 it very nicely, but I forgot to look at their 
 scores very often, beloved, because all the 
 time I was watching a little alert body quiver- 
 ing in the slips, or a pair of flannelled legs 
 twinkling over to the boundary. And once, 
 when you caught a man out, I nearly jumped 
 up and clapped my hands; but I knew men 
 did n't like their womenkind to make a fuss, 
 so I kept quite still and said nothing. 
 3 1
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 Then the other side went out and yours 
 came in. You were fourth man in and it 
 was n't long before you came stalking out to 
 the wickets, bat in hand, head thrown back, 
 just as your father walks. I sat up straight 
 and clasped my hands in my lap. The first 
 three wickets had fallen easily. But that 
 would soon be altered. You were going to 
 show the bowlers that they could take no such 
 liberties with you ; you were going to ' punish ' 
 them, were n't you, my son ? 
 
 The bowler took a run and swung his arm, 
 the ball flew through the air, and your 
 mammy looked to the boundary. 
 
 There was a storm of applause, a groan 
 from a boy beside me, and a lull. I looked 
 back to the pitch. 
 
 Oh, beloved, you were n't running at all ! 
 The middle stump was lying flat, the bails 
 were on the ground, and you were walking 
 off the field with your head held higher than
 
 Day -Dreams and Cricket 
 
 ever. And you went through the gate as if 
 you did n't see anything that was before you. 
 Nobody knew better than I did what you 
 would have given to be able to cry. And it 
 would n't have been cry-babyishness, either. 
 You knew every one was looking to you and 
 you felt quite able to do what was expected 
 of you. Then, when that awful unexpected 
 thing happened, it would be the sudden 
 shock of it that would upset you ; it 's hap- 
 pened to me in other ways, too, honey, and / 
 knew why your head was so terribly high as 
 you walked away, and why your smile was 
 so wide when you passed a master on the 
 pavilion steps, who said, ' Never mind, young 
 
 T ; better luck next time/ / knew why 
 
 you went blindly into the first empty bath- 
 room and shut the door and turned on the tap. 
 A fellow could n't cry because he was bowled 
 for a duck, so he walked like a mace-bearer 
 and smiled like a sick Columbine. But he 
 33
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 could n't have kept it up for longer than just 
 to get through the crowd; and he rushed to 
 hide somewhere till he could pull himself to- 
 gether; and he turned on the tap because he 
 had to do something, and because the sound 
 of the water splashing would keep any one 
 from hearing the noises that were happening 
 inside his throat. 
 
 Do you know, as I imagined it all, a 
 lump came into my throat, and the tears 
 dropped on to the work I was doing. I saw 
 your father sitting up straight beside me, and 
 although the only thing he said was, 'He 
 came out to it too soon,' I knew he was mind- 
 ing very badly for you. 
 
 Oh, I could n't leave it there ! I made it a 
 two-innings match, and when play ceased for 
 lunch I made it rain and rain and rain till the 
 wicket was like a sponge. Then, just as they 
 were wondering if they would have to aban- 
 don the match, the sun came out, and the 
 34
 
 Day-Dreams and Cricket 
 
 clouds disappeared, and everything was 
 blazing summer again. 
 
 But the rain had spoiled the wicket. I 
 meant it to. The other side had put up a big 
 score for yours to beat. Their men were going 
 down like ninepins at the last, but they could 
 afford to lose their tail, with such a comfort- 
 able balance as they had to their credit. 
 
 Then your side came in. Poor lambs ! they 
 could scarcely keep their feet standing, and 
 when it came to run-getting, they were slip- 
 ping about like a lot of old gentlemen on an 
 ice-slide. 
 
 They made a brave attempt, but they went 
 down one by one, till at last there were only 
 three wickets to fall and twenty-one runs to 
 get. 
 
 I know in an ordinary way that does n't 
 
 sound a very big score to wipe out, but you '11 
 
 understand that on this pitch it was a terrible 
 
 task. Nobody ever thought they would do 
 
 35
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 it, and the other side was beginning to get 
 very cocky and our side was growing very 
 quiet, when another wicket fell and you 
 went in. 
 
 As you took your place at the wicket, a 
 sandy-haired, freckled scrap of a boy next 
 
 me shouted out, 'Go it, young T !' and 
 
 I saw you square your little shoulders and 
 shake your head as if you were tossing the 
 hair out of your eyes; and then you began. 
 
 O beloved ! I did n't dare look at you. I 
 just went on staring into my lap, waiting 
 every minute for your stumps to go down. 
 But as neither your father on the left of me, 
 nor the sandy boy on the right, nor the boy 
 for the other side, who was sitting behind me, 
 said anything, I looked up at last to see what 
 was going on. 
 
 'He's getting set/ said the sandy boy 
 critically. 
 
 'Getting set!' said the boy behind, con- 
 
 36
 
 Day-Dreams and Cricket 
 
 temptuously. 'Who '11 get set on a wicket like 
 that?' 
 
 'Young T will,' said the sandy boy, 
 
 sharp as a pistol-shot, turning round to face 
 him. Then he turned quickly again to the 
 game. I did n't kiss him, beloved, but it 
 was n't his fault. 
 
 ' He 's playing the right game,' said Oliver, 
 after a while. ' There 's plenty of time, and 
 he 's not taking any risks.' 
 
 You went on sending the ball back quietly, 
 but nothing happened. I suppose it was dull 
 for the other side, but nothing was dull for 
 me as long as you kept in. It 's just the point 
 of view, as you '11 find directly you have one. 
 
 ' Oh, hurry up ! ' said the boy at the back. 
 'What are you wasting time for ? ' 
 
 'Wasting time ? ' said the sandy boy, screw- 
 ing round again and grinning ecstatically. 
 ' He is n't wasting time ; he 's tiring the bowl- 
 ing!' 
 
 37
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 There was a yell from the losing side, and 
 the boy beside me shot into the air. 
 
 'Well played, my son! ' said Oliver. 
 
 Honey, you 'd hit a fourer so truly, that 
 half-way down the pitch you knew you 
 need n't run for it, and you just walked 
 slowly back to your crease like a gentleman 
 with plenty of time to catch his train. And 
 the margin narrowed in to seventeen, and the 
 sandy boy contented himself with saying, 
 'See ?' very tenderly to the boy at the back, 
 and every one settled down to watch. 
 
 You went on getting some ones and twos 
 very safely until you had left ten to win ; then 
 you hit one that looked like a boundary, but 
 you had to run it. You had run three and 
 were going for a fourth, when some one 
 yelled, ' Come back ! ' But it was too late to 
 turn back, so you went on as hard as you 
 could. Oh, you could n't do it ! The ball 
 had already been thrown from close in, and
 
 Day -Dreams and Cricket 
 
 you were only half-way up the pitch. It 
 rolled in. If only you had n't 
 
 ' Missed, by Jove ! ' said Oliver. 
 
 ' Missed, you fool ! ' shouted the boy at the 
 back. 
 
 'Missed, you beauty!' yelled the sandy 
 boy dancing like a dervish. 
 
 But quick as a flash the wicket-keeper had 
 picked up the ball and knocked off the 
 bails. 
 
 * How's that?' roared the crowd. 
 
 'Out!' said the boy at the back, and the 
 sandy boy and Oliver seemed as if they had 
 forgotten to breathe. 
 
 And you, sonny ? My heart gave a jump, 
 and then seemed as if it had stopped beating. 
 You were stretched motionless on the ground, 
 your bat flung out in front of you. Were you 
 hurt ? 
 
 The umpire ran forward and peered, not 
 at you but at the bat. 
 39
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 ' Not out ! * came a thin voice from the field ; 
 and ' Not out ! ' screamed a hundred boys as 
 their hats flew up into the air. 
 
 And you were n't hurt, beloved : you were 
 a great general that day; you were taking 
 your only chance, and it won. You had real- 
 ised that perhaps the bat and you together 
 spread flat on the ground would be just tall 
 enough to reach the crease and leave an inch 
 inside; and when it was given, you were up 
 on your feet, and back at your post like wink- 
 ing, to try for the half-dozen that lay between 
 your side and the game. 
 
 Oliver forgot he was your father and 
 yelled and shouted like the rest of them ; the 
 sandy boy turned round and shook the back 
 of the bench we were sitting on with his 
 hands, just as a puppy tears a rag to pieces 
 with his teeth, and the masters called out, 
 
 * Well done, young T ! ' and even the boy 
 
 at the back clapped and said, 'Good play, 
 40
 
 Day -Dreams and Cricket 
 
 little un!' And you were mine, honey; you 
 were mine! 
 
 Then came the rubbing out of those six. 
 No glory games and fireworks while one of 
 them stood against you. The match was not 
 won till the last run was got, and every run 
 tried for on that pitch was a life. So the other 
 two wickets who were really bowlers and 
 did n't expect to do more than keep their end 
 up just stone-walled while you slowly piled 
 them up one by one. 
 
 And as you carried out your bat, I saw you 
 look up with your dear eyes all shining into 
 the grand stand, and I knew you were search- 
 ing for me. I 'd have known it, honey, even if 
 you had n't told me afterwards. My head 
 was up nearly as high as yours was after you 
 had made your duck, and I should n't be 
 surprised if it were from the same cause, ex- 
 cept that mine, if they had come, would have 
 been happy ones, and I felt myself saying
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 inside, very hoighty-toightily, 'That is Oli- 
 ver's and my son/ It was just as well the 
 people did n't hear me, beloved. 
 
 But the only really active part I played in 
 the affair was to rub you very thoroughly for 
 some nights after with embrocation. 
 
 Do you know, the whole of that dream 
 happened long before I had got to the end 
 of my seam ?
 
 IV 
 
 On Love and a 
 Misunderstanding
 
 IV 
 
 On Love and a 
 Misunderstanding 
 
 I'VE got a confession to make, beloved, 
 and I think I will make it to you. All 
 yesterday I was cross and bad-tempered and 
 wicked. From the very first thing in the 
 morning everything seemed to go wrong. I 
 woke feeling cranky, but I remembered that 
 Oliver was going to drive me over to lunch at 
 a famous old inn some miles away, where you 
 sat out under great cherry trees and ate food 
 fit for an epicurean king. That made me perk 
 up a little. I like my food, don't you ? 
 
 Then I opened my letters. There was one 
 from Nanny saying that, as Mr. Nanny had 
 had to go to bed with a bad attack of influ- 
 45
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 enza, she would not be able to come, as she 
 had hoped to do, for the week-end; but she 
 sent her dear love and hoped her bairn was 
 taking great care of herself. 
 
 Her bairn was in such a bad temper that 
 she almost went so far as to accuse Mr. 
 Nanny of an intrigue with fate for the pur- 
 pose of thwarting her in what then seemed 
 the dearest and only wish of her heart. That 
 is to say, beloved, she was evil enough to 
 pretend that poor Miles had got influenza 
 just to spite her and stop Nanny from com- 
 ing. 
 
 The next letter was from the Stores. They 
 had received my esteemed order, and were 
 sorry to say that they had no more of the lace 
 like enclosed pattern in stock, but were send- 
 ing immediately to the makers, and would 
 advise me in the course of a few days. 
 
 And I wanted to finish the robe that even- 
 ing ! It was too absurd, and ridiculous, and
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 exasperating ! The whole management of the 
 place needed reorganising. 
 
 I read the others with very little interest, 
 and then Ellen came up with my breakfast. 
 Beloved, the bacon was overcooked, and the 
 egg was underdone ! At least, I think it was, 
 although a maturer judgment makes me 
 wonder. Anyhow, Nanny not coming, and 
 the Stores having no lace, made me sure it 
 was then, and if there is anything I hate it is 
 chippy bacon and an egg that runs madly 
 all over the plate directly it sees the fork 
 coming. I nibbled some toast, sipped some 
 tea, then closed my eyes, and lay back wear- 
 ily to wait for the end. 
 
 And it was n't long coming. In a little 
 while there was a tap at the door, and Oliver 
 came in, holding an open letter in his hand. 
 His face was troubled. 
 
 ' I 'm afraid I won't be able to take you for 
 that drive to-day, Margie,' he said in quite 
 47
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 a nice and really sorrowful voice, if only I 
 had been civil enough to notice it. 'Read 
 this/ 
 
 I felt myself go faint and sick, and I held 
 out my hand for the letter. A man with whom 
 he had some business wanted him to lunch in 
 town and talk it over; the man was leaving 
 England that night. 
 
 'Well?' I said. 
 
 'There is nothing for it but that I must go/ 
 he said regretfully; 'but it is an awful nui- 
 sance.' He sat on the edge of the bed and 
 took my hand, playing with the rings on my 
 ringer. ' I hope you are n't very disap- 
 pointed, dear; but we'll go to-morrow if it's 
 fine ; that will be almost the same, won't it ? ' 
 
 A sudden passion came to me to have what 
 I wanted. I longed fiercely to go to-day; only 
 to-day would do. 
 
