: Peter's Mother by De La Pasture Henry Mrs - Love stories; Widows Fiction; Mothers and sons Fiction; England Social life and customs 20th century Fiction; Upper class England Fiction; South African War 1899-1902 Veterans Fiction

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

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PETER'S MOTHER

NEW EDITION

WITH INTRODUCTION

MRS. HENRY DE LA PASTURE

TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF MY ONLY BROTHER

LT. COLONEL WALTER FLOYD BONHAM, D.S.O.

TO MY AMERICAN READERS

The author of "Peter's Mother" has been bidden of the publishers, who have incurred the responsibility of presenting her to the American public, to write a preface to this edition of her novel. She does so with the more diffidence because it has been impressed upon her, by more than one wiseacre, that her novels treat of a life too narrow, an atmosphere too circumscribed, to be understood or appreciated by American readers.

No one can please everybody; I suppose that no one, except the old man in Aesop's Fable, ever tried to do so. But I venture to believe that to some Americans, a sincere and truthful portrait of a typical Englishwoman of a certain class may prove attractive, as to us are the studies of a "David Harum," or others whose characteristics interest because--and not in spite of--their strangeness and unfamiliarity. We do not recognise the type; but as those who do have acknowledged the accuracy of the representation, we read, learn, and enjoy making acquaintance with an individuality and surroundings foreign to our own experience.

There are hundreds of Englishwomen living lives as isolated, as guarded from all practical knowledge of the outer world, as entirely circumscribed as the life of Lady Mary Crewys; though they are not all unhappy. On the contrary, many diffuse content and kindness all around them, and take it for granted that their own personal wishes are of no account.

Indeed it would seem that some cease to be aware what their own personal wishes are.

With anxious eyes fixed on others--the husband, father, sons, who dominate them,--they live to please, to serve, to nurse, and to console; revered certainly as queens of their tiny kingdoms, but also helpless as prisoners.

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