Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children

A GLIMPSE INTO HEARTS AND MINDS

In this day of email and instant messaging does anyone ever take the time to write a longhand letter? What will future generations have to reference in order to learn more about us, who we were and what we thought? Well, I don't have the answer to those questions but I do know that today we can read the letters of some very distinguished people who did take the time to advise, order or console their children via pen and ink. Yes, the writers of the letters contained in this volume are famous Americans, but they are also very much like all of us when it comes to our offspring. What a privilege it is to be able to read these letters and in that way perhaps know a little more about what was in the writers' hearts and minds. The letters are arranged by theme, from 'Continuity' to 'Rules To Live By,' and each letter is preceded by a brief biographical sketch. We find Albert Einstein writing to Hans Albert Einstein, 'What I have achieved through such a lot of strenuous work shall not only be there for strangers but especially for my own boys.....I am very pleased that you find joy with the piano. This and carpentry are in my opinion for your age the best pursuits......' Sam Houston tells Sam, Jr. of a mother's love: 'Your Ma loves you more than she does any one else, so you should love her, more than any one.' While John Adams sends a note of caution to John Quincy Adams: '...Go and see with how little Wisdom this World is governed.' In moments of discouragement Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote to Georgiana Stowe: 'Why have n't I written? Because, dear Georgie, I am like the dry, dead leafless tree, and have only cold, dead, slumbering buds of hope on the end of stiff, hard, frozen twigs of thought, but no leaves, no blossoms....' 'Posterity' offers a collective portrait of who we were. It's a book that can be picked up and enjoyed a page at a time, and it's one you'll want to refer to again and again.

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