'A Bewildered Parent's Lament—And A Novelist's Reply "A Bewildered Parent' recently sunimer woods without leaves. Wrote to the "Morning Post" as' They have become silent scoffers. follows And when they do speak and we S1n,—I have long hesitated as to twit them for their cynicism andj whether I should write to you on their measured worldliness they) a subject which has been puzzling turn round and with amused imand worrying me for some time partiality laugh at themselves. past. We are living in exciting Tae Veny Movers Youxosrers. times, and revolutionary change is the catchword of the moment.
Let me give a few instances. We are all thinking of the menace la" lad of 23 who had been which Lenin and his Moscow band wounded five times in the war are hurling at our venerable and had persistently refused Briftsh Constitution; but in conto become an officer, came homo! centrating our attention ca the to tea the other afternoon and revolution which threatens the nonchalantly informed his parents Btate are we not thereby ignoring that he had been married that the revolution which is threatens morning. Tears frou Mother, ting, or, indeed, has perhaps al-thunders from Father. He had ready reached our homes? Are married, as they say, "a little be-we poor parents being challenged neath him," but that was not by a dictatorship at our very the key to the business. No, he tables, and will the next Soviet said, as he put lump after lump be a Soviet of Youth? We have of sugar into his tea, he couldn't travelled far since the days of be bored with "a show at a Ibsen and the knocking of the church" and with "those d——young at the doors. The doors, silly wedding presents" and "all indeed, have been forced open, that sort of thing, you know." and the enemy, not boisterous er He hoped that his ''missis" tumultuous, but brazen in its 1 (Missi echoed poor Mother) calculated effrontery, is within would be able to join him in a our gate. The old hierarchy of weck—in the meantime he would the home is being swept aside. stay at home, or, with an eye at Not only the parental authority Mother, "if you don't want me. with its Biblical associations but they'll give mea shake-down at! the reliance of the young on the the works." And our young gen-wisdom and experience hitherto tleman, who bad slept in worse associated with age are quietly places than the works, toddled off but effectually being put on the quite cheerfully, a little amazed shelf. They are not insolently over the "fuss" which his parents derided; what is much worse, had been making. Poor old they are completely ignored. We Father! Poor old Mother! How are in the grip of a new youth different frou the gallant pas. which has none of the qualities sion-swept runaway matches of hitherto associated with youth the days of old! and none of the respect hitherto!
At a dinner party a man of given, however reluctantly, to age. the world turned to a pretty girl of 23—I am, of course, Arter tHe War. disguising the names—"Georgette, The war has precipitated the you're a pretty girl. Why aren't change. It savours almost of you married?" Georgette calmly impertinence and ingratitude to replied: "I simply cannot stand criticize the young men who re-tne young men of to-day. They turned from the front, and in-are So horribly conceited." deed I am not criticizing, I am "What, even the young men who! trying to write down an impres-have come back from the war?" sion. After all, they won the war, and on the seas and the "They are the worst of all. If innumerable fidds of battle vola-I marry—and seriously I'm not tile youth settled down into the very keen—I shall marry a man dour and impregnable consistency of 50." And then very naively: of granite. At a terrible price "He will do ever so much more they gave us the victory. Now for me." And within that pretty they are back. Are we disappoint-little head an intense egoism was ed? Do we amiss something? making its plans and shrewdly Didn't we expect them to be guessing that marriage with a different? Or is all this simply youth of her own years might the meandering of a querulous: bring her up against an egoism as ruthless and her egoist who now finds contempt: calculating as instead of respect for his authority own. and his years? I put my doubts Georgette's sister Anna was also to a friend. He immediately con-pretty in her way, and my left-firmed them, and, shaking his hand neighbour, an old lady who head sadly,' said: "Our youth amused herself by reading Madame have lost their illusions." If that) de Sevigné and Jane Austen, and be so, then woe to our generation. observing the new generation, said Und I in my turn agree with' my to me: "Anna is a very modern friend. Our young men have girl." "And what, pray," I ask-awakened from dreams to a cold ed, "is a modern "girl"? "A reality, and they are not to be. modern girl," replied the student caught' napping again.
They see, of Jane, "is a girl who is deter-life without romance as they once! niined to have good time, whateaw—in battle-scarred France— ever the price.
Bases anp Suckinas.
Even the nursery is being infected, and children in arms are imbibing the letter, if not the spirit, of the new liberty. A little' girl who can scarcely toddle is in the habit of addressing her father, a most learned man, as "Old Bean." With her, I am convinced, this phraseology is not mere mimicry, but @ natural mode of address.
My grouse is ending, and I am afraid I have already trespassed severely on your space. I am a stranger in my own house, and my children and I are drifting apart. Do not think I am complaining. They appear hard, but then their ordeal has been hard. They are contemptuous of our ways and of our advice, but. then have we been so conspicuously successful in the ordering of our own destinies? They lead their own lives and seek their own paths, and perhaps the goal may be worth reaching. But, frankly, I am sceptical. I believe in the wisdom that comes with age, and the moderation which is the fruit of experience, and I cannot but think that the new generation which despises both is steering straight for disaster. Please respect my anonymity, for I tremble to think what my new masters and mistresses would say if they guessed who was the author of this letter.—Yours faithfully, A Bewitperep Panenr, August 21.
IL.—Letters from "Young
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.