Letters to My Son: A mother's words of warmth, wit and wisdom from 100 years ago

by Ursula Bloom

  And, when I talk of drink, I do not talk of the ordinary pint with your lunch and a wine with your dinner. The average man can afford to take this till kingdom come. It won’t hurt him. But you, my son, are not the average man.

  You are going to tackle me when you read this, and say that these traits are not hereditary. I challenge you with ‒ How much do we know about hereditary traits?

  This is a queer world, and whereas we have explored far into some channels, we have left others untouched. It is absurd that here in the 1920s, we cannot decide the sex of unborn children, we cannot cure the common cold, and we allow cancer to set a scythe to our thousands. We don’t know to-day very much about how a child inherits, but that he does inherit is something we do not deny.

  I believe that a baby is made from the two sides in this kind of proportion: One half, a quarter from father, a quarter from mother. Quarter of the other half, from the four grandparents. The other quarter from the great- and great-great-grandparents. Which means that tendencies, likes and dislikes, qualities and faults must be inherited in some small proportion. It is true that there can be the child who takes all from one side or another, and who is the actual counterpart of some relative, but this is the exception. The average person inherits from one side and the other. His health probably is liable to certain illnesses if they ‘run in the family’. Weak chests pursue some families, the tendency to tipple chases others.

  Because of this, you have got to be more careful than most people. You have got to recognize the fact that the dice may be weighted, and not in your favour. To blind yourself to this would be the greatest folly, and as your own happiness is at stake, I should look it clearly between the eyes.

  If you do not tempt Providence, then you will not be tempted. If you do not give drink the chance to corrupt you, it can only retire disgruntled, and you will have helped clear off a stigma for your own children. But if you start thinking that these things don’t matter very much really, you will find that you have taken on a foe far too wily for you. You won’t realize his strength until he is too big for you to overcome.

  That is his method of fighting.

  This thing killed your father. Do you suppose that he wanted to die? Do you suppose that in the beginning when, as a very, very young man, he took something to give him Dutch courage, he realised how vile a foe he had met? Although he maintained that he could break himself if he chose, but he just didn’t choose, he said also that if he ever saw you drunk, he would kill you, knowing that it was better than that you should suffer as he had suffered. So he did suffer badly; he admitted it in that one remark.

  I hope very much that, recognizing the cards so strongly against you, you will be wise enough to cut the whole thing out. Only the strong man runs the gauntlet of his friends’ chaff in such a way. No need to be unfriendly about it, no need to be depressed; people can be just as cheery on water, if they never get the drinking habit. It is very largely habit, I can promise you.

  I can imagine you in fifteen years’ time, laying this book down, and saying ‘Poor old girl! She’s been bitten badly, and you couldn’t expect her to have anything else but a bee in her bonnet’.

  I am not a ‘poor old girl’. I am still in the twenties, and what is more I haven’t got a bee in my bonnet.

  But I’ve got some sound sense at the back of my head, and you’d be a wise young man to avail yourself of some of it.

  You will be better off taking up card-sharping as a hobby; you are far more likely to get away with it, than you are if you take up drink. If you start drinking, it will mean a nice white tombstone with R.I.P. above it, and your initials engraved on the lesser tombstone at your feet.

  The friends who agreed that you were such a sport will say, ‘Poor old chap! he wasn’t a one-bottle man really, but of course he never realized it’. They won’t be sympathetic.

  And I, if I am alive, shall protest, as the mothers of all time have protested, ‘He was led astray; he couldn’t help it’. More fool me! Because honestly it won’t be that you were led astray. It will be that you didn’t take this letter to you seriously.

  Read it again, and digest it. It may be your pass to long life.

  Always your loving

  Mother.

  EXPERIENCE

  Frinton-on-Sea.

  July 1919.

  MY DEAR SON,

  Experience is something about which grown-up people talk a great deal, and the older they get the more they are inclined to magnify the value of it. That is, I suppose, because ultimately it is their only claim to any laurels in life at all, which sounds a bitter thing to say; but, then, I have suffered a great deal from other people’s experience, which seems always to make them think that they can run my life for me.

  I very much doubt the intrinsic value of what is only a second-hand commodity.

  This letter ought to be omitted from the book, because it is not a letter to my son at all, but a grouse from a girl who is herself a little doubtful about the value of this knowledge which very much older people are continually thrusting upon her.

  I feel to-day much as you may feel when you read this, because there will not be such an enormous difference between our ages then.

  Oh, Pip, how much I wish that you were twenty now, and that I could be a girl with you and laugh at some of the absurdities of life!

  Experience is something which the grown-up always has, and which you can only acquire. The difficulty is that they are for ever trying to palm off their second-hand experience at bargain prices. It is something which loses its value entirely when it becomes second-hand, and it has no bargain price. But you cannot make grown-up people see this.