 ' Oliver,' I said quickly, taking hold of his 
 hand with both my own, 'don't go. Stay; I 
 48
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 want you so badly.' I looked up into his face 
 and waited. He must see what it meant to me. 
 
 He looked surprised. I knew he could n't 
 understand it, and how could he be expected 
 to, when I did n't understand it myself? I 
 only knew how terribly I wanted. At any 
 cost I must have. 
 
 * Don't go! don't go!' I repeated. 'Stay 
 with me. I want you so ! ' 
 
 He came and put his arm round me. ' Poor 
 old thing!' he said tenderly. 'I'm so very 
 sorry, but what can I do ? The business has 
 got to be settled before he leaves, and he 
 leaves to-night.' He put his cheek to mine and 
 then kissed me. 'And even if I were not 
 obliged to meet him, which I feel I am, 
 precious, it 's a matter of two hundred 
 pounds to us, and I 'm thinking that, while 
 we won't starve for the want of it, two hun- 
 dred pounds won't come amiss to buy 
 feathers for the little peacock, will it ? ' 
 49
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 He laughed coaxingly. I think perhaps it 
 was that I wanted to hear him say that he 
 would stay, as much as anything. If he would 
 have said it, I would have got quite normal 
 again and refused to allow him, and every- 
 thing would have been all right. But he 
 would n't say it unless he really meant to do 
 it, and he could n't see that such a thing was 
 possible. 
 
 I looked into his eyes hungrily. I would 
 make him say it by sheer force of wanting. 
 
 He looked back at me, and his eyes were 
 so troubled, beloved, that I nearly got sensi- 
 ble; but the devil must have been rampaging 
 round all that day, for directly I heard him 
 say, 'My darling, I must go/ as if he were 
 trying to excuse himself, I got cold and sick 
 again. 
 
 'Very well,' I said lifelessly. 
 
 But he was not content ; he felt things were 
 all wrong. 
 
 50
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 'You know how much rather I would stay, 
 don't you ? Tell me that you know, Margie/ 
 
 'Yes, I know/ But there was no warmth 
 in what I said. 
 
 * Well, kiss me and tell me/ He put his face 
 close to mine. 
 
 I turned my head and kissed him lifelessly 
 on the cheek. He looked at me for a moment, 
 then he took his arm away and got up. 'I 
 will go and write my letters now,' he said 
 quietly. ' I shall have to catch the eleven-fif- 
 teen, and if I possibly can I will be back in 
 time for tea/ He went out and shut the door 
 behind him. 
 
 I lay still, while all the spirits of evil raged 
 about inside me. It was no use trying to re- 
 mind myself how bad it was for you, precious : 
 I was like one possessed. And all the while I 
 lay quite still, staring at a spot on the wall. 
 Then, suddenly I could bear it no longer; 
 while my mind moved so furiously my body
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 could not be quiet. I rang the bell and called 
 for my bath to be got ready. While I was 
 having it, I heard Oliver go into the bedroom, 
 and then go away again. I went back and 
 dressed. He did not come in again, and pre- 
 sently the cart was brought round to the hall 
 door, but I did not go down to see him off. 
 Just as he was about to start, I leaned out of 
 the window over the porch, and waved, say- 
 ing very airily, for the benefit of Jackson, 
 'Come back as early as you can.' I had to do 
 that for the honour of the house, beloved, 
 because, as a rule, I go to the door. And he 
 waved back just as airily and called out 
 good-bye; and then, when I had watched the 
 cart to the very furthest bend in the road, I 
 went to my room, dismissed the maid who 
 was dusting there, and sat down on the couch 
 and shivered as if I had the ague. 
 
 About half-past eleven, Ellen came in with 
 a cup of soup. I looked at it with disgust,
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 although I felt as if I were melting away with 
 hunger, or something of the kind. You see, 
 I'd flouted the egg and bacon at breakfast, 
 and I'd been living at pretty high pressure 
 ever since. 
 
 'No, thank you,' I said, trying to speak 
 very politely. 'You can take it away, Ellen/ 
 
 Ellen set it down with great care upon a 
 little table, and placed the table beside the 
 couch. 
 
 'The master said so, ma'am/ She gave 
 the things on the tray a few critical touches, 
 and went quietly out of the room. 
 
 When she had gone, I took up the cup 
 and began to sip languidly. Soon I was 
 drinking ravenously. It was nice clear soup 
 with sherry in it, and every mouthful that I 
 took seemed as if it were pulling me out of 
 the pit. He 's a very nice man, your father, 
 honey, and a very beautiful one in every 
 way. 
 
 53
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 After that I was just waiting the time away 
 till five o'clock. Oh! I wanted him back 
 again to tell him I was sorry, and to ask him 
 to forgive me ! I would n't deserve it, but I 
 felt he would do it. I tried to dawdle through 
 things to make the time slip away; but that, 
 as I have proved, is n't the way to do it, so 
 don't you be deceived into trying it. I 
 could n't settle to anything. I wandered 
 round the garden till lunch, and tried to go to 
 sleep after ; but it was no use. I lay with one 
 eye on the pillow and the other on the clock, 
 and made calculations of every moment spent 
 since he had caught the eleven-fifteen train in 
 the morning. He would get to town about 
 twelve, go to his club, and ring up the man. 
 Each would do what he had to do, separately, 
 till one o'clock, when they would meet and 
 lunch together. It would be early, but still 
 they were both pressed for time, and neither 
 would mind that. Generously I allowed them 
 54
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 an hour for lunch. That would give Oliver 
 two hours* margin for extra things and to 
 catch his train. He would not need it; but as 
 there was a quick train down at four o'clock, 
 it would get him home just in time for tea. 
 And I I would dress myself in the old soft 
 gown that had been worn on so many his- 
 toric occasions, and that would show him the 
 minute he looked at me how sorry and peni- 
 tent I had grown in the meantime. But I 
 would tell him as well. Yes, beloved, when 
 we do things, we do them ab-so-/wte-ly, as 
 Oliver would say. 
 
 I was dressed in the robe of repentance and 
 down in the drawing-room by half-past four. 
 The train would be just about arriving. He 
 would take a fly and be here, if the train were 
 up to time, in twenty minutes. I played a 
 waltz, looked at an illustrated paper without 
 seeing what was in it, wound some odds and 
 ends of lace on a card, and then ran up to the 
 55
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 bedroom window to watch for the fly. The 
 minutes crawled on to five o'clock, and then 
 fled to a quarter past. Unless there was a 
 break-down or he had to walk from the sta- 
 tion, he was n't coming by this train. At half- 
 past five I went back to the drawing-room. 
 Ellen came in. 
 
 'Shall you wait any longer for the master, 
 ma'am ? ' 
 
 'No; you can bring the tea: he must have 
 missed his train.' 
 
 He had missed his train, when he knew 
 how much I was wanting him back ! I broke 
 up a piece of cake and spoiled a muffin, and 
 poured out a cup of tea, but as for eating or 
 drinking, it was out of the question. Every 
 moment of the whole day I had been looking 
 forward to this moment. He knew it, he must 
 have known it; yet he had left me to have my 
 tea by myself. Perhaps it only looked a small 
 thing, but the great underlying principle was 
 
 56
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 there, none the less. He had appeared to be 
 sorry at the moment, but a few miles of dis- 
 tance and a few hours of time were enough to 
 wipe out any disappointment he might feel, 
 and deaden him to any amount of pain that 
 he might give. 
 
 I got out of my chair and went upstairs 
 slowly. The next train got in at six o'clock, 
 but I had no more longings left. I was not a 
 child, even though I had behaved rather like 
 one earlier in the day. I was a woman, a 
 woman of thirty, and not to be played with 
 and forgotten like a toy that had dropped 
 from his hands. Very slowly and very coldly 
 I took off the gown and put it back in the 
 drawer; that had had its last wearing for a 
 good time to come, if ever I put it on again. 
 There was no revenge in the thought, belov- 
 ed, only a great weariness and a sense of bow- 
 ing to the inevitable. If it had come it had 
 come, and there was to be no moaning over it. 
 57
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 I put on a Japanese thing, and lay down 
 to read till it would be time to dress for din- 
 ner. We would meet then, and by that 
 time I would have trained myself to play my 
 part. I would n't be angry, or injured, or 
 protesting. I would be just as if nothing had 
 happened with a difference. I would 
 smile, and say, 'Well, did you have a good 
 day, dear ? ' And when he said, ' Yes, Mar- 
 gie, I was so sorry I could n't get back to tea, 
 but you understood, did n't you ? ' I would 
 say, ' Yes, of course ; quite ' ; but there would 
 be a remoteness that would be so small he 
 would scarcely be able to notice it, yet it 
 would make him wonder. Beloved, if you are 
 a man when you read this, you will laugh, 
 but everything I tell you was like drops of 
 blood being squeezed from my heart. 
 
 Of course I had given up looking forward, 
 but as the clock struck six my heart suddenly 
 thumped like an engine, and although I tried
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 to read the book I held before me, my eyes 
 were beginning to look out along the road, 
 and my ears to strain for the sound of horses' 
 hoofs on the flints. 
 
 Little son, he did not come. With a heart 
 like ice and lead, I stared for an eternity along 
 the road; then I turned and looked at the 
 clock. It was twenty-five minutes to seven. 
 Then it came upon me that something had 
 happened. He might have missed the first 
 train by a few minutes, and have had to wait 
 for the next; but he would never have missed 
 the next without wiring when he knew I was 
 expecting him. I sat still, fear for him and the 
 sense of my own helplessness holding me 
 paralysed. I could do nothing. I did not 
 know where he was. And I had let him go 
 away in the morning with scarcely a word of 
 good-bye, tacitly holding him guilty for that 
 which was nothing more or less than an or- 
 dinary mischance of which he was as much 
 59
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 the victim as I, although I, not being as fit 
 physically as he, might suffer through it most. 
 And what was it really, compared with what 
 threatened ? A spoilt day that might easily 
 be redeemed to-morrow. 
 
 If I could but know him to be safe ! 
 
 There was a step on the gravel under the 
 window, a boy's step, and the door- 
 bell rang. 
 
 I held my breath to listen. The door 
 opened, closed, and the steps went crunching 
 over the gravel again. It was a telegram. I 
 waited impatiently during the time it would 
 take Ellen to bring it up the stairs. But no 
 one came. They were opening it first; they 
 were afraid to bring it to me. Something had 
 happened, and I was being kept in the dark. 
 
 I rang the bell in a terror. Ellen came. 
 
 'Who was that ?' I had to make my voice 
 almost a whisper, or I felt it would have been 
 a scream. 
 
 60
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 'The boy with the local paper, ma'am/ 
 she said, and waited. 
 
 ' Bring it to me, please ; I would like to see 
 it.' I had to say something. 
 
 She looked surprised, and went away. She 
 knows I never read it. When she had brought 
 it, I tore the wrapper off, and opened it out, 
 looking stupidly over the advertisements. 
 
 Edward Bingand Sons were holding an un- 
 precedented sale of drapery for one week only 
 during which their famous make of ladies' 
 lisle-thread hose, usually sold at one-and- 
 six-three, would be sacrificed at one-and- 
 three-three, or half-a-crown for two pairs. 
 There was only a limited stock of these, and 
 intending purchasers were advised to buy 
 early. 
 
 I could not tell my fears to the servants yet; 
 there was still the seven train to come in ; but 
 when I had allowed for that, Jackson should 
 go to the telegraph office. 
 61
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 But whom should I wire to ? There was 
 only one person I knew him to have been 
 with that day, and if I 'd remembered what 
 his name was and where he lived, it would be 
 no use, as he would have gone by this. There 
 was nothing to do but to wait. 
 
 The clock struck seven. Involuntarily my 
 eyes turned to the window. No, not again. I 
 ran to it, and dragged the curtains across, 
 then I went over to the bed, and dropped 
 down beside it, covering my eyes and stop- 
 ping my ears with a pillow. I must shut 
 away the sights and the sounds of the next 
 half-hour, or I should go mad. 
 
 I don't know how long afterwards it was, 
 but I heard a sound that made my heart 
 stop. It was the scrunching of wheels on the 
 gravel, and Oliver's voice under the window. 
 
 'That horse of yours is a good traveller, 
 Jarvis/ 
 
 'He is that, sorr, and he's the divil to go 
 62
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 with an extra sixpence at his back. Thank 
 you, sorr; good-night/ 
 
 Oliver laughed. 'Good-night/ The door 
 of the carriage was slammed to, the man got 
 up on the box again and drove off. Oliver 
 came into the house. 
 
