Saturday, October 27, 2012

Dads writing to daughters

Happy birthday Older Daughter!

I shared with you the lighthearted letter Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his "Scottie" in 1933. Here's one from William James to his "Peg" in 1900. Good "manly" advice for us all, if we ever need it.

"Your letter came last night and explained sufficiently the cause of your long silence. You have evidently been in a bad state of spirits again, and dissatisfied with your environment; and I judge that you have been still more dissatisfied with the inner state of trying to consume your own smoke, and grin and bear it, so as to carry out your mother's behests made after the time when you scared us so by your inexplicable tragic outcries in those earlier letters. Well! I believe you have been trying to do the manly thing under difficult circumstances, but one learns only gradually to do the best thing; and the best thing for you would be to write at least weekly, if only a post-card, and say just how things are going..."  (ContinuesWilliam James - Letter to daughter Peg - 1900)

No comments:

KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News