Used book sales are a treasure trove of cast-off volumes, unwanted and unlooked for by most. Gorgeous old tomes sell for a dollar or two at library events. Somehow, books more than 150 years old have secure binding with only minor signs of wear and tear, notes written in pencil in an elegant script, while the new books shed pages poorly glued in the first reading. Such disparity shows the beauty sometimes found in old things worth preserving.
There is no magic, and not everything old is good. However, the quality and thoughtfulness of old books can give us pause. A hefty volume acquired earlier this year at a book sale is “Poems You Ought to Know.” It’s arresting to consider a book that asserts you “ought” to know anything.
The collection comes from a daily column of the same time in the Chicago Tribune in the early twentieth century. The justification for the effort is articulated with a quotation from Professor Eliot Norton who advised:
“Whatever your occupation may be, and however crowded your hours with affairs, do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every day for refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry.”
This is poetry for hoi polloi, the plumbers and peasants of the world catching a few minutes of poetry before carrying on with their days. One element that is eye-catching is the poetry about mothers. Much of it is, by our standards, oppressively sentimental.
Take, for example, a poem by Elizabeth Akers Allen, “Rock Me to Sleep.” In gushing lyricism, the poet longs for the loving embrace of her mother to make the interluding years and trials of adulthood seem nothing but a dream.
Or consider the unrestrained sentimentalism of General Henry R. Jackson’s “My Wife and My Child,” in which the man at war reflects on his wife and mother of his child “doubly dear” “In whose young heart have freshly met / Two streams of love so deep and clear / And clear her drooping spirits yet.”
Such emotionalism about mothers is no longer tolerated except in Hallmark greeting cards. These are poems that we might say objectify the mothers as sources of comfort. There is no individuality and personality allowed to these women; they are merely vessels bearing soothing balm meant to be poured into the emotional needs of their children.
What we should not forget is that many of those mothers were none the worse for wear on account of the objectification. In other words, they could take it. Around the time some of these poems were written, Sam Houston’s mother warned him never to disgrace the family, telling him “while the door of my cabin is open to brave men, it is eternally shut against cowards.”
It’s reminiscent of the mother in the 1960s who, instead of comforting a child distressed by bullying, booted him out the door with instructions not to come back until he had cleared things up with the neighborhood tough guy.
These examples come from a different time, a time that not only had books better bound and longer lasting but also one that valued machismo in a way that led to stifling excesses. And yet, there is something for mothers to learn in these examples. No, we should not goad our sons into displays of masculinity that are incomprehensible in the current age. No, we should not spurn our children in a flawed attempt to manipulate them and withhold affection until standards are met.
What we can learn is that the overly sentimental assessments of our familial attachments do not tell the whole story. The archetypal role of mother is bigger and broader than we. You now hear mothers of newborns complaining that their babies only “use” them for food and comfort and their toddlers “manipulate” them. These are the complaints of insecure women.
A woman at peace with herself and with confidence in her abilities can handle the smothering sweetness that is used to describe motherhood in general because such limited descriptions do not threaten what she really has. A devoted mother is a prized possession in the heart of her husband and children, but she remains a person whole and entire beyond them.