 And so, he was safe ; there was nothing the 
 matter! I stood up straight and took a deep 
 breath. Mechanically I put the pillow back 
 in its place, trying to think out things while I 
 stroked the crumpled frills slowly and care- 
 fully. It is so strange, that, beloved, how 
 you find yourself in great mental stress doing 
 little unimportant acts with your hands as if 
 your very life depended upon the exactitude 
 of what you were doing. 
 
 I had been in a frenzy of terror and pain 
 because I had thought that nothing short of 
 illness or accident could prevent him keeping 
 his word. I had fretted and waited and 
 
 63
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 longed all day for him, alone : he knew that. 
 It might be stupid and foolish and unreason- 
 able and childish, but it was true, and the 
 pain of it was real enough. And there was 
 excuse enough for it just now. 
 
 While he ? He had his reasons, I 
 suppose. 
 
 I heard him come along the corridor and 
 stop outside the bedroom. I stood still, at the 
 foot of the bed, so still, beloved, that I 
 wondered if I could ever move again. 
 
 * Madge, are you there ? ' 
 
 'Yes/ 
 
 He opened the door, and came towards me 
 quickly. 
 
 'My darling, have you been alone all 
 day ? I 'm so sorry, but I had the very worst 
 luck' 
 
 He made as if to draw me to him, but I did 
 not move. 
 
 'Yes?' I said patiently. 'What was it?' 
 64
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 He looked at me sharply, but I kept my 
 face in the shadow, and as the room was dim 
 it helped me. 
 
 'Come over here and sit down with me, 
 while I tell you/ 
 
 His voice was very dear and kind, but 
 I had no ears for it. I wanted to know 
 why. 
 
 'No, I don't think I '11 sit down,' I said. 'I 
 have been sitting down all day, and I am 
 tired of it. What was it ? ' 
 
 Oh, honey, I was wicked, but I was just 
 dazed with longings and fears and imagin- 
 ings, and the reactions had been too many. I 
 knew if I had given way one second in my hold 
 of myself, I would have broken down alto- 
 gether, and a stupid idiotic pride made me 
 vow that I would n't do that. To cry may be a 
 silly thing to do, but it would have shortened 
 that tragedy by some hours, because if I had 
 cried your father would have forgotten every- 
 
 65
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 thing and put his arms round me; and if he 
 had once done that the end would n't have 
 been so very far off. 
 
 He just looked at me, and then looked 
 away again quickly, but not so quickly that I 
 did not see the pain I had given him. 
 
 'It's not so easy to tell you when you ask 
 like that/ he said quietly; 'but I will try. We 
 could not get the business settled in time for 
 me to catch the four o'clock train, and as I 
 had so much time to spare for the next, I 
 thought of something else I wanted to do, 
 so I did it. I suppose it must have taken 
 longer than I expected, because I just got 
 to Paddington in time to see the train slip 
 out of the platform. That made it that I had 
 an hour to waste on the station.' 
 
 He looked up at me again and waited. 
 
 'Is that all?' I asked. 
 
 'Yes, that is all/ 
 
 He got up and went to the window, put- 
 66
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 ting back one of die curtains and staring out 
 into the garden. 
 
 ' It does n't seem quite enough/ I said at 
 last, 'for the time I have put in at this end, 
 waiting for you ' 
 
 'I know, and I am sorry,' he interrupted 
 eagerly, turning from the window to face me ; 
 'but it was that second thing that landed 
 me. If I had n't been so interested in what 
 I was doing I would n't have missed the other 
 train. Margie dear, let me tell you ' 
 
 He moved impulsively towards me. 
 
 'Don't you think,' I said, going over to the 
 dressing-table and taking up some stupid box 
 thing, that I might seem busy, 'don't you 
 think that, considering everything, the other 
 piece of business you speak of might have 
 waited till you went to town again ? Was it 
 of so very much importance ? ' 
 
 I spoke very slowly and preciously, be- 
 loved, because I had to make a tremendous 
 67
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 effort to keep my voice quiet and unbroken. 
 The reasons seemed such small ones, such 
 paltry ones ; and that he could consider them 
 worth the offering nearly choked me. 
 
 He laughed, rather forlornly I know now, 
 but then it only seemed carelessly, and it 
 made me go wild again. ' I thought it was at 
 the time,' he said, * but it does n't seem so 
 now.' He looked at me again, and waited; 
 then he took his watch out quickly. ' It 's get- 
 ting time to dress,' he said. ' I had better go.' 
 
 When I was by myself again, I dropped 
 into a chair and tried to gather myself to- 
 gether before dinner came. There was a 
 very clever gentleman once, who said, 
 
 ' To be wroth with one we love 
 Doth work like madness in the brain'; 
 
 and it is true, every word and every letter of it. 
 I felt as if I had been beaten all over, and my 
 heart was aching and heavy as a stone. Oli- 
 ver's reasons made me feel lonelier than ever. 
 68
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 We talked at dinner about all sorts of 
 stupid things, like crops and billiard-breaks 
 and Armenian massacres, and then we went 
 into the drawing-room, and Oliver read while 
 I worked till ten o'clock. Once he said, 
 rather anxiously, ' You look very dark round 
 your eyes, Madge. Do you feel all right, or 
 shall I ask Maxwell to call?' And I said, 
 'Oh, no; I am all right, thank you'; and he 
 went on reading. 
 
 When ten o'clock struck I got up. 
 
 'I think I will go to bed now,' I said (for 
 indeed, I was very weary, honey). 
 
 He went to the door and stood holding it 
 open for me to pass. 
 
 'You look very tired,' he said kindly. 
 'Perhaps you would rather have your room 
 to yourself to-night ? I will go to the dressing- 
 room.' 
 
 And the devil, before he finally went off 
 duty for the day, gave one last whisper in 
 69
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 the ear of my heart. He said, 'That husband 
 of yours has had just about enough of your 
 tantrums, my fine lady, and he's going to 
 see that he gets no more to-night. Think that 
 well over while you are lying awake/ Then 
 he left me. 
 
 'Perhaps it would be better,' I said. 
 'Thank you, Oliver, and good-night.' 
 
 'Good-night, dear,' he said, 'and sleep 
 well/ 
 
 But although there was a lingering sound 
 in his voice, he did n't attempt to kiss me, 
 and I went slowly up to bed, feeling just as 
 I told you in another letter you would feel 
 sometimes as if the end had come to 
 everything. Nobody wanted me. There was 
 no one to blame for it but myself, and not one 
 person could help me in all the world. 
 
 As 1 undressed myself, the tears kept drop- 
 ping on my hands and down the front of my 
 frock; and my eyes got so blurred that I could 
 70
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 hardly find the buttons and the hooks. And 
 as soon as I was ready I turned out the light 
 and crept into bed in the dark. Beloved, per- 
 haps you 've never in all your life felt more 
 desolate than I did then. 
 
 When I was in bed, Ellen came and 
 knocked, to know if there was anything she 
 could do for me. But I said, ' No, thank you/ 
 and she went away down the corridor. And I 
 knew somehow, that Oliver had sent her, 
 and that I need not expect him now (as I had, 
 at the back of my mind, beloved, even though 
 I had n't admitted it) to come in unex- 
 pectedly; and I just turned my face to the 
 pillow and wondered why such a worthless 
 person as I must have been from the first, 
 should ever have been allowed to grow up. 
 
 Then, after a long time, I heard Oliver 
 come up, and as he passed my door it seemed 
 as if he paused a moment; but he went on, 
 and presently I saw the light shining through
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 the crack of the door that opens into the bed- 
 room, and I heard him moving quietly about. 
 And I knew he was being quiet so that, if I 
 were asleep, he should not wake me. 
 
 It made me think of all the kind and the 
 sweet and the thoughtful things he is always 
 doing, quite simply, as if they were only just 
 ordinary things, as indeed they are with him. 
 Then I went back over the day, and I saw 
 it all as it was. If I had waked quite well 
 nothing would have gone wrong. Of course I 
 would have been sorry that we could n't go 
 for the drive, but it would n't have been a 
 matter of life and death. As for his missing 
 the train, it was just the stupid kind of thing 
 that might happen to anyone. And it was the 
 most natural thing in the world that, with 
 half-an-hour to spare, he should use it to save 
 himself the bother of a journey up again. The 
 whole thing was what I in my best moments 
 would call 'a concatenation of unfortunate 
 72
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 events,* and you, beloved, 'a string of bad 
 luck/ 
 
 And I remembered, too, how he had tried 
 to explain, and to make it up, and I would n't 
 let him. I was longing to all the while, but 
 the very fact that I wanted to so badly seemed 
 to make it impossible. 
 
 I felt my heart go right out to him, and I 
 wondered if he were quite comfortable in his 
 dressing-room and if he had everything he 
 wanted. 
 
 Then, suddenly, it came to me that he had 
 not slept in that room for weeks, not since one 
 night when I had gone up to town and stayed 
 with Nanny till the next day. Perhaps he had 
 not told Ellen he was sleeping there, and the 
 sheets would not be aired. And he would get 
 a chill, and it would settle on his lungs, and 
 he would die, and it would be my fault ! Oh, 
 I had n't any pride left then, beloved. If he 
 would only come back, I would n't ask him 
 73
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 to forgive me. I got up and went to the 
 door. 
 
 He was standing with his back to me. His 
 coat was off, and he was holding an old pipe 
 to the light and poking a wire down the stem 
 of it. When he saw me, he put it down and 
 came towards me. 
 
 I ran to him. 'Oliver,' I said, speaking 
 very fast, * I don't want you to forgive me. I 
 know it has all been my fault and it seems as 
 if I had been so horrid that I could n't expect 
 you to; but I have n't meant to be bad, and if 
 you will come back to-night I will have this 
 room made ready for you to-morrow, and you 
 can sleep in it as long as you like. Only come 
 back to-night!' 
 
 He put his arms round me. I think he 
 thought I was dreaming. 
 
 * What is it, Margie ? ' he said, sitting down 
 and drawing me on to his knee. 'Tell me all 
 about it.' 
 
 74
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 'The sheets aren't aired!' I said with a 
 sob; it was so lovely to hear his voice again. 
 
 He looked puzzled ; then a light seemed to 
 break upon him. 
 
 ' Do you mean on this bed ? * 
 
 I nodded. 'Yes. You did n't tell Ellen you 
 were going to use it, did you ? ' 
 
 He threw back his head and laughed over 
 and over again. 
 
 'Do you know,' he said at last, 'I thought 
 you were dreaming. I could n't make out 
 what you were driving at.' He laughed again. 
 ' You poor old thing ! You were afraid I was 
 going to be hurt, were you ? ' 
 
 I put my cheek to his ; the very sound of his 
 voice, and the feeling that I was safe again, 
 made the sobs come into my throat, so that I 
 could n't speak. 
 
 'And rather than that, you would take me 
 back again, eh ? ' He rubbed his face against 
 mine softly. 
 
 75
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 The tears were pouring down my cheeks 
 and running on to his own, but he did n't 
 seem to mind. 
 
 'You wanted to be here/ I said when I 
 could speak. 
 
 'Little stupid!' he said tenderly. 'I only 
 wanted what was best for you. You looked 
 such a poor tired thing, that I thought you 
 might rest better so. Now lie still, and tell 
 me why you were so angry with me ? ' 
 
 He pulled a rug from the bed and covered 
 me up with it. And I told him everything 
 from beginning to end. About feeling ill 
 when I woke, and Nanny and the lace and 
 the splashy egg. And then the great disap- 
 pointment of not going for the drive, and 
 being sorry when he had gone that I had 
 shown it so, and making up my mind to let 
 him know, and his never coming. And how 
 I had gone up into the bedroom and watched 
 and listened, and when he did n't come by
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 the second train how I had nearly gone mad 
 with fear lest anything should have happened 
 to him; and how I had wanted to telegraph, 
 and did n't know any one to telegraph to. 
 And then how he had come in, and the only 
 reason he gave was that he had stayed to do 
 something else, and that had made him miss 
 the second train, and when I asked if the 
 thing he had waited for was of so very much 
 importance, he had laughed and said p'raps 
 it was n't, and I had felt I wanted to die. 
 
 All the while I was telling him, he was 
 scanning my face very gravely, and once he 
 said, as if to himself, 'A man does n't under- 
 stand; a man doesn't understand.' Then, 
 when I had finished, he said, still very 
 gravely, 'Poor little thing!' (I'm not little, 
 honey, and that's why it's so nice) 'you 
 shan't be left again, unless you have Nanny 
 or some one with you.' 
 
 And I said very quickly, 'Indeed, I shall, 
 77
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 Oliver. I'm not going to have you think 
 you 've got to stay at home to mind me. You 
 would get to hate me then ! ' 
 
 And he laughed, and kissed me as if he 
 had n't begun to yet, and I just lay back and 
 felt sorry for every one who was n't me. 
 