  Mother was always giving me the benefit of her experience on the matter of how to conduct my wholly unsatisfactory love affairs. Mother lived in the days of the ‘Queen-of-the-Roses’ waltz, and the bustle and the chaperone. I didn’t. In Mother’s days you had only to simper, and to look shy, and apparently gentlemen said ‘How sweet she is! I must propose at once. Honour demands it.’ If I simpered and looked shy, acting on the experience which Mother had accumulated, young men merely said, ‘That girl has got nothing to say for herself; what an ass she is!’

  So a fat lot of good experience was to me!

  For that reason I doubt very much if my experience of to-day is going to be of any real and vital use to you in the living of your life tomorrow.

  The world changes so much, and an entirely new race of people appears upon its face, so that it stands to reason that things are liable to become complicated.

  I am afraid that knowledge is something which you have to buy for yourself, and that you have to pay the top price for it every time. Life has no bargain lines to offer you in this particular department. You over-pay always.

  But there is a certain satisfaction, even though it may be combined with bitterness, in the buying of your own experience and paying for it yourself. The story of somebody else’s affairs is never so wholly satisfactory as having an affair of your own, even if you do shed tears over it, and bewail your lot for a time, and wish that you had never been born.

  It is quite fair that you should make your own mistakes and face up to the bill that life proffers for them. But there is one point which I would like to emphasize. You must not be prepared to let anybody else share the paying for your own errors. This in particular applies to your affairs with women. Don’t be a heart-breaker, don’t love them and leave them. Men have a little trick of doing this, and it is so very cruel, because women are far more emotional and can suffer so much. Men are more physically minded, but women are far more emotional. The body can never hurt as badly as can the mind; it is because women feel things so acutely mentally that they are liable to suffer so much more. Remember this in your dealings with them.

  A man forgets only too easily. When his love affair is over it is dead as a door-nail. Nothing can revive it. The first girl that he kissed has escaped his memory. ‘See, now who the dickens was it?’ he asks himself,
and has but the haziest remembrance. But a girl thinks differently. She never forgets the first man who has kissed her.

  Because of this very startling difference between the sexes, it is your duty to think a little more deeply for the girl in the case and to realize that she is always a great deal more likely to be hurt than a man is.

  Whilst a man hardly ever thinks of his marriage until the day when he suddenly falls physically in love, the girl is thinking about it all the time. From her nursery days she is taught to contemplate the moment when she marries. Her wedding frock is discussed all through her preceding life. She wonders who the man will be. It is the pivot round which her world focuses, and, because of this, you cannot expect her to be ready to treat it as any but the very primary object in her life. Whilst your training will be all in the sphere of games and the major importance of your career, hers is all centred on the great day when she marries and follows the fairytale ending (we hope) of living happily ever afterwards.

  Now do remember that every woman you meet has one half-eye open as to the possibilities of you as a husband. She will not show it. She will never let a stray remark drop, but you may bet your bottom dollar that she feels about it, because it is second nature for her to think that way.

  Also her mother has the object of getting the girl safely and satisfactorily married. She will not be missing opportunities. And although you may think yourself extremely clever (most of us do in the early twenties), you will never be quite clever enough for designing mamma.

  The affair which is to you merely a passing flirtation may represent to the girl the big occasion which will ultimately lead her to the church porch. You will wake up in a panic realizing that you don’t want to be led. She will weep about it. Ultimately you will leave her, and feel that you are behaving like a cad and that she is desperately hurt, after which she will talk about you as being an awful young man and quite undesirable. It won’t hurt you, because the ridiculous part of this world is that whereas a bad reputation quite often makes a man additionally attractive, it is social suicide to a woman.

  I always think that this is grossly unfair, but it is life all the same.

  Life has got a down on the girls!

  To return to the point in hand. You have got to bear in mind that your flirtation may be her love affair, and for that reason it is your duty to look ahead, and remember that it is unfair to hurt her too much.

  And here am I trying to sell you my second-hand experience, just as my mother tried to sell me her ‘Queen-of-the-Roses’ waltz and the shy look in the eyes, which never was one bit of good to me.

  It won’t do.

  You will have to pay in your own coin, and old man Life, keeping his shop, which has no bargain basement, will wink the other eye at you. One day you will wake up to all this, and you will say, ‘What a cheat that old fellow is!’ But nothing that I can say now will make you realize how foully he cheats until you actually wake up to it yourself.

  So don’t stay asleep too long, or he really will get the better of you.

  Always your loving

  Mother.

  CAREERS

  Frinton-on-Sea.

  August 1920.

  DEAR BOY,

  In a woman’s life, choosing a husband is quite the most important item; in a man’s life, it is choosing a career. Love is a woman’s whole existence, as someone once said, I believe it was Lord Byron, but of man’s life it is a thing apart.

  Probably the real reason is that whereas love is mainly a physical emotion with a man, it is in the chief a mental one with a woman. But that is not for us to go into at the moment.

