Through another bookish blog I discovered Annis Duff’s “Bequest of Wings: A Family’s Pleasure with Books.” I learned so much, including that Annis, from Greek meaning “pure” and virginal,” is a Scottish variant of the name Agnes. While that factoid was not in the book itself, never having come across the name Annis, I was compelled to look it up.
Duff, a former librarian and mother of two, writing in the 1940s, describes the bibliophilic habits she and her husband cultivated with their children, some of their most beloved books, and what reading as a family and enjoying words together looks like.
If you ever wonder why the quality of writing has declined in recent decades, here you find answers. Take the title. From an Emily Dickinson poem, “Bequest of Wings” has a mysterious power to it. The evocative use of language has contracted; the material at our fingertips has slipped away.
The Dickinson poem reads:
He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust,
He knew no more that he was poor,
Or that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy ways,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!
In these nourishing words is an example of how through the written word and recited poetry we can come to possess immaterial goods and, thus, begin to desire them anew. When we are without the thrill of finely crafted verse expressing good and noble thoughts, we are impoverished, yet we cannot see our lack.
Duff describes how we might introduce poetry in the nursery, proclaiming, “It is never too soon to begin to speak poetry to a baby.” A fine and worthy sentiment. What lyric does she suggest? While Duff gives a nod to Mother Goose, she recounts that some of her daughter’s favorite poems while still quite young included William Blake’s “Piping Down the Valleys Wild” and “Jerusalem.” My!
But let us not stop there! As many a good poetry-lover, Duff suggests following the path of pleasure to find the verse to speak. She writes:
“Probably you will do it [speak poetry] at first for your own pleasure, just as you sing to him for the delight of watching his response. And it is not surprising to find yourself speaking poetry that is not included in any collection of Verses for the Littlest Ones. What could be more absurd than to say, as you tilt up a little chin to scrub under it, ‘Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in’? But there is no buffoonery about it, and when a two-year-old gives you back those words with grave and touching pleasure, you feel that somehow he begins to know not only nobility of language, but something of the mystery and magnificence that lies behind it.”
Reading that conveys the electrifying sense that we, the parents, should have something stored away in memory worth proclaiming, something capable of expressing “nobility of language” and “the mystery and magnificence that lies behind it.” I, like most of my peers, have nothing so grand at my command, or, at least, very little. It’s never too late, and spending time with Duff will inspire you to brush up on the Shakespeare soliloquy memorized in 8th grade, the Robert Frost poem your child is learning, the few scraps of Scripture verse in magisterial translation.
A true friend does not delude you into thinking you are fine the way you are. Quietly, perhaps indirectly, she exposes your vices and deficits, her enduring companionship itself the encouragement to improve. So Duff, more than three-quarters of a century on, is a great encouragement to those who love language not to accept the banal and tawdry use of words common around us but to reach farther afield, select truly great books, and give a veritable “bequest of wings” to our children in an inheritance of noble words.
Far from lofty meditations, Duff has many practical recommendations throughout the book. Some of them are more readily applicable than others.
Her descriptions of proper care and respect for books is quaint. The quality of the books and the expense that went into making them was a great deal more than the cheaply printed, readily available tomes we have now. Duff is not wrong that you should instill a sense of respect and proper treatment of written materials. Her lengthy description of the process of disciplining her young son for the destruction of a book was masterful in its thoroughness and effectiveness. Notably, she had two children with a large age gap and a librarian’s training and passion for mending books.
I was convicted by her assertion that children who commit the sin of damaging book spines by placing them open, facedown instead of using a bookmark have not been properly trained and are imitating sloppy parents who do the same. She’s right! I have one child who obstinately resists bookmarks and has desecrated many a book with ill treatment. No lasting harm done, because they were not fine, exquisite volumes, but on principle it is a risky way to live and a poor habit to keep. Did my child get the habit from me? Upon reflection, the answer is sadly, yes.
While there is no excuse, I would suggest that leaving the book open, however deleterious, can be an expression of hope. When I’m summoned for this or that, needing to get up to look after something or other, leaving the book open suggests to my mind that this is just a brief interlude and I’ll be back to read in a minute. Rarely is that the case, and often the book languishes, risking damage and undergoing public humiliation through disrespectful treatment. As much as that expression of hopeful optimism means to me, I have pressed into service the blank extras from math flashcard packs; while not elegant they are serviceable as bookmarks. The true magic of parenting is on full display, and having changed my ways and distributed some of those blank flashcards, the disrespect of written material has been curbed in my home thanks to Annis Duff.
I found the ringing endorsement of Duff’s “Bequest of Wings,” as well as Duff’s book “Longer Flight: A Family Grows Up with Books,” on the blog Read-At-Home Mom. In a deliciously scathing review of Sarah Mackenzie’s “The Read-Aloud Family,” blog author Katie Fitzgerald recommends Duff’s books as an alternative to Mackenzie’s cri de coeur to become a family that reads. While I am indebted to Fitzgerald for making me aware of Duff and her excellent writing, I hesitate to recommend Read-At-Home Mom. The archive still has some good material, as evidenced by my find, but recent years suggest Fitzgerald has descended to a literary diet consisting almost exclusively of romance novel, which seems, for the true lover of the written word, a fate worse than death. Her selections for her children that she publishes in regular posts still seem sound, but I cannot but question the judgment of a woman filling her mind with formulaic stories meant to titillate the emotions of women ensnared in delusion. It’s like trying to survive on diet soda!
Fitzgerald, like Duff, was a librarian, and her opinions of selecting books were formerly quite snobbish in a refreshing and opinionated way. The fact that such a woman of discerning taste, a literary bosom friend with the refined Annis Duff, could fall so low as to be reading and writing romance novels suggests just how difficult is the task before us. The literary world is a minefield of poor quality, ugly books for children and adults alike. The number of times a book for young children will now rhyme the words “four” and “more” is astonishing. It might be every single one! So impoverished has become the repository of beautiful verse and well considered ideas on which we have to draw when we write, read, and speak to our children. Forget quoting the King James Bible! Most of us can’t even rustle up a verse from Shel Silverstein.
The reason why Sarah Mackenzie’s books are basic, bland, and about as nourishing as a packet of instant oatmeal is that we are not culturally equipped for the splendor of which Duff speaks. We can become equipped. Through the slow and steady introduction of beautiful books, the refinement of our habits around them, the continual renewal and recitation of our repertoire. It will not happen without intentional and habitual action. Indeed, “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” How Duff will make your heart long for that heaven. The beauty of a good book is that, like a small child, you can return to it often for fresh encouragement along the way. In the reading culture we find ourselves today, you will need it! So much more than a book about books you could read, this is a book that gives you a peek into a different kind of world, a different way of being. Therein lies its timeless power.
“Bequest of Wings” is available through Internet Archive, but reading it there seems utterly incongruous with a work that cries out for well-crafted binding, a legacy of interesting owners, and fine, handsome printing on the physical page. While it appears to be out of print, as far as I can tell, used copies are available for a reasonable price.
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