 After a while, he put his ringers into his 
 vest pocket and pulled something out. I sat 
 up, and looked to see what it was. 
 
 It was a small, flat, velvet case, and when 
 he opened it I saw a little pendant of emer- 
 alds set in diamonds and platinum and 
 threaded by a thin platinum chain. 
 
 ' Oh ! ' I said, ' how lovely ! ' Then suddenly 
 I felt myself go crimson. 
 
 'That was not what made you miss ' I 
 could n't go on. 
 
 His eyes twinkled, and he nodded. 
 
 I turned away from it and hid my face 
 against him. I felt too ashamed and too small 
 to be able to look at it again. And whenever
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 1 feel my senses are on the point of leaving 
 me, beloved, I shall just take out the little 
 pendant and look at it steadily, and if it 
 does n't set me right in a trice, I shall know I 
 am past all human aid. 
 
 He tried to make me look at it, but I 
 could n't, then, so he laughed at me and put 
 it back into his pocket. 
 
 But when he had carried me back to bed, 
 and was in his dressing-room again, I called 
 to him and said, ' Bring it back with you when 
 you come, please, Oliver; I would like to 
 have it beside me.' And he brought it back 
 and put it down on the table; and I touched 
 his hand very respectfully and said, ' I think 
 you are just the most beautiful thing that ever 
 was, inside and out/ 
 
 And he bent over me, and kissed me hard 
 and quickly, and said, 'And you are the 
 greatest stupid!' Which won't read as ex- 
 quisite as it sounded. 
 
 79
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 This letter may seem only the story of a 
 cross-tempered woman and a fine-hearted 
 man when you read it first, beloved, but as 
 you get older you will find there is more in it 
 than that. It will tell you that the face value 
 of a thing is sometimes a false value, and that 
 the same thing will be honestly and totally 
 dissimilar looked at by two people from dif- 
 ferent points of view. Those may be obvious 
 and well-worn truths, but it is perhaps just as 
 well to have a human application of those 
 truths, so that, when one's own time comes, 
 one may have just a glimmer of what may be 
 to distract from the blaze of what appears to 
 be. 
 
 And it will tell you that love of which 
 some quaint people deny the existence has 
 got to be great enough not for the big things 
 but for the small things. When I thought 
 that Oliver was in danger, I was ready to go 
 barefoot over hot ploughshares to get to him; 
 80
 
 A Misunderstanding 
 
 but when it came to giving him the benefit 
 of the doubt over the catching or the losing 
 of a train, I was wanting. It 's no good talking 
 about the greatness of a thing unless you 
 are able to apply it; and what so often gets 
 love into disrepute is the fact that when it 
 is put to small everyday uses, it fails, not be- 
 cause it is n't a good thing for the purpose, 
 but because either the people who use it 
 have n't enough of it, or else they don't know 
 what to do with it when they do get it. 
 
 But I think we '11 talk about that another 
 day, honey. I feel as if I had a lot to say upon 
 the subject. 
 
 And going back to the history of my bad 
 behaviour, you 've got to make a little excuse 
 for me because you were just a bit to blame 
 yourself. Only don't worry about that.
 
 V 
 
 On Fathers and 
 Mothers
 
 V 
 
 On Fathers and 
 Mothers 
 
 I WONDER, if all the little honeys and 
 belovedests that get born into the world, 
 and grow up to look upon their fathers and 
 mothers as people to whom they go for their 
 pocket-money and their wiggings, were sud- 
 denly to see into the hearts of those fathers 
 and mothers, whether they would ride rough- 
 shod over them for ever and ever and ever, 
 or whether they would draw a long breath of 
 relief and be very, very glad. 
 
 I know it is in the minds of children to 
 
 believe that fathers and mothers are born 
 
 fathers and mothers, and never could have 
 
 been young or stupid or unregenerate like 
 
 85
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 themselves; that is one of the reasons why 
 they so often go to any one rather than to their 
 parents with whatever scrapes they may be 
 in. And it's true, honey, that the parents 
 have themselves to blame for such neglect. 
 They are so anxious to set a good example 
 that they deliberately forget their own ex- 
 periences and seem to think that they can 
 keep you from having measles by pretending 
 that they never had them themselves. 
 
 Now it is very highly probable that every 
 parent worth his salt has had pretty nearly 
 every measle that is likely to dog the foot- 
 steps of his graceless offspring (when you are 
 old enough, you will appreciate the beauty of 
 that phrasing), and it is his duty and ought 
 to be his pleasure to admit it, not with 
 vain boasting, but simply, in order that, if 
 the need arises, he with his experience, may 
 show the way through; for there is a way 
 through, my son, even though it is nothing 
 86
 
 Fathers and Mothers 
 
 better than sitting down at the foot of the 
 blank wall and waiting. I who speak to you 
 have waited, and I know. 
 
 I want you once and for always to get it 
 out of your dear little head that Oliver and I 
 are Grown-ups with a capital G, and there- 
 fore incapable of understanding the joys and 
 pleasures and pains that belong to you as a 
 child and a boy. Oh, beloved, we are n't 
 really old, although Oliver rides a horse with- 
 out a groom at his bridle, and I have n't worn 
 pinafores for quite a long time. But our 
 hearts ride their ponies and tear their pina- 
 fores just the same as ever, believe that. 
 
 And I '11 tell you a secret. It 's a shameful 
 secret for a woman with a grey hair (I got it 
 when I was twenty the hair, beloved) ; and 
 although Oliver knows it, and I dare say 
 one or two others do, as well, I try to keep 
 it from spreading any further than I can help. 
 Still, if we ever meet, you are bound to find it 
 87
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 out; and if we don't, perhaps it will help you 
 to overcome your own weaknesses to know 
 that your own grown-up mummy was every 
 bit as bad as you and badder. 
 
 It's this, come very close and bend down 
 while I tell you. Nothing ever really teaches 
 me, and I 've never really grown up. To-day, 
 with that grey hair in my head that I got at 
 twenty, and a man-child of my own to be 
 thinking of, I 'm just as much in the school- 
 room as I was at ten. Perhaps from it all I 
 have got this one bit of knowledge, that when 
 I can see no way out I sit down at the foot of 
 the wall and wait. But for the rest my lessons 
 are just as hard to learn and give me just as 
 much pain and tribulation as they did when 
 I was doing nine-times-seven, and thirteen 
 goes-into-a-hundred-and-four-I-don't-know- 
 how-many-times-or-what-over. 
 
 So, you see, with a record like that it 
 would n't be the least bit of use me climbing 
 88
 
 Fathers and Mothers 
 
 on to a pedestal, and trying to play the oracle, 
 because I have no capacity for giddy heights 
 at all. Give me the ground under my feet, and 
 the top of the mountain is mine for the climb- 
 ing; but stand me on a rampart, and I shut 
 my eyes and clutch till somebody comes and 
 takes me off. But if you don't mind I '11 give 
 you the benefit of my experience (you '11 let 
 me do that, please, beloved), and then we '11 
 take hands and climb the mountain together. 
 
 And I want to tell you a little about this 
 father of yours. He 's down in the garden 
 tying up carnations at this minute, and I can 
 see his broad shoulders bent over the flowers 
 and his nice brown hands twisting the twine. 
 A little while ago he looked up and saw me in 
 the window and he called out : 
 
 ' What are you doing up there ? Come 
 down.' 
 
 'I can't,' I said. 'I'm writing/ 
 
 'Who to?' 
 
 89
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 'To a young man in whom I take a great 
 deal of interest. I 'm sorry I can't tell you 
 more/ 
 
 'All right. I '11 come up and see if it ought 
 to go/ 
 
 He was filling his pipe very carefully and 
 watching it as he did it. 
 
 'Indeed, you'll stay where you are, and 
 I '11 come down when I 'm ready.' 
 
 I blew him a kiss and came back to you. 
 Oh, beloved, I think you will like him most 
 awfully. 
 
 Now, if you 're in a tangle over anything to 
 do with dogmas and doxies (I won't give you 
 the dictionary meaning of these words be- 
 cause it would be a waste of labour; when 
 the time comes for you to know, you will find 
 out quickly enough), I 'm afraid it won't be 
 much use going to Oliver for explanation, 
 because the darling does n't know anything 
 about them. But if you want to know what it 
 90
 
 Fathers and Mothers 
 
 is to live finely, cleanly, courageously, watch 
 him, my son, and see him do it. When I 
 think of him and his way, it puts me in mind 
 of an algebra mistress I had when I was a 
 child. She could do algebra and Euclid 
 standing on her head and with her hands tied 
 behind her back, so to speak, but she had n't 
 an idea of telling you how to do it. I could n't 
 do it anyhow. I used to say despairingly, 
 ' How do I do it ? ' and quite simply she would 
 say, ' This way ' ; and it would be done in a 
 twinkling. 
 
 Then I would say, 'Yes, but how did you 
 do that ? ' and she would say again, this time 
 with bewilderment, 'This way!' and pff! 
 there it was, like a magic-lantern slide, and 
 I as far off as ever. 
 
 This Oliver of ours, beloved, is just as good 
 at his job as she was at hers, and just as un- 
 able to tell you how he does it. But you 
 need n't get the idea into your head that there
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 is any icy perfection about him. He does n't 
 know he 's good, and if I were openly to ac- 
 cuse him of the things I have been telling 
 you, he would be as uncomfortable as a 
 cannibal in a court suit. I can imagine him 
 now, listening first in astonishment, then in 
 embarrassment, and at last, very red, getting 
 up and feeling in his pockets for his pipe and 
 saying with an uneasy laugh : 
 
 'Don't rot so, Margie; where are the 
 matches ? ' 
 
 But that unconsciousness does not mean 
 that he cannot feel things. I know how 
 deeply he feels, and how much easier it might 
 have been sometimes if he had been able to 
 express with his lips what was stirring and 
 agitating in his heart. There are people who 
 cannot speak because they have nothing to 
 say, and there are others who cannot speak 
 because they have too much; and often one 
 sees people being credited with a reserve 
 92
 
 Fathers and Mothers 
 
 which is really no reserve at all, but a lack of 
 feeling, while others are called shallow be- 
 cause their feelings are greater than their 
 power of concealment. One learns all that in 
 time. With Oliver it is an inability to formu- 
 late, to express. When he is happy one feels 
 the sunshine radiating from him ; when he is 
 unhappy his eyes tell you, but he himself is 
 dumb. 
 
 At first I used to feel 'held off' by his si- 
 lence. I did n't understand, and it seemed as 
 if he were deliberately closing a door upon 
 me : but once in a moment of perhaps more 
 than ordinary clear-sightedness, I said some- 
 thing that caused him to turn to me with a 
 look of sharp relief on his face. Afterwards 
 he said with admiration lighting his eyes, 
 * You 're a wonderful thing, Margie, you al- 
 ways say what every one else only seems to be 
 able to think'; and I was glad, because it 
 made him come to me instinctively as to one 
 93
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 who would understand his unspoken thoughts. 
 But it made me feel humble enough, be- 
 loved. He in his strong simple inarticulate- 
 ness seemed like a huge hill upon which I, a 
 little conning tower, stood perched in my 
 glibness. I have laughed, oh, so many times, 
 at his pride in my wonderfulness ; for he was 
 like a giant setting a child on his shoulders 
 and calling the child a greater than himself. 
 And the thing that always makes me laugh 
 with a lump in my throat is that this giant 
 really believes it. 
 
 So you see, if you listen to your mummy 
 and watch your father, you stand a very good 
 chance of being all that a perfect creature 
 ought to be; but being the son of your father 
 and mother, I 'm thinking you '11 have to find 
 your own way your own self, and you won't 
 reach perfection through merely seeing it and 
 hearing about it. Still, you won't despise a 
 lantern on a dark night, will you ? 
 94
 
 Fathers and Mothers 
 
 And let me tell you, for the breaking down 
 of that barrier which rises up so often between 
 parents and children, who, in spite of it, love 
 each other very truly, that parents are 
 often as shy of their children as their children 
 are of them; often as diffident in asking their 
 confidence as they are of tendering it; often 
 as longing to receive it as they are to give it. 
 It is too much and not too little feeling that 
 has built up that barrier; but I believe, honey, 
 that as the world grows older we will grow 
 wiser and less self-conscious about the things 
 that matter. Science is helping towards that, 
 by finding simple natural reasons for things 
 that were at one time regarded as visitations 
 of God or the devil. We do not so often con- 
 fuse innocence with ignorance and call it 
 beauty as we once used to do. We are learn- 
 ing to look at life more truly, and although it 
 means the sweeping away of a great many 
 things that were once thought to be beautiful, 
 95
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 it means that we are finding there is nothing 
 really beautiful that is not built upon truth, 
 and that the plainest truth is beautiful be- 
 cause it is a truth. 
 
