Lenoir wrote: Arthur Mee’s letters seem dated now, and patronising and even extreme in parts, but reveal how people thought back then. Maybe Enid agreed with the passage on the proper management of a kitchen, as her cooks were always top class. Even Mrs Stick and Mrs Moon were good cooks.
I like the quote “Let us wait before we smile” (Sally Hope comes to mind.)
I was always an admirer of
The Children's Encyclopaedia edited by Arthur Mee, as it was a delightful source of knowledge, wonder and amusement for me as a child, but he certainly does come across as pompous in some parts of his
Letters to Girls. For good measure I also read his
Letters to Boys, which is written in the same tone. These days, books giving advice to young people generally present the facts and perhaps have features in which young people tell of their personal experiences. In Arthur Mee's
Letters, however, there is a fair amount of moralising and he simply puts forth his own opinion on all sorts of matters. In
Letters to Boys he attempts to discourage his readers from taking up smoking by saying:
Of course, you will have no time to smoke; you will let the other boy do that. It will do you no good, and is almost sure to do you harm; and it is a thing you can leave till you are years and years older, when it will not be worth while to begin. The smoking boy is the loafing boy, the boy who goes about the world slowly, reading silly papers in the street; the boy who is never to be relied upon, who is never there when he is wanted, never comes back when he is expected, and is never particularly missed when he goes.
Then there are Mee's views on physical exercise:
...you will not have to invent all sorts of poor exercises to keep you fit and well. You will never be so silly as to worship muscle, as if that were anything at all to be proud of, and as if, in any case, a man could ever match a horse for that. Perhaps, if for some special reason you cannot take natural exercise, you may put up with some poor artificial second-best, such as we call gymnastics - which may be good sometimes, no doubt, if rightly and moderately used; but such things are not for the healthy life.
The truly healthy boy takes no exercise for its own sake, for he knows that energy wasted in this way is lost to other things. We have so much energy, and if we spend it in swinging dumb-bells we cannot spend it again in walking to the station, or in playing cricket, or in cycling, or in reading.
The natural exercise of a human being, and the best exercise of all, is that of which we are generally unaware - walking, playing, bathing, or any other of the ordinary interests of a healthy life which keep the body moving. Artificial exercise is a medicine which healthy people do not need, any more than they need half the rubbishy drugs which ignorant poeple will take till they can take them no more.
Hmm - he doesn't mince words, does he?!
There are some lovely passages in both books, though. I particularly like the chapter/letter "To the Boy Who Loves a Book," in which Arthur Mee writes:
When nothing that money can buy will bring you peace, the power of reading may heal your sorrows. When all others fail, a book will be your friend, and reading will bring you the friendship of the kings of men...
...You will choose your books wisely, as you choose your friends, and you will find in the world no more enduring friends than books. Never let yourself be far away from them. In the train, in the field, wherever you are, you may have them with you; at home or abroad they will follow you, the most constant, the most unfailing, the most comforting helpers of men. You will find one, if you seek it, on almost any subject in the world; in hope or in perplexity you may seek a friend in books, and at the door of those friends you need never knock in vain.
That's the way I've always felt about books. Wherever I go, I carry a book in my handbag and would feel quite anxious about going anywhere without one!
Anita