Provocative Prose [Ellie]

I just finished my book club book for this month: A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey. The book is comprised entirely of letters sent to various people by the main character, Elizabeth Alcott Stead, or Bess, as she signs most of her correspondence.

What makes this book worth a blog post to me are the pointed reflections on life made by Bess throughout the book. With some of her reflections, I agree deeply, and am surprised to hear thoughts I’ve had myself, and some I wish I’d had, put to paper so eloquently by someone else. With others of her reflections I deeply disagree. I thought it might be fun to share here some of her provocative insights and hear your responses to them.

1) [after the death of her husband] I am so weary of people asking if there is anything they can do for me. Of course I always answer with a polite no, and they go away satisfied at having done their duty. . . . nothing frightens people more than undisguised need. I have kept all my old friends through this difficult time by never demanding the dues of friendship. Not that I doubt they would be paid--but only once. Friendship to me is like a capital reserve. It pays dividends only so long as the principal remains
intact. . . .

2) Alone on a train, I feel my life could go in any direction and at journey’s end when I rejoin my family, I am filled with elation at the wisdom of my choice. Though they never know it, I have considered every possibility and once again chosen them. Of course I realize I am only playing a game; my choices were made long ago. I wonder how many other times when I truly thought the choice was mine I was playing the game without realizing it.

3) An act as unselfish as yours carries within it the seeds of future unhappiness. To me the only viable transactions are ones in which both parties have something to gain.

4) I realize more and more that we have to work at making friends with members of our family the same way we do with strangers, by asking them questions and relishing their answers.

5) Until now my purpose in life has been provided by the needs of other people but I am beginning to realize none of us is really necessary to anyone else. There is always someone to replace us.

6) It occurs to me we are all capable of adding another dimension to our daily lives if we would but look upon the people around us as characters in a drama devised for our own amusement. There is no life too dull to be transformed into art by a lively imagination.

7) [I] invariably find a letter more revealing than a face-to-face conversation. . . . There is something about the process of writing--perhaps because it usually takes place in the privacy of one’s room--that allows and indeed encourages the expression of thoughts one would never say aloud.

8) It seems unreasonable to expect--or indeed even to want--to share every experience in life with the same person. We are more complicated than that and capable of pledging lifelong devotion to any number of people of different sex and age. Why does society restrict a man and a woman to only one such pledge per lifetime?

9) The best dowry a woman can bring to a marriage is a set of memories she acquired alone.

10) Sometimes being a good mother gets in the way of being a good person.

11) [after the death of her son] At his death I still cherished the illusion that a mother could shape the destinies of her children, could will them into attaining their full growth as individuals. But with each passing year you expect less from them until one day you find you are asking for nothing more than their physical appearance at regularly appointed times. . .

12) Sometimes I think the primary division in the world is not between male and female but between people who travel and people who stay home.

Anybody want to weigh in?