 It is true that parents, who are but children 
 of a larger growth, must for the benefit of the 
 young thing exact obedience till the time for 
 explanation comes. But they have no right 
 to retard the moment of explanation beyond 
 its appointed time. It is a beautiful desire, to 
 want to shield and protect the thing one loves, 
 but it ceases to be beautiful, and becomes un- 
 true, when, instead of protecting, they would 
 wilfully blind, wilfully keep in the dark. 
 
 When you are in swaddling clothes and cry 
 for the candle-flame, your little hands will 
 not be allowed to grasp it; later on, when you 
 are able to understand what is being said to 
 you, you will be told that the flame will burn 
 and hurt you ; but later still, if nothing has 
 convinced you and you still weep for it, you
 
 Fathers and Mothers 
 
 shall be allowed to touch it and find out for 
 yourself. I myself have cried for the candle- 
 flame, and when the time came I burnt my 
 fingers. If I had been given it too early I 
 should probably have blamed some one else 
 for the pain I got; when it was kept from me 
 longer than it should have been, I broke guard 
 to get to it and blamed no one, not even my- 
 self. 
 
 So it will be for you, little son. The candle 
 shall be placed high on the shelf till the time 
 comes for you to choose whether you will 
 burn yourself or keep away; and with every- 
 thing freely explained you shall take your 
 chance. But we would be untrue to you and 
 to life and to everything, if we tried to bring 
 you up in a dark room without any knowledge 
 of candles at all, and then suddenly flung 
 you out into a world that was dotted all over 
 with them. Remembering that, will you come 
 to either Oliver or me if you want to know 
 97
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 anything ? Whatever it is, however evil or 
 dark or wrong it may seem to your under- 
 standing, it won't matter, because at the back 
 of the darkest difficulty there generally lies a 
 reasonable explanation, and one does n't live 
 a very long time in this world with one's eyes 
 open without coming across most of what 
 there is to be seen in it. And remember, too, 
 little man, that Oliver was at school and at 
 college just as you will be, and he was con- 
 fronted with just the same problems that are 
 confronting you, and assailed with just the 
 same temptations that assail you. And he is 
 so wise and so kind, this Oliver, who can build 
 bridges to carry people over but cannot tell you 
 how he built them, that you need never fear 
 rebuff or misunderstanding from him. Even 
 if one had yielded time and again to the temp- 
 tation he had resisted, he would have no 
 thought of judgment in his heart. His only 
 care would be to find something in his under- 
 98
 
 Fathers and Mothers 
 
 standing that would be of use; just as a man 
 may search his pockets to find the sum your 
 necessity demanded, and look concerned for 
 fear he should not have enough. 
 
 And some day, honey, when you have a 
 troupe of little honeys all your own, the 
 thought of what your father was to you, will 
 help you to be all that to them. We can pass 
 on a lot in this world if we only think a bit. 
 
 I do love you very much, my little thing.
 
 VI 
 
 On Anger
 
 There are two letters that I've put together 
 into one envelope, the ones on Anger and Religion. 
 If you find them rather dull, a bit pi-jawish in 
 your manner of speaking, just put them back in 
 the envelope and don't bother about them any 
 more. They are n't pi-jaw, they are my mind 
 going out to meet your mind in its extremity, and 
 if they don't strike you that way, it's because 
 your extremity is n't there and you have n't any 
 need of them. 
 
 But fo' de Lawd's sake, honey, don't you tear 
 your mummy up, she'll come in useful one of 
 these days if you only keep her long enough, be- 
 lieve me.
 
 VI 
 
 On Anger 
 
 THIS morning as I sat working I was 
 thinking about anger and all things to 
 do with it. There was a famous man once who 
 said that no man was great who was not vin- 
 dictive. It worried me rather that such a fine 
 person as he should have believed such an 
 un-fine thing, and it troubled me more when 
 I sat down to think it out and saw how true 
 it looked on the face of it. 
 
 I went back through my own life, and 
 knew how, over and over again, I had lost the 
 situation because pain and not rage had been 
 the feeling uppermost; not the kind of pain 
 that wants to turn and rend, but the pain that 
 103
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 makes one cover one's eyes and run out into 
 the darkness, anywhere, to be out of 
 sight and sound of that which has caused 
 the hurt; for to fight with that pain blinding 
 your eyes and that desolation bewildering 
 your brain was impossible. One could only 
 turn and hide like a sick animal in the 
 thicket. 
 
 But with the reaction would come a feeling 
 of passionate anger. I had been in the right 
 yet I had been routed. I was the one who had 
 been despoiled, yet I had fled like a thief. 
 Where was the justice of it all ? Why was I 
 allowed the strength to fight and win in all 
 the skirmishes that did n't matter a jot, and 
 denied it in my Armageddon ? A coat of mail 
 was given to me with which to protect my- 
 self from the snapping of a finger, and torn 
 off as the arrows rained down. I would go 
 back and fight the battle over again. Might 
 was not right, the just should triumph, the 
 104
 
 On Anger 
 
 unjust should be made to see his injustice. I 
 trembled with the thought of all that I would 
 do. 
 
 Then, as in imagination I strode back, 
 head up, eyes shining, and breast out, to the 
 battle-ground, the remembrance of what had 
 happened came over me. The pain clutched 
 my heart afresh and closed my eyes, the futil- 
 ity of things dragged at my heels, and I crept 
 back into the darkness again, glad to be no- 
 thing. 
 
 In the darkness I cursed myself for a poor 
 thing and a coward. I compared myself with 
 one I knew, and wished to God I were like 
 her. I saw her in her battles always victorious, 
 always triumphant. I saw her stand insolent 
 and smiling, giving back twice over taunt for 
 taunt, insult for insult, scorn for scorn ; and I 
 saw her at the end bitter but unbeaten with 
 high heart rejoicing in her victory. She would 
 never forget, she would never forgive, and 
 105
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 her hatred of her enemy would grow stronger 
 and surer as time went on. 
 
 To me, then, she seemed a great and envi- 
 able person, for at least she could always 
 count upon the fear and the respect of her 
 enemies ; while I, with my miserable puling 
 sensitiveness, had not a rag to cover myself 
 with. The thicket was no blacker than my 
 heart, choked as it was with rage and pain 
 and humiliation. 
 
 But, once, little son, as I lay face down- 
 ward in the dark, there came the sound of a 
 bird singing. It was singing in the branch of 
 a tree far down the coppice, and I sat up and 
 listened. It sang a few notes, then it stopped. 
 I waited, and as I listened for the bird I 
 heard the sound of running water. 
 
 The bird began again, very softly and only 
 
 a few notes at a time. Then at last it went off 
 
 into a pure clear exquisite song, so full, that 
 
 it seemed as if the little trembling throat 
 
 106
 
 On Anger 
 
 would burst. It sang all the joy and the grati- 
 tude and the freshness that ever was in the 
 world ; and as it sang, the heart and mind of 
 me grew still and quiet. I seemed to under- 
 stand then, beloved, even though I forgot 
 it many times afterwards, that while it 
 might not be given to me to win in a pitched 
 battle, yet it was open to me to give the lie to 
 my failures by living as truly as I could every 
 day; and I knew, too, that so long as neither 
 hatred nor malice took real root in my heart, so 
 long would I be allowed to hear the running 
 water and the song of the bird and be com- 
 forted by them. It is a finer strength we ga- 
 ther from that than from any stimulant brewed 
 from the poison of malice, and it is a tonic 
 that gains and not loses with every dose we 
 take. 
 
 Perhaps this will be a little puzzling to you 
 if you read it when you are a very young 
 thing; but what I have wanted to say to you 
 107
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 is that the great man was wrong when he 
 called vindictiveness strength. It is strength, 
 just as a crutch is strength, but you must 
 learn to be strong enough to walk without 
 crutches, and as a crutch would in reality 
 hamper and retard the perfect man physi- 
 cally, so vindictiveness would do the same 
 mentally by poisoning and corroding all the 
 fine things that were in him. 
 
 Anger, righteous anger, is a fine thing, and 
 it is right to feel it. Like a fire it cleanses and 
 purifies, but like a fire it makes a better ser- 
 vant than master, and you must learn to 
 order it instead of letting it order you. 
 
 If ever you are in such a passion that you 
 feel you are going to blow up right away, I 
 should advise you provided you know how 
 to keep your hands in your pockets to let 
 it go, because such a volcano is better out 
 than in. But prefer to let it run out of your 
 heels rather than your mouth or your fists. 
 108
 
 On Anger 
 
 Walk, my son, walk as if the devil were 
 driving you as perhaps indeed he may be ; 
 and if you are not better when you come in, 
 go straight to your father and ask him to take 
 you to the doctor. 
 
 There is one thing, apart from any jesting, 
 that I want you always to remember. What- 
 ever your disturbances of mind, whatever 
 your perplexity, your pain may be, go out 
 to do battle with it. What I told you about 
 the running water and the song of the bird 
 is no sentimental picture, but a simple truth. 
 There is something in the wind that cleanses, 
 something in the very touch of the earth 
 under your feet that revivifies and makes 
 strong again ; and you never once go to nature 
 in your unconscious years that she does not 
 return the visit in the years of your under- 
 standing and know you again for the child 
 that needed her. 
 
 Perhaps, littlest, I seem to be talking in 
 109
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 riddles again. Never mind, you will know 
 it all to be very simple some day, and in the 
 meantime this is what your mother is strug- 
 gling to say to you : 
 
 If ever anything happens that makes you 
 feel horribly bad, or even just bad, inside, 
 go and take a ride on your pony, or roll the 
 lawn, or throw stones in the pond, till you 
 find things are getting easier. But don't ever 
 brood indoors if you can help it. 
 
 Of course, honey, I mean that as a medi- 
 cine for heartache ; it would n't quite do for 
 tummy-ache; that will be Nanny's or my 
 affair.
 
 VII 
 
 On Religion
 
 VII 
 
 On Religion 
 
 SOME of the things I want to say to you, 
 although not profound, are a little diffi- 
 cult to write, beloved. There was a singing- 
 master I once had who used to be very angry 
 when any one said anything about upper and 
 lower and middle registers in the voice. He 
 said they were wrong, that one should sing 
 without thought of breaks, and that to make 
 divisions was simply to make trouble. When 
 he talked I used to feel how right he was, and 
 how stupid the other way seemed : just like 
 taking a whole piece of cloth and tearing it 
 into three for the sake of joining it up again. 
 But afterwards I wondered. I wondered 
 "3
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 whether all voices could be dealt with so 
 simply; and whether some which might be 
 very good in parts might not want a conscious 
 treatment to strengthen the weak places and 
 make the whole perfect. 
 
 So it is in talking of some things to you. 
 I don't want to suggest difficulties that do 
 not exist, but I feel that you would be a very 
 unusual person if you could go through life 
 quite undisturbed by the troubles that dis- 
 turb so many of us. And taking into consid- 
 eration the fact that you are, in part, your 
 mother's own son, I don't think a helping 
 hand will come amiss. So I'll leave the 
 medicine on the shelf; but you need n't take 
 it unless you feel sick, honey. 
 
 There's a thing called religion that plays 
 a pretty big part in the world ; and you won't 
 be very old before you hear such things said 
 in the name of it, and see such things done 
 under the guise of it, that your poor brains 
 114
 
 On Religion 
 
 will be a-whirl with perplexity and amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 You will find people apparently serving 
 under the same banner, upholding the same 
 cause, recognizing the same Head, who are 
 yet fighting between themselves as if they 
 were the fiercest and most implacable ene- 
 mies; and fighting over the very thing they 
 all seem to be agreed upon. You will find 
 people professing beliefs they have never 
 tested, simply because their fathers believed 
 such before them, and they are too lazy and 
 too indifferent to think for themselves. And, 
 what has sent a good many students off the 
 rails before now, you will find men of repute 
 and honour deliberately teaching the thing 
 they have ceased to believe in, because they 
 either have not the courage to break away or 
 are too comfortable by the hearth such teach- 
 ing has given them. 
 
 Now I am not preaching revolt to you for
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 the sake of revolt, indeed I am not preaching 
 it at all. I am just telling you of things that 
 you must inevitably come across, so that 
 when you do, you shall not lose yourself in a 
 slough of despair, but sit down quietly and 
 squarely to face them. 
 
