The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter's Mother, by Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

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Title: Peter's Mother

Author: Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

Release Date: December 14, 2003 [EBook #10452]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PETER'S MOTHER

NEW EDITION

WITH INTRODUCTION

BY

MRS. HENRY DE LA PASTURE

1906

_And I left my youth behind
For somebody else to find_.

TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF MY ONLY BROTHER

LT. COLONEL WALTER FLOYD BONHAM, D.S.O.

TO MY AMERICAN READERS

The author of "Peter's Mother" has been bidden of the publishers, who
have incurred the responsibility of presenting her to the American
public, to write a preface to this edition of her novel. She does so
with the more diffidence because it has been impressed upon her, by
more than one wiseacre, that her novels treat of a life too narrow,
an atmosphere too circumscribed, to be understood or appreciated by
American readers.

No one can please everybody; I suppose that no one, except the old man
in Aesop's Fable, ever tried to do so. But I venture to believe that
to some Americans, a sincere and truthful portrait of a typical
Englishwoman of a certain class may prove attractive, as to us are the
studies of a "David Harum," or others whose characteristics interest
because--and not in spite of--their strangeness and unfamiliarity. We
do not recognise the type; but as those who do have acknowledged the
accuracy of the representation, we read, learn, and enjoy making
acquaintance with an individuality and surroundings foreign to our own
experience.

There are hundreds of Englishwomen living lives as isolated, as
guarded from all practical knowledge of the outer world, as entirely
circumscribed as the life of Lady Mary Crewys; though they are not all
unhappy. On the contrary, many diffuse content and kindness all around
them, and take it for granted that their own personal wishes are of no
account.

Indeed it would seem that some cease to be aware what their own
personal wishes are.

W