CXIX
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
Dear Verena, you ought perhaps to know about the St. Ethelburga Society School, where 36 boys and 20 girls were educated, and fully re-clothed once a year—being taught reading, writing and arithmetic and the catechism, with Lewis’s explanation—and all for £1400 permanent funds and occasional subscriptions and donations. But of course money was worth more then than in our reckless post-War day. For example, at the St. Bride’s School 80 boys and 70 girls were educated, of whom 40 boys and 30 girls were also clothed and apprentice fees of £3 given with certain of the boys—and this on an income of £375.
I have long thought that a handbook should be compiled for the benefit of persons, like yourself, who are philanthropically disposed but don’t know what to do. It might have some such title as “Philanthropic Hints to Those about to Make their Wills,” or “The Inspired Testator,” or “First Aid to Imaginative Bequest” or “The Prudent Lawyer Confounded” or “How to be Happy though Dead.” In this book an alphabetical list would be given of the less fortunate ones of the earth and suggestions offered as to what a little money could do towards a periodic gilding of their existence. No one could compile it without the assistance of my London Charity report or similar works.
For a change let me give you a poem in prose:—
FATHER-LOVE
One hears so much of mother-love.
The phrase alone is expected to touch the very springs of emotion.
There are songs about it, set to maudlin music; there is, in America, a Mother’s Day.
God knows I have no desire to bring the faintest suspicion of ridicule to such a feeling, even to such a fashion;
The stronger the bonds that unite mothers and children the better for human society;
The more we think of and cherish our mothers the better for ourselves.
We owe so much tenderness to them not merely because they gave us life, but because they are women and as such have a disproportionate burden of drudgery and endurance and grief.
All the same, why was it that when, the other evening, I saw a grey-haired father—my host—thinking himself unobserved, stroke the head of his grown-up son (a father too) and the son lay his hand on his father’s with a caressing gesture for a moment, but with a slightly guilty look—why was it that something melted within me (as it never does when I watch the embraces of mothers and sons) and my eyes suddenly dimmed?
Good night,
R. H.