 You come of a Protestant stock and you 
 will be brought up in the Church of England. 
 When you are able to speak, you will say 
 your prayers to the Jesus who was a baby 
 and a boy and a man Himself, and when you 
 are big enough, you will go in your Sunday 
 best to sit in a high pew once a week, and fall 
 asleep against your mummy's arm oh, 
 beloved, if I am there ! Later on, when you 
 are n't quite such a torpid little dormouse, 
 you will stop going to sleep and sit up and 
 listen with your ears, and later still you will 
 listen with your understanding, and then you 
 will ask questions. And when you begin to 
 ask questions, out of your need, man- let, you 
 116
 
 On Religion 
 
 have put your hand upon the hasp of the gate 
 that leads to the Garden of Bewilderment 
 and the garden is only the beginning of the 
 journey. 
 
 The trees in that garden will be mostly 
 finger-posts, and the flowers chiefly flowers 
 of speech, and many times you will long for 
 green boughs that shelter and for flowers that 
 speak only through the sweetness of their 
 breath. And you will get so tired with the 
 din and the noise and the racket that you will 
 want to put your fingers in your ears and run 
 right away from everything and everybody, 
 including yourself. 
 
 But before you go, honey, come here 
 a while and listen. That sounds as if / were 
 going to be a finger-post, does n't it ? Well, 
 I'm not; I'm just going to take your dear 
 little hands in mine for a moment and tell 
 you of the trees I found for myself and 
 that others have found too in the garden 
 117
 
 through which we must all go if we 've got 
 any intelligence, or curiosity, or imagination 
 at all. 
 
 I want you to think of God, not as an all- 
 powerful, all-seeing High Priest of Heaven 
 and Judge of sinful man, but simply as a 
 Spirit of Good which is everywhere, if one 
 likes to look for it. Think of Jesus Christ 
 as a man who lived according to the truth 
 which was in Him, just as you must do ; and 
 read what He says, not as one would read of 
 miracles, but as one would listen to the words 
 of some one who spoke lovingly and out of 
 his own experiences. 
 
 There are people who will say that unless 
 you believe that Christ is the Son of God 
 and the Virgin Mary, you have no chance of 
 going to Heaven at all ; and there are others 
 who will tell you there is no Heaven to go to. 
 
 I don't know, sweetheart; you must 'listen 
 to all sides and filter them from yourself/ It 
 118
 
 On Religion 
 
 seems to me that all the belief in the divinity 
 of Christ that a world holds is n't going to 
 give us an inheritance if we have lived other- 
 wise untruly, nor all the doubt keep it from 
 us if we have lived as honestly as we knew 
 how. And it seems, too, as if it would be so 
 much better not to worry our heads about a 
 future existence and the rewards attached 
 to it. Now is the appointed time. The re- 
 vivalists use those words to frighten what 
 they call poor sinners on to their knees; but 
 I would not have you on your knees, I would 
 say it to you that you might be up and doing. 
 Now is the appointed time, beloved, the time 
 for work, for play, for joy, and for sorrow. 
 You can surely worship more truly by living 
 truly than by all the prayer and meditation 
 you can crowd into a life full of years and 
 by living truly, I don't mean according to the 
 truth as it is told you, but according to the 
 truth as it tells itself to you. You are bound 
 119
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 to make mistakes ; very likely the things that 
 are truths to you to-day will be doubts to- 
 morrow; but while they are truths you must 
 stand by them, even though you are going 
 against all existing truths or conventions 
 by doing it. But be very certain that they 
 are truths to you before you begin your oppo- 
 sition, and while you are hesitating, again re- 
 member the words of one whom you will read 
 some day: 'You shall listen to all sides and 
 filter them from yourself.' Don't fight exist- 
 ing truths just for the sake of fighting; but if 
 there is anything in you which challenges 
 them, keep them by you till you can test them 
 by the acid of your own experience, and then 
 say what you will and do what you must. 
 
 And if the God of Churches, or the God of 
 Reason, fails you, go out to that other God, 
 the God of the open world. He will speak 
 to you in the wind and the trees and the sky. 
 He will tell you great unspoken things in the 
 1 20
 
 On Religion 
 
 swaying of the branches and the beating of 
 the rain, and dear tender things in the blades 
 of grass and the cool fronded streams. He 
 will make you that you are not afraid when 
 you are with Him. 
 
 Sometimes, little son, before I was happy 
 with your father, I have left the house and 
 gone stumbling up the hill, with such pain 
 tearing at my throat and blinding my eyes 
 that I could scarcely see where I was walking. 
 And I have come back sane and with my 
 head up, The pain was still there, but a cool 
 hand had been laid upon my head and the 
 frenzy was gone. And if you are like me, 
 you will get more peace and strength from 
 the sound of the wind in the trees than from 
 all the books of philosophy that ever were 
 written. When I was trying to fit myself in 
 with everything that man ever said, like the 
 poor gentleman with the ass in the fable, I 
 used to worry terribly because no written 
 
 121
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 creed could give me what I got from waving 
 grass or running water. I was brought up like 
 a dutiful child, to believe that everybody 
 older than I must know better than I because 
 he was older. It's a good and necessary 
 thing to believe, as long as you ought, be- 
 loved, because it saves you from a heap of 
 your own mistakes and also from being 
 thought, rightly, an insufferable little prig. 
 But I went on thinking it too long, just be- 
 cause, I suppose, it had become a habit. I 
 was like a baby being wheeled about in a 
 perambulator years after I should have been 
 walking. I felt the urge to use my legs, but 
 it meant gathering one's self up to take the 
 plunge out of the perambulator, and such a 
 thing was not easy when every one round 
 about was waiting and ready, at the first sign, 
 to stuff you back again. And it is harder 
 even for girl-babies to leave the perambulator 
 than it is for boy-ones, because the whole 
 
 122
 
 On Religion 
 
 world seems to resent the truth that girls have 
 legs at ally for walking purposes. That is, 
 mental legs, you understand, Kindchen. 
 
 So I went on trying to take headers out of 
 the perambulator, and being seized by the 
 heels and put back, till sometimes, when an 
 adventure with its after-cure of chastisement 
 had left me more than ordinarily breathless, 
 I would wonder if it was really better to stay 
 where I was. But if you've got to walk, 
 you've got to, honey, and that's all about it; 
 and at last I found myself really out of the 
 perambulator. 
 
 Then came the aches and pains in my poor 
 legs, and sometimes the longing to be back 
 again in the comfortable carriage I had left. 
 But I found that when once you had walked 
 you could n't go back; and when my mental 
 feet were weary, I just went out on my 
 material ones, and got from the stars and the 
 night-dews and the scented earth all that my 
 123
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 own and other people's tongue-waggings had 
 lost me. 
 
 Yet there were those who condemned such 
 communion as unchristian, and others who 
 dismissed it as mere sensuousness; and in 
 sheer bewilderment I wondered if every- 
 thing that was natural and spontaneous in the 
 heart of man must be plucked out and sup- 
 planted by everything that was conscious 
 and artificial. Oh, beloved, how sick I got of 
 it at times ! I used to feel as you would if you 
 were called in to wash your hands, and put 
 on tight shoes for a drawing-room tea, when 
 you might be bathing naked in a clear pool 
 or sprawling free on a grass-covered hill. 
 And it does n't make you good to be in a 
 drawing-room when you don't want to be 
 there, any more than it makes you bad to be 
 on a hill-top when you do. As a matter of 
 courtesy you wash your hands and come 
 inside, but not as a matter of conviction. 
 124
 
 On Religion 
 
 Then, when you foolishly try, as I did, to 
 make it a matter of conviction, you create 
 out of yourself something that is neither fish, 
 flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring some- 
 thing that is of no use to any one, and a bur- 
 den to yourself. 
 
 But once I went to a dinner-party and sat 
 next a man who felt as I did, and he told me 
 of a little book called ' The New Sayings of 
 Jesus.' I bought it and found something 
 between the leaves of it that was like a mes- 
 sage, and it seemed to snap the last thread 
 that held the tatters of my doubts around me. 
 
 'Jesus saith, whenever there are two they 
 are not without God, and whenever there is 
 one alone I say I am with him. Raise the 
 stone and there thou shall find me, cleave the 
 wood and there am /.' 
 
 It did n't matter whether the Man who 
 said it was divine ; His right to say it was the 
 perfection of His own life; and when you 
 125
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 found such a one supporting what in you 
 was an ineradicable instinct, you felt you 
 could just let the little doxy-mongers go. If 
 they found God in argument, they must go 
 to argument for Him ; but if you felt Him in 
 the trees and the stones, that was the place 
 for you to look ; and the assurance of a man 
 as great as Jesus Christ was surely assurance 
 enough, if assurance were needed ! 
 
 So if it comes to you, my son, to get your 
 strength and your consolation and your 
 power from the silent things of the earth, let 
 no one make you believe it anything but 
 right. 
 
 For myself, all that I can say is, flowers 
 in a garden make me want to be good; and 
 wind blowing in the tree-tops tells me I am 
 eternal. And the sun and the flowers and 
 the trees and the wind make me feel that I 
 must stand bareheaded with my face to the 
 sky, and say, 'Thank you* to something; 
 126
 
 On Religion 
 
 and wanting to say, 'Thank you* makes my 
 heart feel tender to everything that lives. 
 Oh, little thing, as you lie beneath my heart, 
 I would think great and tender things, that 
 you in the quietness of your growing-time 
 may grow as great and loving as I myself 
 would like to be.
 
 VIII 
 
 On Respecting 
 the Body
 
 VIII 
 
 On Respecting 
 the Body 
 
 SOMETIMES, knowing what the dan- 
 gers are that beset a child from the mo- 
 ment when his brain begins to work and his 
 mind to observe, I have suffered very great 
 fear for you. I have thought of you as you lay, 
 a little unconscious nursling, in your cradle, 
 and then, as an eager stumbling baby whose 
 steps I followed while you staggered haltingly 
 from chair to chair. I was there to save you, 
 to stretch out my hand and preserve you from 
 the sharp corners of chairs that would have 
 bruised you if you had fallen against them. 
 I knew where the danger lay and I saw when 
 the insecurity threatened, and I was ready.
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 And I pictured you in later years, going to 
 school, full of the wonder of the unknown, 
 sitting bolt upright, with shining eyes, beside 
 your father, who was carrying you off to that 
 new world through the gates of which you 
 saw your manhood beckoning. 
 
 And as you drove away I watched you far 
 down the road till the bend carried you out 
 of sight. Just before the carriage disap- 
 peared, you stood up and waved your little 
 cap high over your head, and I waved back, 
 standing quite, quite still. But my heart was 
 running, beloved, running fast and breath- 
 less and sobbing, after the wheels that were 
 carrying the baby from me forever. I knew 
 you had to grow into a man and I would not 
 keep you back, but the moment of renounce- 
 ment was like a thousand years of pain. You 
 would come back to me, but the baby that 
 used to bring his broken knees to be kissed 
 and who crooned his drowsy little self to 
 132
 
 On Respecting the Body 
 
 sleep upon my neck would be gone, and I 
 could but fill my arms with dreams of him. 
 
 And during the days that followed, when I 
 was teaching myself not to listen for your 
 footsteps in the house or your impetuous 
 knock upon my door, the vision of your life 
 at school was always with me. In my longing 
 to protect you, my mind flew to the unsus- 
 pected dangers that might be upon you before 
 you understood their significance or their 
 consequence. I knew how other lives as 
 splendid and as well-begun as yours, had been 
 wrecked through lack of knowledge and wise 
 guidance in their growing-time; and the fear 
 that you might suffer so was such an anguish 
 to me that I wanted to run to you there and 
 then, and snatch you from the very chance 
 of it. 
 
 But oh, honey, what a silly old mummy it 
 was, was n't it ? Fancy if I had burst into 
 the master's study and demanded you from
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 him because I was afraid you were going to 
 know things that would n't be good for you, 
 and I was n't sure whether you 'd have the 
 courage or the sense or the will to overcome ! 
 He would have been astonished and you 
 would have been cross and I should have got 
 into trouble! 
 
 So, as that was no use, I just sat down 
 quietly to think it all out to find a way. 
 My first instinct was to keep you ignorant 
 at any cost, but my second told me that there 
 could be no growth or development in a life 
 lived in a glass-case, and I knew that I would 
 rather have you suffer a thousand times than 
 reach the end of your life untried, unproved, 
 and undeveloped. 
 
 But there is one thing I am going to ask of 
 you and it is this : be content to believe im- 
 plicitly what I tell you with regard to the 
 preservation of your body, until the time 
 comes when you can understand the truth
 
 On Respecting the Body 
 
 of things and choose for yourself. This will 
 perhaps carry you up to the time of going to 
 college and even after; but remember that, 
 from the moment your mind intelligently 
 asks the reason why, I want no wnquestion- 
 ing obedience. Come to me or to Oliver, and 
 we will talk it over. There are some who 
 may not understand. So many people seem 
 to think that refusing to see life as it is is a 
 mark of spirituality, and that wanting to 
 know is merely an improper curiosity. That 
 may be so for them, but it is not so for the 
 surgeon, the scientist, the philosopher; and 
 it will not be so for you, beloved, for you 
 are going to be a man and a fine splendid 
 man, not a skulker behind the skirts of 
 Inexperience. 
 
