Elinor Glyn - Your Affectionate Godmother

N OWthat you are soon about to return from Paris, Caroline – polished, let us hope, in education – it may be interesting for us to have some little talks together upon the meaning of things and the aspects which life is likely to present to you.

If you had been with me from early childhood you would by now have grown so completely to understand my point of view that words would not be necessary between us. But circumstances have arranged that only in your eighteenth year have you been given into my charge, so, as I want you to be happy, my dear godchild, we must lose no time in looking at a number of points which can assist that end.

I understand, by what I know of your character, that you have a clear idea of what you want, and that is to take some place in the world of no mean importance. Therefore, the first thing to assure yourself of is that you are not the square peg screaming to get into the round hole. There is nothing so warping as that egotistical ignorance which feels itself fitted for whatever position it desires without question or further effort.

To me the most startling difference between the Americans and the English is this – that the English never boast of their attainments or prowess, in words , because for hundreds of years they really have been supreme among the nations, and so now they are simply filled with the belief that this is still the case, and therefore that it is unnecessary for them to try to learn anything new; on the other hand, the Americans boast in words continually that they are already ahead of the rest of the world, while using their clever brains all the time to pick up from every other nation equipments which will eventually make them so.

I leave it to your own powers of deduction to decide which, at the present stage of the world’s rapid evolution, seems the more likely to win in the end! But we are not now going to talk of the national characteristics of your two parents – I merely use this as an illustration of what I want to teach you so that you may have the advantage of knowing how to cultivate the good side of both. The thing to aim at is to make yourself fit for whatever position you aspire to, and to keep your receptive faculties always on the alert to continue to acquire good things even when you have obtained that position. Then you will never need to demonstrate your supremacy in words , every human being who comes in contact with you will see it. And you will have the dignity of the one country and the ability of the other in your possession.

The advice which was generally given to girls was a mixture of altruistic idealism coupled with the intention to throw dust in their eyes upon most of the facts of life.

We have fortunately changed all that now. But, before we come to any material points, we shall have to get down to the bedrock of the main principle of life which is our religion. And I do hope, Caroline, that I shall not bore you by speaking of this – for my religion, and the one I want you to believe in as yours, is a very simple one, and will not take me long to explain. You see, we cannot possibly go on until this point is settled, because it is the key to all others.

I believe I had better enclose you a dialogue I once wrote when strongly under the influence of the style of Lucian, that later Greek master of inimitable cynical humor. Your appreciation of style and your sense of humor, I trust, have been cultivated sufficiently to be able to grasp the fact that a reverent and divine belief is wrapped up in what at first reads as flippant language. I wrote a number of these dialogues upon all sorts of subjects when I was in the same mood, and, if you like them, and understand them, I can send them to you from time to time, to illustrate my meaning, for the finishing of your education, and the perfecting of your armory of weapons which must be of a sort which is not obsolete for the fight of life.

All godmothers writing to their godchildren – and indeed all women writing to the young – are very apt to be dreadfully serious and to give them only the heaviest fare, which must inevitably weary them. Now, Caroline, there is not going to be any of that kind of thing between you and me, because my aim is not to show you how many stereotyped moral sentiments I can instill into you on orthodox lines – but it is to try to prepare you for that place in the social sphere which you have a right by accident of birth and fortune to expect. And, above all, my aim is to try to help you to gain happiness spelt with a big H – as happiness is obtainable in this hour of the world’s enlightenment. It is not always possible for older people to secure it, because, when they were in the gloomy retrogressionist atmosphere which held sway in their younger days, they laid up for themselves limitations which may take them all their lives on this planet to get through.

You, Caroline, have not had time to incur any serious debts to fate, so you have a real chance to achieve the desired end, and so progress in body, soul, and spirit. Now read the dialogue.

Elinor: Very well, my good friend, let us begin by discussing religion then, and from there we can branch off to other matters which come up, and, as you are here merely to make a few remarks, I gather, and leave the hard work to me, I consider I have the right to select my subjects – and I choose religion to begin upon.

John: I’ll do my best to listen, but women are illogical beings, and you will pardon a yawn now and then.

Elinor: All I ask is good manners – conceal your yawn behind a respectful hand.

John: Begin – as yet I am all attention!

Elinor: My religion is very simple. It started by being a rebellion against the narrow orthodoxy which I had been taught in my youth. I refused to credit the idea that we were all born miserable sinners. I felt that we were glorious creatures who should stand upright and rise into space. I resented the attitude of all saints and martyrs as depicted in statuary and painting – a mea culpa attitude – a pleading for the charity of some omnipotent being to overlook a personal fault – as it were to say, “If I grovel enough your vanity will be appeased and you won’t punish me.” I looked round at the glorious world of nature and at the wonder of my own body, full of health and vitality, and I wanted to cry aloud to God, “Dear God, I am so glad you have made me, and I mean to do the very best I can for your creation in return.”

John: That is not altogether a bad idea.

Elinor: I felt that human beings, because of their gift of articulate speech, were different to animals, and had been given a higher spark of the divine essence in their possession of the loan of a more responsible soul. I seemed to realize that we had no smallest right to soil it or degrade it, since God need not have lent it to us at all if He had not wished. We were, so to speak, on our honor with the thing. I suddenly understood that it was unspeakable disgrace to commit paltry actions just because people would not know about them – that even if one had to admit the necessity of bluff in the affairs of men sometimes it was perfectly childish to use it in dealing with God – and not only childish, but useless.

John: You would be honest with God! Tut, tut! – a pretty state of things! A theory like that could upset the world.

Elinor: Tant pis! – I am not talking of expediency. I am stating my beliefs.

John: Go ahead.

Elinor: I felt that because we had received this divine triple loan from God of understanding, apprehension, and emotion, with its branches of deduction, critical faculty, and appreciation – all things beyond the material – we at least owed Him something in return. You will admit, I suppose, that decent people do not accept the loan of a friend’s house and then utterly neglect and defile it?