The Lighthouse Stevensons - Bella Bathurst [64]
Robert was encouraged by Alan’s intelligence but disturbed by his solitary habits. When Alan showed an enthusiasm to continue studying the classics, his father grew fretful. Robert had never made any secret of the fact that he wished his sons to follow him into his profession. All the expense and trouble over educating his children was aimed almost solely at producing the next generation of Lighthouse Stevensons. Robert found Alan’s frailty bewildering, since he himself had never had a day off work in his life and was not inclined to tolerate weediness or special pleading in others. So Robert cajoled and bullied Alan into shape. He wrote letters and dragged his son in for fraught, painful audiences, insisting again and again that Cicero or Pliny might be fine for men of leisure, but that status and security lay in practical skill. What use was a man who could quote Catullus in the original if he couldn’t also build a well-laid road? As far as Robert was concerned, imparting any knowledge that couldn’t be applied during a force-9 gale in the loneliness of the Atlantic was as much use as teaching dressage to dogs. At the heart of Robert’s narrow attitude was the old black terror that, for all his accomplishments and all his fame, he was still a callow man, whose reputation depended on physical effort rather than intellectual brilliance.
And so Alan grew up aware that the weight of Robert’s ambition rested on him. For years, he remained torn between following his talent for literature and his inevitable destiny as an engineer. In 1823, when Alan was sixteen, Robert wrote demanding that he should make a final decision. Two years into his time at Edinburgh University and after much thought, Alan finally replied, half teasing, half desperate for a resolution to his father’s pressurings. He wrote in pinched schoolboy style,
Dear Father,
I take this opportunity of answering your letter dated – day of February, in which you stated a desire that I would apply myself to some business; and although, I must confess, I had a liking for the profession of a soldier, on the receipt of your letter I determined to overcome this foolish wish and am happy to say I have succeeded. On further consideration I found in myself a strong desire of literary glory, and I pitched upon an advocate but there was want of interest. I was the same way with a clergyman; and as I am by no means fond of shopkeeping I determined upon an engineer, especially that all with whom I had spoken on the subject recommend it, and as you yourself seem to point it out as the most fit situation in life I could choose. I only doubt that my talents do not lie that way, but in hopes that my choice will meet with your full approbation.
The letter is partly a self-mocking reference to his own switherings, but it is also the forlorn plea of a boy who merely wanted to please his father.
Despite Alan’s reservations about his suitability for engineering, his decision delighted Robert. Alan was packed off almost immediately after completing his university studies to London. He was to stay with the Reverend Pettingal in Twickenham, to be ‘finished’ according to the refinements of the day: learning dancing, touring England and polishing up his knowledge of gentlemanly habits. Naturally, his time in the south had a practical application as well. Alan was sent to several engineering works and spent his evenings studying yet more mathematics. Four months after his decision,