 But while I would not have you shirk 
 anything that would go to your making, yet 
 I would not have you hanging about on the 
 doorstep of life waiting to dart out at every
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 little sensation that flitted by. I don't think 
 there will be much fear of that, for, what 
 with your cricket and your footer and your 
 lessons and your * lines ' and the thought of 
 what you 're going to be when you Ve got a 
 mustache, you won't have a great deal of 
 time for anything but sleep. And such a 
 division of time is good. 
 
 But if you should be the child whose 
 activities lie equally in the brain as in the 
 body, whose imagination is as keen as his 
 capacity for living, then the situation may 
 not be so simple. 
 
 There are thoughts which come to most 
 of us in the unconscious years of our life, 
 floating nebulously for a while through our 
 understanding, and disappearing in the in- 
 terest of outside environment. But some- 
 times a chance happening will cause them 
 to take shape and to crystallize, and the re- 
 sult of such thoughts, through ignorance, 
 136
 
 On Respecting the Body 
 
 may in later years cloud and hamper a life- 
 time. 
 
 Now I am not going to talk any pretty talk 
 about ideals, because you'd immediately 
 get a vision of long-haired poets and stained- 
 glass saints, and you would n't listen any 
 more. But let me put it this way. If it were 
 said to you by some one who knew all about 
 it : * You jolly well can't cox if you eat jam- 
 tart at that rate,' you would let the jam-tart 
 go, I think. You would do that because you 
 did n't want to be kept out of your race. And 
 I would tell you that there are great things 
 coming to you with your manhood, and that 
 you must keep your body clean and whole- 
 some for them. Any act or thought that is 
 secret and carries with it fear of detection is 
 not good; and for that reason I want you 
 always to go out when your mind is perturbed 
 or your imagination is stirring. It is not that 
 I want to talk morality, no man can make 
 137
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 morality for another, it is just that I want 
 you to have your chance to be whole and 
 perfect when you come to choose intelli- 
 gently your good and evil. If, when you were 
 too small to understand, you had grasped 
 the candle-flame and your little ringers had 
 blistered and grown together so that you 
 were unable ever afterwards to spread your 
 hand out or grasp anything properly, the 
 moment of anticipation would not pay for 
 the pain and the perpetual handicap that 
 indulgence had imposed upon you. And 
 there are acts committed just as heedlessly, 
 and with no wilful thought of evil, which do 
 not inflict the immediate pain of the candle- 
 flame, but which might suddenly and in your 
 prime disqualify you from all splendid activ- 
 ities in the race that is not finished till our 
 very last breath is drawn. 
 
 I, who in my selfishness would keep you 
 always the little baby who looked to me for 
 138
 
 On Respecting the Body 
 
 everything, and who knew no greater wicked- 
 ness than lying open-eyed when he should 
 be sleeping, I would tell you of these things, 
 not to force them upon you but that you 
 should have a guard in your hand in case you 
 needed one. Danger-signals are not hoisted 
 that people should run into risk, but that they 
 should avoid it, and wise people use them so. 
 And I am sure you will be wise enough for 
 that, won't you, beloved ?
 
 IX 
 
 On a Hair-Brush
 
 IX 
 
 On a Hair-Brush 
 
 TO-DAY, when Oliver came back from 
 town, he brought a little hair-brush 
 for you from the ivory shop in Piccadilly. 
 
 'There was one I hesitated about, won- 
 dering if you would like it better,' he said, 
 * a jolly little silver thing enamelled all over 
 with roses; then I thought it was scarcely 
 up to a man to have roses on his hair-brush, 
 so I took this. Is it right ? * 
 
 'It's lovely,' I said, turning it over and 
 brushing the back of my hand with it, ' but 
 you did n't get his name put on it.' 
 
 'What is his name ?' asked Oliver as if he 
 did n't know all the time. 
 H3
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 I hesitated a moment and he waited ex- 
 pectantly. 
 
 * I was thinking of calling him Horace or 
 Reginald,' I said. 'What do you think?' 
 
 He caught hold of my wrists. 'I think,' he 
 said, 'that you don't speak the truth and I 
 shall have to punish you.' 
 
 'How?' 
 
 * I shall not be able to kiss you till you do/ 
 (Just what I '11 have to say to you, honey.) 
 
 'Horace or Reginald,' I said looking up at 
 him deliberately, 'perhaps both.' 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 'That means you don't want me to kiss 
 you ? ' 
 
 I did n't answer. He looked such a darling 
 that I was wondering how long I could go on. 
 It was like holding your breath. 
 
 ' I must try it another way,' he said as if 
 to himself. 
 
 Then he looked at me gravely. 
 144
 
 On a Hair-Brush 
 
 * Margie,' he said, ' if you won't speak the 
 truth I '11 kiss you till you do.' 
 
 ' His name 's Oliver, of course,' I said, in a 
 terrific hurry. 
 
 Oliver looked at me. For one part of a 
 moment he seemed as if he were going to do 
 what I expected ; then he dropped my wrists 
 and turned away. 
 
 'You've just saved yourself,' he said 
 blandly. 
 
 'Oh!' 
 
 I nipped it off my tongue in time. He took 
 his everlasting pipe out of his pocket and 
 began wriggling a hairpin up the stem of it. 
 I went on watching his calm unconscious 
 back with indignation. I wish we had had 
 pipes to play with at psychological moments. 
 
 'Oliver!' 
 
 'Margie.' 
 
 He said it politely but he did n't turn 
 round. I threw up the sponge. 
 HI
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 'Oh, I don't want to be saved!' I said ex- 
 asperatedly. 
 
 Indeed the very nicest of you men are try- 
 ing at times. 
 
 Concerning that hair-brush, beloved, it 
 was bought for you with great love and 
 thoughtfulness, and while I, believing in the 
 absolute freedom of the individual, would 
 hate to be arbitrary or dogmatic, yet I can- 
 not refrain from suggesting that you should 
 meet us half-way in the matter. 
 
 It is the custom of a great many babies to 
 go through the earliest stages of their exist- 
 ence with their heads in a state of discon- 
 certing nudity; and you must know, if you 
 have any intuitive feeling at all, how dis- 
 heartening such a condition is to those people 
 who are doing all in their power to provide 
 for your needs and to make you welcome. 
 I feel that anyhow you will be rather a shock 
 146
 
 On a Hair-Brush 
 
 to Oliver, because I'm afraid that he has 
 got it into his head you are going to be born 
 with long curls and a blue sash ; so although 
 I won't try to bias or restrict you, beloved, I 
 must ask you, if you are going to be bald, not 
 to be spitefully bald.
 
 X 
 
 On Fear
 
 X 
 
 On Fear 
 
 THERE are times when I get horribly 
 afraid; afraid that I may not live to 
 hold you in my arms and watch you grow to 
 be a man. Oh, I 'm not afraid of death and 
 what comes after ! I 'm only afraid of leaving 
 you and Oliver. I want to stay with you both, 
 to live with you and laugh with you and weep 
 with you, to share your pleasures and your 
 pains, to take care of you and to be taken care 
 of by you. I know that the world would n't 
 stop revolving if I dropped out, I know my 
 gap would very quickly be filled by a hundred 
 greater, better, wiser than I; but I want to 
 stay ! It comes over me so desperately some-
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 times, and it is the ridiculous little nothings 
 of life that bring it. 
 
 This morning I was looking through a 
 basket of mending. I picked up one of 
 Oliver's socks and drew it over my hand: 
 there was the same little hole in the same 
 place that is there every week in every pair. 
 I remembered how, once, in one sock I had 
 not found it, and how absurdly cheated I had 
 felt. Probing right to the heart of the matter, 
 I discovered the reason why. He had put on 
 a pair, and then changed them for another 
 without wearing them. I could not have 
 rested till I got to the truth. 
 
 As I looked at the sock upon my hand I 
 smiled, and then, being quite alone, I kissed 
 it. It did so belong to Oliver that it was 
 almost like his being in the room. Why 
 should a great big man patiently go on wear- 
 ing the same silly little hole in his socks week 
 after week, month after month, year after 
 152
 
 On Fear 
 
 year, unless it was meant to be him as much 
 as his hair and his teeth and his eyes were 
 him ? I kissed it again. 
 
 Then, suddenly, it came over me that in a 
 few more months I might know nothing 
 about either Oliver or you or the lovely 
 ordinary things that go to make up warm, 
 heartbreaking, human, throbbing life. Oliver 
 would wear the holes and have them mended 
 every week, you would cry and be comforted, 
 go to sleep and be dressed, be dosed with 
 dill-water and decked with ribbons, change 
 from long to short clothes, from short clothes 
 to jumpers, and from jumpers to knicker- 
 bockers and glory. And I I would be 
 somewhere outside, with never a sight or a 
 sound of all the things that I loved; and never 
 a touch. 
 
 In the extreme moment, I forgot you. 
 Sometimes, when I have been hunting about 
 for the best way of helping you to be a man,
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 it has seemed as if perhaps I might be more 
 useful as a memory than as a mother, be- 
 cause, as you know already, beloved, I am so 
 full of stupidnesses and evilnesses and dis- 
 appointingnesses, that you might find it dif- 
 ficult to take in what I said while you were 
 watching what I did. Looking at it that way, 
 I began to wonder whether I did n't owe it 
 to you to retire. 
 
 But this morning I had no such selfless 
 thoughts; only a great overwhelming fear, 
 that filled the listening silences and held me 
 still while I waited for that which was going 
 to take me away from you and Oliver and the 
 flowers and the sun and the dear muddy 
 streets and the dull winter days with the fire- 
 light to make them beautiful and tender and 
 intimate. 
 
 Then I forgot you, and only Oliver re- 
 mained. He was my man and I could not 
 leave him. We had lived together, lain to- 
 '54
 
 On Fear 
 
 gather, loved together, and shared together 
 for seven splendid years, and we were part 
 of each other. He would not let me go. If 
 I went to him now, he would take me in his 
 arms and hold me safe from all fear and all 
 harm. Love would make me invulnerable : 
 I should not die. Oliver would not let me 
 die. 
 
 But all the time a clear relentless voice 
 kept saying inside my head : ' Love has not 
 held others, why should it hold you ? It has 
 not made exception for others, why should 
 it make exception for you ? There are no 
 exceptions. When your moment comes, you 
 go just as surely and certainly as the sun sets 
 and the moon wanes.' 
 
 In a terror I jumped up to run to him; 
 then suddenly I remembered something and 
 stopped. 
 
 A while ago I had tried to talk with him 
 about the bringing up of you in case I did
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 not get through. The things I spoke of were 
 just ordinary things, like sleeping with your 
 window open and wearing light warm cloth- 
 ing. Then I went on to say that, first and 
 foremost and last and always, I wanted you 
 to be an honest person whatever else you 
 were, when I looked up and saw Oliver's 
 face. 
 
 There was such hurt in it that I stopped 
 short. I had forgotten everything but you 
 and your needs till then. I got up and went 
 over to him. 
 
 'Stupid/ I said, putting my arm round his 
 neck and rubbing my cheek against his 
 own. ' I am not really going to die. It was 
 only " in case." ' I laughed ever such a little 
 bit. 
 
 He pulled me down on to his knee and held 
 me close but he did n't speak. 
 
 'It would be a very careless thing to do,' 
 I went on, smoothing the lines out of his 
 
 156
 
 On Fear 
 
 forehead with my thumb and finger; ' a very 
 careless thing, with two men to be looked 
 after and one only just used to the pernickety 
 ways of one of them ! Smile at me, grumpy/ 
 
 He went on staring at me miserably. 
 
 'Margie,' he said at last, almost in a whis- 
 per, 'you won't leave me, you'll stay with 
 me always ? ' 
 
 'Always and always and always,' I said, 
 taking his face between my hands and kissing 
 it over and over again. 
 
 So, whenever I have been afraid since, I 
 have kept it to myself; but this morning the 
 fear was so horrible that I would have rushed 
 to him in the mad terror of it if I had not 
 remembered just in time. 
 
 I dropped back into the chair and held on 
 to the arms, trying to pull myself together, 
 but it was no use. Something was coming 
 steadily, slowly, inevitably, to take me away 
 from Oliver. My mind was like a great fear- 
 '57
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 swept space. The Thing came with a muffled 
 tramp, nearer, nearer, like the advance of 
 an invisible army. 
 
