sitions (236)” and suddenly the focus back upon himself. That this is an autobiographical book, I have no doubt. For even in the final few pages of the book, Edmund askes the reader if he may “speak plainly (248).” Funny how he asks permission now for what he has been doing throughout the book. Edmund feels that he surely “has a right to protest (248)” the final action that he shows us of his father. His father’s letter is represented at the end for selfish reasons. Only when the reader sees the inflexibility and the “defiance” of the father’s letter can Edmund end with the sympathy of the reader. Edmund’s final act of narcissistic manipulation has us cheering when he ends his autobiography by him “throwing off the yoke of dedication ...and fashioning an inner life for himself (251).” If I could have....I would have liked to given this to Edmund Gosse’s father, maybe it would have helped.“Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.You may give them your love but not your thoughts.For they have their own thoughts.You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.You may strive to be like them, but seen not to make them like you.For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forts.The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”-- Kahlil Gibran The Prophet...
