Father and Son | Page 3

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Father and Son
A study of two temperaments
by Edmund Gosse

Der Glaube ist wie der Liebe: Er Lasst sich nicht erzwingen.
Schopenhauer
PREFACE
AT the present hour, when fiction takes forms so ingenious and so
specious, it is perhaps necessary to say that the following narrative, in
all its parts, and so far as the punctilious attention of the writer has been
able to keep it so, is scrupulously true. If it were not true, in this strict
sense, to publish it would be to trifle with all those who may be
induced to read it. It is offered to them as a document, as a record of
educational and religious conditions which, having passed away, will
never return. In this respect, as the diagnosis of a dying Puritanism, it is
hoped that the narrative will not be altogether without significance.
It offers, too, in a subsidiary sense, a study of the development of moral
and intellectual ideas during the progress of infancy. These have been
closely and conscientiously noted, and may have some value in
consequence of the unusual conditions in which they were produced.
The author has observed that those who have written about the facts of
their own childhood have usually delayed to note them down until age
has dimmed their recollections. Perhaps an even more common fault in
such autobiographies is that they are sentimental, and are falsified by
self-admiration and self-pity. The writer of these recollections has
thought that if the examination of his earliest years was to be
undertaken at all, it should be attempted while his memory is still
perfectly vivid and while he is still unbiased by the forgetfulness or the
sensibility of advancing years.
At one point only has there been any tampering with precise fact. It is
believed that, with the exception of the Son, there is but one person

mentioned in this book who is still alive. Nevertheless, it has been
thought well, in order to avoid any appearance of offence, to alter the
majority of the proper names of the private persons spoken of.
It is not usual, perhaps, that the narrative of a spiritual struggle should
mingle merriment and humour with a discussion of the most solemn
subjects. It has, however, been inevitable that they should be so
mingled in this narrative. It is true that most funny books try to be
funny throughout, while theology is scandalized if it awakens a single
smile. But life is not constituted thus, and this book is nothing if it is
not a genuine slice of life. There was an extraordinary mixture of
comedy and tragedy in the situation which is here described, and those
who are affected by the pathos of it