 The room was very quiet. Through the 
 open window came the whirr of a reaping- 
 machine in a distant field ; it sounded a long 
 way off, almost as if it were in another world. 
 A little clock on the mantelpiece was ticking 
 the time away. 
 
 I put up my hand and caught at my throat; 
 I was choking. Oh, to get to Oliver before 
 this Thing took me, to be able to hear the 
 sound of his voice, to feel the roughness of 
 his coat-sleeve! Before I knew what I was 
 doing, I was tearing along the corridor to the 
 study. 
 
 It was empty. I turned and ran toward the 
 gun-room, pushing open the door and almost 
 falling through it. 
 
 He was there with a gun in pieces on the 
 table, examining it.
 
 On Fear 
 
 As the door burst open, he looked up 
 quickly. 
 
 'What is it?' he spoke sharply, impera- 
 tively. 
 
 I pulled myself up. 
 
 'It's nothing,' I gasped. 'I only won- 
 dered where you were/ 
 
 But I dropped my eyes because I could 
 feel that all the horror that was in my mind 
 was in them too. And I tried to keep my 
 fingers off his coat but I could n't, beloved. 
 
 He did n't say a word. He went over and 
 locked the door; then he picked me up as if 
 I were no weight at all, and carried me to the 
 big chair by the fireplace, and together we 
 stayed, so, for a long beautiful time, he hold- 
 ing me close in his arms, I lying there still 
 and quiet. And every now and then he would 
 lay his cheek to mine, and I would put my 
 hand up and touch his face; and gradu- 
 ally all the fear went and it seemed as if I 
 159
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 could have died then, easily, for very hap- 
 piness. 
 
 All the day, till now, he has not left me and 
 only now because I have made him. I said 
 I had something important to do and that I 
 would never do it unless he went right away; 
 for truly, beloved, I have felt restless when 
 he has gone even as far as the next room. 
 But I knew he was wanted in one of the fields, 
 so I made a mighty effort; and he is off with 
 Trixie at his heels, and I, little son, am telling 
 you all about it, perhaps because I want to 
 ease my mind and perhaps because you will 
 have a woman of your own some day, and it 
 will not be bad for her that you should know. 
 
 Your father has given me very much joy 
 always, beloved.
 
 XI 
 
 On Living Heartily
 
 XI 
 
 On Living Heartily 
 
 THERE lives a man not far away, 
 who is spending a good deal of his time 
 just now in working out a plan for the happi- 
 ness of himself and mankind in general, if 
 mankind in general is going to bend an ear 
 to listen. Every now and then he dines with 
 us or we with him, and on those occasions any 
 one present has an opportunity of hearing 
 all about it. Last night he came to us. After 
 he had gone, Oliver walked into the draw- 
 ing-room where I was sitting by myself, and 
 shutting the door carefully behind him, stood 
 still in the middle of the room looking at me. 
 I looked back at him without speaking. 
 163
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 * Mason's a good chap,' he said at last 
 slowly, 'and I suppose it takes all sorts to 
 make a world ; but I 'd be sorry if he had the 
 making of mine.' 
 
 There was a shadow in his eyes almost as 
 if Mason's talk had troubled him. 
 I laughed. 
 
 * Don't you worry,' I said, 'his sort has n't 
 the making of any worlds, only the talking of 
 them.' 
 
 He stood so for a moment more, then his 
 eyes cleared and he came and put his hands 
 on my shoulders, bending over me and gaz- 
 ing down into my face intently. When he 
 spoke it was as if he were saying a creed : 
 
 'Thank God for you and all the trouble 
 you 've cost me ; thank God for rain and fine, 
 for crops that fail, for horses to ride. Thank 
 Him for blood instead of filtered water.' 
 
 He drew a long breath and stood up- 
 right. 
 
 164
 
 On Living Heartily 
 
 'And thank Him for Mason who has taught 
 you to know the value of us,' I said. 
 
 * Thank Him for Mason/ added Oliver, 
 not quite so fervently; and we fell to upon 
 the picture-puzzle that has been tying us in 
 knots for three baffled days. 
 
 At college you will come across a heap of 
 embryo Masons, all setting the machinery 
 of their minds to work upon a scheme that is 
 going to manufacture happiness and admin- 
 ister it in whatever quantities it may be re- 
 quired. You will be able to have an ounce, 
 or a pound, or a ton, but you will be so well- 
 regulated that you will never take more than 
 a nibble, and so you will never have lack or 
 fullness or indigestion or satiety: indeed, 
 beloved, you will never have anything. It 
 sounds jolly, does n't it ? 
 
 I know a good deal about it, for Mason 
 is a kind person and inclined to be sorry for 
 Oliver and me, and I think he wants to help 
 l6 5
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 us. He has told us a lot about what he and 
 his fellow-workers are striving after, and the 
 gist of it appears to be this. 
 
 By the steady application of his treatment, 
 all pain will be abolished and all inconven- 
 ience done away with. If a man finds him- 
 self desiring a thing too much, or hopelessly, 
 he will have it in his power to shut down or 
 divert his passion by a method of reducing 
 the blood-pressure; if he wishes a greater 
 enjoyance of it, he has only to work upon the 
 opposite plan, and satisfaction is his. Prac- 
 tically every creature that is every modern 
 psychologist, which is the name Mason gives 
 himself will be provided with a thermome- 
 ter and two boxes of tabloids, one for and 
 the other against. With the aid of the ther- 
 mometer he will discover his condition and 
 treat it with whichever tabloid meets the case. 
 For him there will be no toilsome hills and 
 dark valleys, no hot sun or beating rain, no 
 1 66
 
 On Living Heartily 
 
 storm or stillness. He will glide forever over 
 the polished surface of his existence, neither 
 hot nor cold, but in an atmosphere regulated 
 by warm-water pipes in the winter of his 
 emotions, and electric fans in the summer. 
 There will be no frosts or failing seasons, no 
 pulse throbbing with fever, no heart sick 
 with disappointment. It will all be a beau- 
 tiful, sterilized calm. 
 
 Beloved, I 've nothing like that to offer 
 you out of my experience. In the world I 
 know there are mountains to breast and val- 
 leys to wade; but the depths of the valley 
 give understanding and the summit of the 
 mountains immortality. If I were to say that 
 to Mason, he would stare for a moment, then 
 he would laugh and say, 'Oh, well, if you are 
 going to talk like that but my philosophy 
 does n't treat with rhetoric, it sticks to facts/ 
 
 My philosophy sticks to facts, too, beloved ; 
 and I who loved you for so long before you
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 were given to me would not want to blind 
 your eyes to truth by a fanfare of fine words 
 when all the day and night my heart is sing- 
 ing with joy at the very thought of your man- 
 hood. I have walked with Mason and he sees 
 nothing. All he knows of the meadows is that 
 they're jolly damp in the evening and are 
 best kept away from ; and of the hill, that to 
 climb it quickly makes your heart beat 
 deuced fast. I have walked with your father, 
 and together we have talked with our lips 
 of other things, and yet not failed to see the 
 moor-hen scurrying her little brood across 
 the stream or the lily-bud sleeping under the 
 willows. Are those dear and tender things 
 less true than the truths that Mason dis- 
 covers in the meadows or on the hill ? and is 
 it necessary that because we leave the mead- 
 ows when the mists are sheeting them, we 
 should lose thought and understanding of the 
 beauties that are always there ? 
 168
 
 On Living Heartily 
 
 Mason would drain and asphalt the fields 
 before he would think it wise to inhabit them, 
 and so he would treat the world of his feel- 
 ings. There are people who mistake his atti- 
 tude for spirituality, and use his theories in 
 the advance of morality; but much as I long 
 for you to be clean and splendid always, I 
 would rather see you run the whole gamut 
 of evil, than I would have you leave the world 
 as undeveloped as you entered it, as unproved 
 and untried as the Masons of the world must 
 be, and of as little use to a troubled man in 
 his human needs. 
 
 Son of my heart, I have, through the pas- 
 sionateness of me, made so many mistakes 
 and done so many foolishnesses, that it 
 would seem as if I might stand for one of the 
 biggest failures that was ever made. But I 
 have seen many great things on the way. 
 The very pain I brought upon myself, and so 
 passionately resented, opened my eyes to the 
 169
 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 pain of others, and there have been a few 
 who have turned to me to weep. Some of the 
 joy that a woman feels when her baby brings 
 his broken knees to her to be mended belongs 
 to the barren woman when a part of the 
 world turns to her to be comforted. I have 
 known that, and I would not change it for 
 all the ease offered by all the philosophers 
 since ever the world began. 
 
 Oh, my son, sometimes I feel fierce for 
 you, and it is so when I think of such men as 
 that. They talk of happiness. 'What do they 
 know of happiness who only happiness 
 know ' ? and what is happiness gained at such 
 a loss ? Would the leader, with the cry of 
 battle ringing in his ears and the hope of 
 victory swelling in his heart, turn from his 
 charge to lie in idleness upon the softest bed 
 that ever was ? Or would the runner, jealous 
 of his swiftness and desiring no reward but 
 the proving of his own supremacy, step into 
 170
 
 On Living Heartily 
 
 a bath-chair and allow himself to be trundled 
 off the course before he had breasted the 
 tape ? Does an eagle break his wing to save 
 himself the trouble of flying ? or a man part 
 with his manhood to rid himself of the burden 
 of his desires ? Ask yourself these questions 
 when you are training for your blue or woo- 
 ing the girl of your heart, and see what use 
 the modern psychologist is then. He will 
 satisfy all those in whose veins trickles tepid 
 water, but the man of blood and passions 
 must look to his own courage and his own 
 strength for help. He wants a lance and a 
 helmet, not a thermometer and a medicine- 
 chest. He will fail by his humanity, but he 
 will succeed by his failures, and the world 
 will be all the warmer because of him. 
 
 Such a man may you be, my beloved. Live 
 
 as greatly with your heart as with your brain, 
 
 that you may grow kind, and as perfectly 
 
 with your body as with your spirit, that you 
 
 171
 
 may keep sane. Mortify nothing for the sheer 
 sake of mortifying, for that is mutilation ; but 
 find out for yourself the difference between 
 that and restraint. 
 
 And above many things, be tender and 
 careful of all women, good or bad, beloved, 
 for indeed they need it. 
 
 I think of you as a man, with my head held 
 high.
 
 XII 
 
 The Last 

 
 XII 
 
 The Last 
 
 LITTLE one, the time has come quite 
 close when I shall have you for my 
 own ; so close that this is the last letter I shall 
 be able to write. Now that it has come, I 
 don't seem to be afraid any more. Perhaps 
 it will take me away from you and Oliver 
 altogether; but I have asked that if I am not 
 to be allowed to stay, I may stay just long 
 enough to feel your lips upon my breast and 
 your head in the hollow of my arm. That 
 will be, I know. For the rest, I can think of 
 nothing but that I shall at last, after all the 
 years of longing, see your face, and feel your 
 little body in my arms. My heart seems to 

 
 Letters to My Son 
 
 be a great white flame, because of the love 
 that is in it, and my body is full of gladness 
 because it is giving you to Oliver. Are you 
 going to be a great little gift, beloved ? In- 
 deed, I think so. Be true, and whatever else 
 your life is, it will be that much finer for it, 
 because there is nothing really great that is 
 not built on truth. Love Oliver without fear, 
 and give him your whole confidence, for he 
 will never abuse it. Little son, you do not 
 know how much I want you to believe that ! 
 And if I am not there, you will love him for 
 me too, won't you ? I am afraid he will be 
 very lonely sometimes, because we have been 
 a great deal to each other; but if he has you 
 it will not hurt quite so much. Oh, my darl- 
 ing, though I am not afraid any more, yet 
 as I write my heart goes out in great longing 
 to live. There are so many things I could do 
 for you both that you cannot do for your- 
 selves; so many ways in which I could be of 
 176
 
 The Last 
 
 use to you, for men, in spite of their man- 
 ness, are in some ways only babies to the very 
 end. That is one of the things that keeps us 
 women loving you; not your greatness, but 
 your need holds us, and as I see myself going 
 out, I wonder anxiously who will watch for 
 Oliver's lumbago, and do exactly what is 
 needed without bothering him too much. 
 He hates too much, but he would be uncom- 
 fortable with too little. And you, if they 
 should send you out without enough warm 
 clothes, or put you into vests that were not 
 properly aired indeed, indeed it would be 
 better if I could stay. 
 
 I cannot write more. Oh, my little, little 
 thing, God bless you always and help you to 
 grow a man ! You will never forget that I am 
 loving you without ceasing, no matter how 
 far away I may seem to be. Good-bye, my 
 darling; perhaps it will only be for a little 
 while. Good-bye.
 
 fiiticrsibc 
 
 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A
 
 i MI inn in i mil ||||| [mi |||; | | 
 
 A 000 046 733 2