Discussed in this essay:
Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family, by Alexander Waugh. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. 472 pages. $27.50.
If Arthur Waugh were to address his son today as he did when the boy was at boarding school in the early 1900s, he would probably be summoned by a social worker and directed to seek counseling. "Son of my soul," he called the teenage Alec, in one of the letters he sent him almost daily, "who has walked so many miles, his arm in mine, and poured out to me a heart that the rest of the world will never know, but which I treasure as a golden gift from God." So besotted was Arthur that his friends feared for his sanity, and his ...