  Choosing a career is important, and it is one of the inconsistencies of living that a man is called upon to make that choice at a time of his life when he is hopelessly unfitted to make any definite choice at all. You have to form some idea of what you want to be while you are still at school, because special training is necessary, and while you are still at school, the big business of living life is something you cannot cope with. But as all little boys have to jump this hurdle, I suppose we cannot complain. Making quite sure that you have chosen the right career when you have actually launched yourself into it is another major importance in your life.

  If you think that you have made a mistake and chosen the wrong profession, you must be brave enough to make a change. Far better to change your mind at the beginning, than to try to go on, slogging at something which in your heart you will always hate. Too much of your life will be spent on that career for you to afford to choose something which really you do not care about.

  Only do not allow yourself to get into the changing habit. There are men who develop this habit badly. They change the first time from necessity, and because quite honestly they formed the opinion that they were in the wrong niche. When they have got over the thrill of changing their niche and have settled down into their new stride, they get bored, and begin to chafe. This is not because it is the wrong niche at all, but because they felt that way; it happens to most people. It is part of the process of settling-down, and the thing to do is to treat it calmly, not to lose your head, but to set your teeth and darned well go through with it.

  But the average young man who gets the changing habit does not adopt this attitude. He remembers that last time he had made an honest mistake, and therefore makes a further mistake by altering his calling again.

  That is the beginning of getting the habit.

  It is difficult to guide you as to how to face up to this difficulty in your life. You have got to be quite sure that you have made a mistake before you start shifting. You have got to be honest with yourself (and this is not easy), and be quite certain of the fact that you are not chafing against routine, or that you are not slightly disappointed (as we all must be at some time or other) in the fact that the office is dull, or the people in it stuffy, or something else of that kind.

  In common fairness to life, let it be said that all careers have their disappointing side. When you start out on them, you are so full of enthusiasm, and so determined to do your best by them, that quite often it is your own joyousness that is standing in the way.

  Don’t be misled into coveting the other fellow’s job. He has his difficulties too. The reason you envy him is that you don’t know the pin-pricks, and that you are therefore not qualified to form a fair conclusion about it.

  But I would emphasize the fact that you ought to be what you personally want to be.

  Parents try to influence their young. They try to guide them, when really the main influence should be the child’s own instincts and likes and dislikes, and his personal feelings on the matter.

  You will be a rich young man, and in some ways this is very unfortunate. Money does not make people nicer. There will be no need for you to earn, but at the same time I would warn you that it is a man’s duty to do something for others, to work in some shape or form, even if not for money, for the good of his own soul. That sounds like preaching, and I do not mean it that way. Nobody who is idle is happy.

  I do want you to remember that.

  Give your youth at least to qualifying for some career, and realize that you have to pull your weight in this world, even though you shirk it at first, and that pulling your weight is the royal road to being satisfied and contented.

  We are here to work. Unless we fulfil the elemental essentials for which we were put into the world, we cannot be happy people.

  The difficulty is in making your choice of what you want to be. You will have some natural bent, of course ‒ we all have ‒ and this should be your signpost.

  Heaven knows what you will choose.

  Your father was at the Bar. Personally I feel that you have got to be very fond of the law if you want to qualify for it. It is a tedious profession. Your grandfather was in the army, and from what I see of you to-day fighting for a bottle, or maintaining law and order in your life, you would make a very fine soldier.

  My people were parsons, and I feel that this is an exacting
life, if you are to be a good parson, and I hold no brief for the duds.

  I would advise any young man to keep out of the Church unless he means to lead a very praiseworthy and exemplary life. You can cheat with impunity at most careers, but don’t cheat in your religion. I should hate to own you as a son if I thought that you would ever do this.

  The decision about your future is something that you, and only you, can make. I doubt if others can help you very much. I always wanted to be a writer, and this was stopped when I was a child. My people had had three generations of writers, and had formed the conclusion that it was a very hard life and that the rewards were not big. I have nursed a horrid sense of restlessness, of impotent fury, because I wasted years in qualifying for something which I did not care about or want to be, when I could have laid the groundwork towards being a far greater writer than I shall ever be now.

  I don’t want you to have this feeling ever. I want you to benefit by my experience (here I am, hawking round my old second-hand experience again, and all quite against my own preaching). I want you to be what you want to be.

  And, having once made your decision, don’t give it up too easily. I think that it is only fair to warn you that the beginning of most careers is deadly dull. You are hemmed in by examinations, by absurd codes and rules, and by tedium. You long to try your wings, and cannot do so. Please try to adopt the sensible attitude, and do not be deterred too easily. Don’t let the first damping of your ardour beguile you into believing that the career is a dud. Too often it is the qualifying for that career that is the dud, and had you persisted a little longer, you would have found that the career itself could give you all that you had expected of it.

  Having chosen, give it the best of yourself. It will work well only for that. You will never get a good return unless you invest your entire capital of energy in it. It demands everything, or nothing.