For in sober truth, as one reads the reputed wisdom of Solomon on this topic, fatherhood seems to be in a state of evolution and to have advanced materially since he was a father. “He that spareth his rod,” said Solomon in the complacent, dogmatic way that seems to have charmed the Queen of Sheba more than it would charm me, “hateth his son: But he that loveth him, chasteneth him betimes.” And again, “The rod and the reproof giveth wisdom.” We know better nowadays: the rod has become a figure of speech, the occasions that even appear to excuse its use are fewer and fewer, and when they happen, the modern practice may be described quite simply as a laying-on of the hand. Here, however, is something objective for a father to do—an occasion when Mother pulls in the string, and Father, mercifully hanging back on his red wheels, comes up in a hurry, and what has to be done is done. But the procedure, over the centuries, has compelled thought; the idea has ripened slowly in the paternal mind that it is an unwise waste of strength and emotion to attempt at one end what may be better accomplished at the other; and in this revolutionary discovery there must have been pioneers whose success as fathers was measured by the affection and respect of worthy sons. Hamlet’s father, I believe, rarely, if ever, spanked young Hamlet, and never in such mood and manner as to make the little Prince of Denmark smart at the injustice of the high-handed proceeding. Mr. Todd can do no better than follow the elder Hamlet’s example; and in so doing he will show himself wiser than Solomon, with his old-fashioned insistence on proverbs and a stout stick. “He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck,” said Solomon (and here perhaps is the origin of the phrase to “get it in the neck”), “shall suddenly be broken, and that beyond remedy”; which is an attitude of mind that the best thought certainly no longer considers conducive to the best fatherly results. The book for Mr. Todd to read is not Solomon’s Book of Proverbs but Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to his Children.
If Solomon had been right, fatherhood would be easy; but the simple fact that even you or I, gentle Reader, being often reproved, will harden our necks, reveals the widespread tendency to ossification that has gradually discredited the didactic and strong-arm system. If I may compose a proverb myself—
The wise man maketh no enemy of his neighbor;
And the wise father maketh a friend of his son.
But it is easier to compose a proverb than to apply it, and friendship, which can be built only on a good foundation of common understanding and truthful speech, is here especially difficult. “To speak truth,” says Stevenson, “there must be a moral equality or else no respect; and hence between parent and child intercourse is apt to degenerate into a verbal fencing bout, and misapprehensions to become ingrained. And there is another side to this; for the parent begins with an imperfect notion of the child’s character, formed in early years or during the equinoctial gales of youth; to this he adheres, noting only the facts that suit with his preconceptions; and wherever a person fancies himself unjustly judged, he at once and finally gives up the effort to speak truth.”
Somehow or other our Mr. Todd, if he wishes to make the best of his paternity, must overcome the handicap imposed by his wider mental experience and his acquired moral distinctions between rightness and wrongness; somehow or other he must create in Harvey, Jr., an affectionate regard for his jolly old father that shall make it a line of least resistance for the little fellow to follow and imitate his jolly old father’s opinions and wishes. Often, indeed, if he is wise, Mr. Todd will dare to seem foolish. “Foolishness,” said Solomon, “is bound up in the heart of the child”—and there he stopped, after adding his usual suggestion about the rod as a remedy. But it is bound up also, O Solomon, in every heart that beats, and is one thing at least that Mr. Todd and little Harvey have in common to start with.
And so the father plays his unapplauded part—“tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited,” as Polonius might enumerate. He wants no applause. He wants no “Father’s Day.” He wants no statue. He wants no advice. Yet it seems to me that a figure and character has lately been perpetuated in statuary of various kinds that answers all practical purposes, though most of us think of the original as a Great American rather than as a Great Father.
V
ON BEING A LANDLORD
In an informal, but practical way, a landlord is, and must be, a Justice of the Domestic Peace. If one tenant murders another tenant, the case passes beyond his jurisdiction: he has no power of the black cap. But if one tenant annoys another (which may eventually lead to homicide more or less justifiable), the case comes to his court: he is both jury and judge, and can in extremity pronounce sentence of eviction. But so many and subtile are the ways in which tenants annoy each other that to be a perfectly just landlord would demand a wisdom greater than Solomon’s.—Apartments To Let.
ON my consciousness are impressed the names of fourteen married women and one (so far as I know) unmarried man: Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Cawkins, Mrs. Trolley, Mrs. Karsen, Mrs. Le Maire, Mrs. Barber, Mrs. Sibley, Mrs. Carrot, Mrs. Mahoney, Mrs. Hopp, Mrs. Ranee, Mrs. Button, and Charlie Wah Loo. Their husbands I hardly know at all; indeed, if Mrs. Carrot should introduce Mr. Hopp to me by that dear title,—as, for example, ‘my husband, Mr. Hopp,’—I should hastily readjust my ideas and decide that Mrs. Carrot was really Mrs. Hopp, and Mrs. Hopp really Mrs. Carrot. Charlie Wah Loo may be married; he devotes his days to the washtub and ironing-board, and his nights (I like to think) to what Mr. Sax Rohmer, author of “The Yellow Claw,” mysteriously mentions as “ancient, unnamable evils.” In feudal times, however, I should have known them all better. Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! that brave little company—
| Button Hopp Carrot Barber Karsen Cawkins Smith | Ranee Mahoney Sibley le Maire Trolley Brown Murphy |