The Late George Apley (1937) by John P. Marquand

Author:John P. Marquand [Marquand, John P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A letter written some years later to his son is in a somewhat different vein.

Dear John:—

I am sorry that you consider it advisable not to be with us here at Pequod Island for your usual month this summer, but instead to visit your college friends at Bar Harbor. There is an atmosphere of money at Bar Harbor which I, personally, have never liked, and I hope that you are not going there solely for that reason. It seems to me that you and the other young people whom I know are not as contented as I used to be at your age. I suppose it is because the world is moving faster. I was aware myself of this change when your mother and I gave up our carriage and began using an automobile.

What really worries me, however, about your not going to Pequod Island is that I am afraid you are neglecting a certain duty which you owe to others. Our little community at Pequod Island requires the cooperation of everyone to keep it together, and this cooperation, as I well know, not infrequently entails a certain sacrifice of personal inclination. Nevertheless, it is my obligation and yours, as my son, to make our guests here happy. You must be lenient with certain eccentricities. Believe me, I can understand how you feel about many of the requirements of your Aunt Amelia, because I agree with you that some of them are ridiculous. Frankly, I have sometimes wished that I were not invariably aroused at half-past six. I have often wished that I could spend the day doing exactly as I pleased; but I know now that such a wish is a luxury and a weakness. As time goes on it will become more and more evident to you that you are a part of a society whose dictates you must obey within certain prescribed limits and in every walk of life we must give way to the common will. Yes, there are certain things one does and others one does not do. One of the things which you and I must not do is to neglect our duties at Pequod Island.

I am afraid you will learn before you are much older that this general principle will run through much of your life. Take our downtown lunch club for instance—it comes into my mind as just such another group which has its customs and its manners. You will find, when you become a member as you doubtless will when you take up business in Boston, that you will not be cordially received at certain of the tables where the same people have customarily eaten for the last thirty years. Furthermore, you will discover if you go downstairs to smoke in the room reserved for the purpose that you should not linger there long over your cigar whether you have anything to do for the next hour or not. This, of course, is a trivial example and I simply give it as an illustration to show that you and I cannot and should not change established customs.

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