Now I have what most persons would deem a difficult letter to write; but I have always found that by being frank and true, no thing is difficult to say. All one has to say is all that he feels or thinks.
Let me tell you a little something about myself: All my life has been marked by what, in lack of any other term, I must call “disgust.” When I grow tired or disinterested in anything, I experience a disgust which settles for me that thing forever. I turn the page down there and then. When a colt on the ranch, early in its training, shows that it is a kicker or a bucker or a bolter or a balker, I try patiently and for a long time to remove, by my training, such deleterious traits; and then at the end of a long time if I find that these vicious traits continue, suddenly there comes to me a disgust, and I say Let the colt go. Kill it, sell it, give it away. So far as I'm concerned I am finished with the colt. So it has been with all things in my whole life from the very first time that I can remember anything of myself. I have been infatuated with many things, I have worked through many things, have become disgusted with those many things, and have turned down the pages forever and irrevocably on those many things. Please believe me—I am not stating to you my strength, but my weakness. These colossal disgusts that compel me to turn down pages are weaknesses of mine, and I know them; but they are there. They are part of me. I am so made.
Years ago I warned your mother that if I were denied the opportunity of forming you, sooner or later I would grow disinterested in you, I would develop a disgust, and that I would turn down the page. Of course, your mother, who is deaf to all things spiritual, and appreciative, and understanding, smiled to herself and discounted what I told her. Your mother today understands me no more than she has ever understood me—which is no understanding at all.
Now, do not make the mistake of thinking that I am now running away from all filial duties and responsibilities. I am not. I shall take care of you; I shall take care of Baby B., I shall take care of your mother. I shall take care of the three of you. You shall have food and shelter always. But, unfortunately, I have turned the page down, and I shall no longer be interested in the three of you.
I do not imagine that I shall ever care to send you to the University of California, unless you should develop some tremendous desire to do specific things in the world that only a course in the University of California will fit you for. I certainly shall never send you to the University of California merely in recognition of the bourgeois valuation put upon the University pigskin.
I should like to see you marry for love when you grow up. That way lies the best and sweetest of human happiness. On the other hand, if you want a career instead, I'll help you to pursue whatever career you elect. When you were small, I fought for years the idea of your going on the stage. I now withdraw my opposition. If you desire the stage with its consequent (from my point of view) falseness, artificiality, sterility and unhappiness, why go ahead, and I will do what I can to help you to it.
But please, please remember that in whatever you do from now on, I am uninterested. I desire to know neither your failures nor your successes; wherefore please no more tell me of your markings in High School, and no longer send me your compositions.
When you want money, within reason, I shall send it to you if I have it. Under any and all circumstances, so long as I live, you shall receive from me food in your stomach, a roof that does not leak, warm blankets, and clothing to cover you.
A year from now I expect to have a little money. At the present moment, if I died, I should die One hundred thousand dollars in debt. Therefore, a year from now I may be more easy with you in money matters than I am capable of being now.
I should like to say a few words further about the pages I turn down because of the disgusts that come upon me. I was ever a lover of fatherhood. I loved fatherhood over love of woman, I have been jealous of my seed, and I have never wantonly scattered my seed. I gave you well (we'll say my share at least) a good body and a good brain. I had a father's fondest love and hope for you. But you know, in bringing up colts, colts may be brought up good and bad, all according to the horseman who brings up the colts. You were a colt. Time and fate and mischance, and a stupid mother, prevented me from having a guiding hand in your upbringing. I waited until you, who can dramatize “Sohrab and Rustum,” could say for yourself what you wanted. Alas, as the colt, you were already ruined by your trainer. You were lied to, you were cheated. I am sorry; it was not your fault. But when the time came for you to decide (not absolutely between your mother and me)—to decide whether or not I might have a little hand in showing and training you to your paces in the big world, you were already so ruined by your trainer, that you declined. It's not your fault. You were trained. It is not your mother's fault—she was born stupid, stupid she will live, and stupid she will die. It was nobody's fault—except God's fault, if you believe in God. It is a sad mischance, that is all. In connection therewith I can only quote to you Kipling's “Toolungala Stockyard Chorus”:
“And some are sulky, while some will plunge.
(So ho! Steady! Stand still, you!)
Some you must be gentle, and some you must lunge.
(There! There! Who wants to kill you?)
Some—there are losses in every trade—
Will break their hearts ere bitted and made,
Will fight like fiends as the rope cuts hard,
And die dumb-mad in the breaking yard.”
Whether or not you may die dumb-mad, I know not. I do know that you have shown, up to the present time, only docility to your trainer. You may cheat and fool your trainer, and be ruined by your trainer. I only think that I know that you are too much of a diplomat to die over anything—result of your reaction over your training, plus your inherent impulse to avoid trouble, kick-up, and smashing of carts and harnesses.
