"Queeney" and "Scottie": The Value of Paternal Letters

The penny-post, said Saintsbury, was thought to have killed serious letter-writing, but did not finish the job.¹ Long-distance phone calls and easy high-speed travel now further diminish the epistolary art, and a basic form of children's literature, the parental letter, survives only under special conditions. Writer and receiver must be separated by substantial space and time before there is a prospect of meaningful correspondence; even then, the affluence incident to travel or distant schooling, and the convenience of Ma Bell, argue for the weekly call. The genre has, however, merits distinctly its own. The informal parental letter is easily read and understood not only by the recipient but by any teenager. When a scries of such letters is available, and the author a professional writer, there arc the further advantages of effective style, a dramatic context and an introduction to the reader of an author who probably reveals himself more readily than in his formal works. The letters of Samuel Johnson to "Queeney" Thrale and of Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter "Scottie" provide these benefits and give us special light on the attitudes and personality of each man.²

Johnson's thirty-two letters to Hester Maria Thrale are one of the major literary recoveries of the twentieth century, found as they were in 1932 among the family papers of her collateral descendants. She was the Thralcs' eldest child, born on September 17, 1764, one day before Johnson's birthday anniversary (the Thrales customarily held a joint celebration). Johnson met the Thrales in January 1765 and lived with them for substantial periods from June 1766 until October 1782. Although Johnson could remark to Boswell that he would not have been fond of his own child had he one, and could write of a projected visit to Langtons' that "eight children in a small house will probably make a chorus not very diverting," he seems to have had a powerful affection for children. James Clifford remarks:

Johnson's love for young people was an element in his character which Boswell almost completely ignored, and it is in his relations with the Thrale children that we see the old man in his kindliest role. He aided in their education, watched their growth with affectionate concern, and grieved over their ill health. He almost looked upon them as his own. First place in his heart was always held by the eldest—"Miss Hetty" as he referred to her, then "Queen Hester," which was shortened to "Queeney." Although her mother had other pet names which she used continually, such as "Hetty" and "Niggy," it is as "Queeney" that the child moves serenely across the pages of Johnson's letters and her mother's diaries.³

George Sherburn calls Johnson's prose style "perhaps the greatest of his achievements," and cites its balance, structure, rhythm, and precise choice of abstract nouns. His example of this balanced elaboration is drawn from the famous letter to Chesterfield:

The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors
had it been early,	had been kind;
but it has been delayed
till 1 am indifferent,	and cannot enjoy it;
till 1 am solitary	and cannot impart it;
till 1 am known,	and do not want it.4

The first letter to Queeney, written when she was six and Johnson was sixty-one, and when Mrs. Thrale had just given birth to her seventh child, Sophia, has a similar schematic simplicity:

tell little Mama	that I am glad to hear she is well
	and that 1 am going to Litchfield
	and shall come soon to London.
Desire her	to make haste and be quite well
Tell dear Grandmama	that Iam very sorry for her pain
Tell Papa	that I wish him joy of his new Girl
and tell Harry	that you have got my heart
	and will keep it.
	and that I am,
	Dearest Miss,
	Your most obedient servant
	Sam: Johnson                 (p. 5)

A rhythmic structure appears many places in the letters, as in this, written in 1780: "If Ideas are to us the measure of time, he...