The Mushy Stuff
27 January 1915
Aster House, Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Dear Jerry,
Of course you would chose Nature, just as I suspected. While it may be true that we incline toward personalities naturally, those tendencies can only blossom in the proper climate. Could Walter have been a poet if he had been born to Mrs. Reese? Could Jem be himself if he had not grown up safe and loved and free to be who he is?
You offer Mother as an example, but can you not see that her personality was forged by her early experience? Her imagination may have been a gift from Nature, but it flourished as it did to protect her from the terrible conditions her poor little body had to endure. In any case, it is imperative to believe in the power of Nurture if we wish to influence people for good. If Nature is destiny, how can we ever hope to grow? I think four examples should suffice to make my point:
[Many pages omitted.]
Now I will tell you my beautiful thing of the day. You will laugh because it is Faith.
Perhaps it does not seem like a banner headline to announce that Faith Meredith is beautiful. Coming from anyone else, it would be much too stale to count as news. But I begrudged Faith her beauty for many years. I will prove my commitment to personal growth by admitting that I have often been too proud to enjoy being overshadowed.
But today, at our Red Cross meeting, I found myself watching her tearing from one crisis to another, soothing here and encouraging there with all that indomitable energy of hers. And it occurred to me like the dawning of the sun that she was perfectly beautiful. I don't mean that her hair was enviably shiny, or that her cheeks were rosy, or that her face looked like an illustration of an angel on a prayer card, though all those things are as true as they ever were. It was something about the way she moved, forceful and graceful and kind and strong all at once. I have often been jealous of Faith — I do not scruple to admit as much. But in that moment, I was so proud of her — proud that she is my friend and proud of a country that has such daughters. She was beautiful.
Do write and tell me that you are well. I am glad to hear that you received my parcel. Tell me what would be most useful to send and I will do what I can. We hear that it is possible to get parcels through to the front, so never hesitate to mention any of your material needs. For now, I will just slip one extra thing into this envelope.
Love,
Nan
1 February 1915
Redmond College, Kingsport, Nova Scotia
Dear Mother,
Thank you for the care package — it was just what I needed. Please forgive my inattentiveness to your letter; Professor Coleman certainly put us through our paces with that Dante paper right at the start of term. He says he has been setting the same assignment for thirty years — if that is true, you might have warned me! I spent far too much time daydreaming about Longfellow translating the text and far too little accounting for the Trinitarian implications of terza rima. What kind of a word is hendecasyllabic, anyway?
I consent to join your club, and gladly. As you say, there is little enough reason to rehash the news of the world.
I must ask, however that you refrain from sending me any of what Jem used to call "the mushy stuff." As little as possible of "lovers whispering in the night" if you please. I will gladly play critic to your verses, but take pity and allow me the ignorance of a son where matters of romance are concerned.
As to your "New House," I found it quite pleasing. The refrain of "house, as yet too proudly new" stayed with me for a day or more after I had read it. Proudly; doesn't that say so much? Both of self-respect and of hubris. Yes, I liked that very much.
I would object to the enjambment in the first stanza though. It seems to serve no purpose and, as it is not carried through in the subsequent verses, it is jarring.
As to my own verses, I cannot write a line. I have a blockage in my soul and in my pen. It has been so bad lately that I hardly know how I got through my exams last term. It was Coleridge who said, when a friend told him to rouse himself from the utter impotence of volition, that he could just as well tell a man with paralyzed arms to rub them together to cure himself; alas, that I cannot move my arms is my complaint.*
Yet, I can still offer you some sport. I have a file of old poems that could do with a bit of airing out. Here is a little bit of springtime to cheer your February:
May Song
Across the sunlit sea
The singing birds return,
Those travelers far and free
To many an ancient bourne.
The winds are very gay
O'er every gusty hill,
Glad vagabonds of May
To frolic where they will.
Sun odors wild and sweet
As some old memory
Fill reedy hollows, meet
For lurking alchemy.
The morns are fair and white
Unto the crystal noon,
Magic is spun at night
Beneath an ivory moon.
The world is full of songs . . .
Like hearts of voiceless birds . . .
To us the joy belongs
Of giving to them words.
To us the joy of May,
Of every lyric thing . . .
What though our heads are grey?
No one is old in spring.
No one is old and sad,
Immortal youth is here . . .
We'll just be mad and glad
With the mad, glad young year!**
Your loving son,
Walter Blythe
9 February 1915
S.S. Blackwell, English Channel
Ahoy, Faith!
We're on a transport, heading for France at last. After the mud of Salisbury Plain, this ship seems almost comfortable — at least it's clean, if not precisely dry.
I'm spending a few hours with Jerry. We had a jolly time sharing letters from home. Jerry wouldn't let me see Nan's letters — he would only read bits of them to me (very little bits). When I teased him about it, he declared that there should be something in every sweetheart's letter that can't be read aloud (though as far as I could tell, his "something" was about a dozen pages). I laughed and said there was never anything in the letters I wrote to you that couldn't be shared with anybody, but he scowled and said he feels real sorry for you in that case. He's looking over my shoulder as I write this and I told him I'd have a go at the mushy stuff if only he'd stop pestering me. So here goes:
Faith Meredith,
I love you madly. If you were only the most shockingly beautiful girl in the world, that should be enough for any man. Heaping on top of that the fact that you are also the cleverest, pluckiest, most bewitching creature ever to have walked the face of the earth is bringing coals to Newcastle.
When we have licked the Kaiser, I will come home and kiss you scandalously in every public place I can think of. Then, after two more years of medical school (ye gods, Faith, two whole years!), I will marry you and we will commence making exceptionally beautiful children together.
Signed,
Pte. James Matthew Blythe, B.A.
The trouble is that you can read all that from your father's pulpit if you like. There isn't a word in it that's any kind of secret.
Love and more love,
Jem
XXX
16 February 1915
Merris, France
Lovely Nan,
It was easy to find my one beautiful thing today because I got your letter and your picture with it. Thank you. It gave me a little jolt to see you looking so lovely and grown-up with your hair up like that. I think that when I close my eyes, I still see you as you were at the Queen's convocation dance — shimmering in gold like a slip of candlelight, with your hair falling around your shoulders and your cheeks rosy from dancing.
I will admit I felt a moment of doubt that the lovely woman in this photo could really think anything at all of me. But then I looked again and saw the tilt of your head and the little smile you can convey with only your eyes, and I knew that it was a photo of my Nan. Tu es belle.
We've spent the past several days having all our arms and equipment inspected, and expect to go into the trenches soon. I don't know what will be beautiful there, but you can be sure that I will find something to satisfy you.
Don't stop writing, Nan. I am almost ashamed to admit how much I adore your letters. They are quite read to pieces.
Love,
Jerry
*Walter has read Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Narrative of the Events of His Life by James D. Campbell (1896), which quotes Coleridge's discussion of his depression in his letters.
**LMM, The Blythes Are Quoted