You cannot realize all this letter. You may when you are older. Save it for that time. But I have lost too many colts not to be philosophical in losing you. It might be thought that I am unfair to your youthfulness—yet you dramatized “Sohrab and Rustum,” and calmly state to me narrow-minded, bourgeois prejudices (instilled into your mind by your mother), such as: My present wife, my Love Woman, is all that is awful and horrible in that I do truly love her, and in that she does truly love me.
All my life I have been overcome by disgust, which has led me to turn pages down, and those pages have been turned down forever. It is my weakness, as I said before. Unless I should accidentally meet you on the street, I doubt if I shall ever see you again. If you should be dying, and should ask for me at your bedside, I should surely come; on the other hand, if I were dying I should not care to have you at my bedside. A ruined colt is a ruined colt, and I do not like ruined colts.
Please let me know that you have read this letter in its entirety. You will not understand it entirely. Not for years, and perhaps never, will you understand. But, being a colt breaker, I realize that a colt is ruined by poor training, even though the colt never so realizes.
Whenever you want money, within reason, for clothes, books, spending, etc., write me for it, and if I have it at the time, I shall send it to you.
Jack London
By the time of his death, less than three years later, Jack London had forgiven his daughter.
JOHN J. PERSHING TO
F. WARREN PERSHING
“As the boy, so is the man.”
General Pershing felt that, after a year at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, his son had “gotten in with a crowd of triflers, loafers, very much to the detriment of his studies,” so he sent the boy to far-off Switzerland. Warren's academic results at the Swiss Institut Carnal were not much better. Here the recently retired sixty-four-year-old general aboard the USS Utah on a South American goodwill mission writes to his fifteen-year-old son.
At Sea
On board U.S.S. “Utah,”
February 28, 1925.
IMPORTANT
READ THIS LETTER OVER SEVERAL TIMES AND PUT IT AWAY
AND READ IT OVER AGAIN AT FREQUENT INTERVALS.
My dear Warren:
Your letter of January 11th reached me the other day at Caracas, so it was nearly two months in reaching me, a long time to await news of you.
We have now but one more stop to make and that is in Cuba. We arrive at Guantanamo tomorrow, go to Santiago the next day, reaching Havana on March 3rd. I anticipate a rather busy program during the next few days and shall be quite delighted when it is all over.
It will be necessary for me to remain for a week or so in Washington, after which I want to go out to Lincoln for a week or two, and shall then decide what to do for the summer and thereafter, at least while you are in school abroad. It is rather difficult to forecast just what the decision will be, but of course you know how much I wish to be near you, as far as possible shall arrange my affairs to that end.
I am very glad you liked the Christmas presents and that you had a good time during the holidays. I note that your Tuxedo has arrived and that you have already had occasion to wear it.
In your letter you did not say anything about your studies, which is very surprising and indicates that you have not been doing very well, not nearly as well as you are capable of doing. In the same mail with your letter came one from Monsieur Carnal giving your marks for December, and I was very much surprised and altogether disappointed to see how badly you are doing in Latin, and with the exception of English none of your marks are up to what I had reasonably expected they would be.
I wrote you a letter about your studies some time ago when your October marks were not satisfactory, but possibly you had not received that particular letter or, of course, you would have undertook to do better.
Now, Warren, there is only one conclusion that I can reach in this matter, and that is that you are again loafing your time away. It seems to be a repetition of last year at Exeter. What can you be thinking about to allow yourself to drop back into these slothful, indolent habits? What can you expect to amount to if at your age you do not take your work seriously? Remember that you are creating an impression for good or bad upon everybody that knows you, and the impression so far is one that is not very flattering. As the boy, so is the man. If you are lazy and no-account in your school work, you will be lazy and no-account after you grow up.
This seems to settle the question of your going to West Point. I thought that you were up against a rather hard proposition last year at Exeter and was inclined to make excuses for you, but I am not inclined nor do I make any excuses for you this year at Carnal. You have the brains; you have the background, and you have the duty, all of which should stimulate you to the greatest kind of effort from now on. Otherwise, it may as well be determined now as at any future time you cannot go to West Point. I make this as a positive statement because it would only mean your failure and dismissal from that institution, which would be a disgrace to us all, and I am not willing to take a chance on it based on the showing you are making.
You are too much inclined to play and to trifle your time away during study hours. Your mark on Application was only 8, which was only four-fifths of what it ought to be. With an Application of 10 and some extra time taken from your recreation hours, you can undoubtedly equal any student in the institution. For heaven's sake do not allow yourself to be led away by trifling boys and establish in Carnal Institut, as you have already established at Exeter, a reputation for general worthlessness.
