Posterity by Dorie McCullough Lawson Read Free Book Online Page B

independence. The more you get to know of independence the better you will like it, and the more you will get to know yourself and the right aim for your life.
    What I am trying to get firmly planted in your mind is this: In the really important decisions of life, others cannot help you. No matter how much they would like to. You must rely on yourself. That is the fate of each one of us. It can't be changed. It just is like that. And you are old enough to understand this now.
    And that's all of that. It isn't much help in a practical advice way, but in another way it might be. At least, I hope so.
    I'm glad to know of your doing so much reading and that you're becoming interested in Shakespeare. If you really like and understand his work, you will have something no one can ever take from you.
    We are looking forward to Oona's visit. I appreciate your writing about her as you did. It is so long since I've seen her. Too long. Ordinarily I would have been coming East every year or two to put on new plays and would have seen her then. But a Cycle of nine plays is another matter. It brings up complications that keep me tied down to the job, especially as I have not yet caught up on my schedule from the delay my long illness of two years ago caused.
    Don't talk of dry spell! We know all about that! We hardly had any rain last winter and now we live in dread our springs will get so low before summer ends that a lot of the stuff we have planted around the house can't be watered and will have to die. It's rotten. Natives tell us there was less rain this year than at any time for forty years.
    Carlotta joins me in love to you. Let me know as soon as you have any definite plans for the immediate future. And keep your chin up! You will be all right as soon as you get yourself organized along one set line.
    As ever,
Father.
    N . C . W YETH TO N AT
AND C AROLINE W YETH
    â€œTo keep alive and to intensify his sense of wonderment and his curiosity about the simplest things—these will become and remain the most potent factors in his life, no matter what he is destined to do.”
    N. C. Wyeth's enthusiasm for the world around him was apparent in nearly all he did. The celebrated illustrator, whose classic paintings illuminated the pages of such books as
Treasure Island
and
Kidnapped,
loved adventure, nature, and action. He was known to stand for hours on the rocky coast of Maine just watching the crashing waves, sensing the power of the ocean. Wyeth delighted in his family and encouraged his five gifted children to stretch their imaginations and creativity to their fullest. Three of his children—Henriette, Caroline, and Andrew—became artists. His daughter Ann became a composer and painter, and son Nat, an engineer and inventor.
    Here N. C. Wyeth writes to his eldest son, Nat, and Nat's wife, Caroline, about their nearly two-year-old son, Newell.

    Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania
October 19, 1943
    Dear Nat and Caroline,
    The memories of last week with you all are not dimmed as each event stands lens-clear. The beautiful and powerful little figure of Newell dominates it all however. His personality, for one so very young, is truly astonishing to me; the clarity of it remains in my memory, as does his blonde face and figure, cameolike—in sharp preciseness and ultimate delicacy. I like to think mostly of the glow of his hair and face in the cavernous gloom of that cathedrallike woods of “the grotto.” I shall never forget him there.
    Obviously he is blessed with a quick and attentive spirit. Nourish these traits by every means you can think of. This will comprise his greatest and profoundest education, no matter what imposing institutions he may encounter later on. To keep alive and to intensify his sense of wonderment and his curiosity about the simplest things—these will become and remain the most potent factors in his life, no matter what he is destined to do.

    Two years after the above letter was written, N. C.