Warren, this is a very serious matter, although you do not seem to take it so. It simply means that you will not be prepared to meet the problems of life, either through a desire to achieve or through preparation in school. At West Point, of course, discipline is very rigid and you will be required to study if you would hold any sort of standing. Now you know what discipline is, because you have had it. Warren, why can you not discipline yourself? Please imagine yourself as your own boss, as arbiter of your own fate, as responsible for your own success, and rule yourself with an iron hand. This is the only way that you will ever amount to a hill of beans.
What I am saying is very, very serious and should be taken deeply to heart. Please read this letter a number of times and see if you cannot take hold of yourself and make yourself do the things that you know you ought to do. Whatever resolutions you make you should follow up and not allow yourself to be led astray like a weakling by every wind that blows and every worthless boy who wants you to neglect your work. You are a man and must take a man's attitude in this matter. It is your life work you are now doing.
Remember that you will be left nothing in this world in all probability, and that you are liable to be thrown at any time on your own resources and be compelled to make your own living. There is no assurance whatever that you will ever fall heir to a dot, and anyway you ought to have pride enough to prepare yourself to make your own living and take a stand among men of your generation.
You were practically dismissed last year from Exeter, and I suppose that that will be your fate this year. Perhaps Mr. Carnal will likely say that he does not think you are studious enough to go on further. Think of what this will mean to me. Think of the disgrace that I have already suffered and that I would more than ever suffer with such an outcome as this. Mr. Carnal told me that if boys did not do well that they did not want them, and that is so with everybody. If men are not worthwhile, people do not want them. If you have not a reputation for doing things honestly, faithfully, and industriously, people do not want you.
What I have said above, Warren, is entirely for your own good, as I see it, from the standpoint of a father who is interested in the future of his son. Don't be a quitter; don't be a failure.
Yours affectionately,
Warren Pershing never went to West Point. Instead, he graduated from Yale University and was named Most Likely to Succeed by his class of 1931. He went on to found Pershing & Company, a Wall Street investment firm, and until General Pershing's last days, Warren was his father's greatest source of pleasure.
EUGENE O'NEILL TO SHANE O'NEILL
“But if you show no friendship toward me, if you prove by your actions you are indifferent whether I live or die, except when you want something from me, then you must admit I would be a poor sap and sucker to waste my friendship on you, simply because you happen to be my son.”
At the end of 1936, having just won the Nobel Prize, forty-nine-year-old Eugene O'Neill was admitted to the hospital with acute appendicitis and nearly died from complications. He remained hospitalized for months, battling depression all the while. From his two younger children, twelve-year-old Oona and eighteen-year-old Shane, he heard not a word.
Below is Eugene O'Neill's bitter first letter to Shane following the illness.
(Shane later convinced O'Neill that both he and Oona had written during his struggle, but that the correspondence never reached their father. Apparently, and for reasons unknown, O'Neill's third wife, Carlotta, seized and destroyed the children's letters while O'Neill was in the hospital.)
[Fall 1937]
Dear Shane:
Your letter arrived a few days ago. Yes, I received the letter you sent to Sea Island last spring. I did not answer it because I was sore at you. And I still am sore—and with good reason. You may not remember it but for nearly three months last winter I was in a hospital seriously ill and during all that time I did not receive one damned line from either you or Oona. You can't have the excuse that you did not know. The news of my illness was sent out by the Associated Press, United Press, etc. to papers all over the country. So, later on, was the fact that the Nobel Prize medal had to be presented to me in the hospital at Oakland. I received letters and wires of sympathy from all over, even from strangers. From my own children—except Eugene—nothing. And yet you knew, even if you didn't get the Oakland address from the papers, that you could always reach me care of Harry Weinberger.
Now if you think that is any way to act, or that I am going to stand for your acting like that and still feel any affection for you, you are badly mistaken. Oo
na has some excuse. She is still only a kid. But you are old enough to be responsible for your actions—or lack of them—and I hold you responsible. I expect the same sort of respect and consideration from you that I received from Eugene when he was your age. If you give it, there is no reason why the relationship between you and me should not develop into as fine a one as that between Eugene and me has been for years and still is. Quite outside of our being father and son, Eugene and I are friends, as man to man, which is a thing few fathers and sons manage to achieve. And that's what I want to be to you—a friend. But if you show no friendship toward me, if you prove by your actions you are indifferent whether I live or die, except when you want something from me, then you must admit I would be a poor sap and sucker to waste my friendship on you, simply because you happen to be my son.
I am giving you this straight from the shoulder because it is time you and I came to a frank understanding. It is time you realize that in this life you are going to get from others exactly the same treatment you give to others. If you take me for granted, and think you can treat me as no friend of mine would dare to treat me without losing my friendship forever, why then I warn you you must be prepared to lose my friendship forever, too.
So think it over. It is up to you. If you want to be my son more than in name, you will have to act with a little more decent consideration and gratitude—not to add, respect. It isn't difficult, you know. Eugene has done it without breaking his back. All you have to do is get it in your head that you can't expect something for nothing, even from fathers.
Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children Page 20