In the book A Philosophical Novelist, George Santayana says, "Nathaniel is an unwitting purveyor of Epicurean atomism to his half brother, accidentally encouraging in him a cynical tendency toward self indulgent agnosticism.
Nathaniel wants Peter to follow the will of God – prudent and tempered living with a respect for the social order of that time.
In section seven of Ancestry, Harriet Alden stares down on baby Oliver and describes the portraits of four generations of family, consisting of clergymen, lawyers, merchants, and physicians.
He enjoys his Sunday ritual of going to church because, “if acquaintances met there they could decently ignore each other, or at most pass with a mute bow.” This confirms Nathaniel's anti-social personality, being that he rarely ever leaves his home in the first place.
He possesses countless works of art which he generously donates to museums then keeps the letters of gratitude to, “refute any possible insinuation that he was a miser”, which his murdered father was accused of being.
When the conundrum was proposed by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, why couldn't Nathaniel Alden open the blinds or light the gas in his house, he suggests, because he might see the pictures.
It is made clear however that Nathaniel is only doing this to fulfill his own sense of duty and when examined closer Peter is in no real danger of anything from which he should be extracted.
Could it be that Santayana is trying to tell us if we move through life only for the sake of being mobile or we stay still just to be in a state of stagnation that our soul is in danger of being in dire straits?
When asked if she would still marry Dr. Alden if she chose to move to Boston where there are a host of other men to choose from, says she would because she has a duty to preserve her family's interests.
Duty is the inextricable force that at once propels Oliver through purposeful, practical existence, and what keeps him from ever attaining access to the more tender side of life.
She felt the emotional aspects of life and learning (religion, poetry, song) not only as unimportant to his young mind, but purely detrimental.
The little physical contact given to the young Oliver in the capacity of emotion was to be had through Irma the German governess, although this too would prove awkward in time.
Oliver's young mind readily digested the material of fact, those indisputable fundamental principles void of human meddling and the confused passions of the lower sphere of the brain.
Lord Jim was like a brother to Peter Alden, and for much of the section he represents a wholly admirable free-spirited side of life of which Oliver was largely unaccustomed.
Part III begins with Peter Alden in London, where he felt strangely comfortable and at home, waiting for the arrival of Oliver and Irma.
This visit to the church becomes memorable because directly after the sermon Oliver meets Rose Darnley, Jim's sister, for the first time.
As he gets older he exercises less and uses his body less, thus causing pain in his thoughts and an irrational emotional state (attributing too much control to himself over the world).]
Peter was dreading the walk down Castle Hill, but he didn't want to disappoint Mario so he decided he would dose himself with medicine before the trip.
As Mr Rawdon Smith continued to speak Peter slipped into a limp slumber in the arm chair, with his eyes closed.
Oliver was thinking of the upcoming school year when he received a cablegram from his mother demanding that he bring his father home immediately, or else she would come and get him.
He is to marry a new girl name Bella Iggins, and they plan on acting to pay the bills until he gets his money for the ship and they can settle at a riverside cottage.
She then attempts to seduce him, but he realizes that he is incapable of making love to a woman, a realization brought on by him tasting her sardine breath.
The fact that Oliver was offended at this is secondary to the idea that the smell and lustful embrace served to pull his head from the clouds, and to bring before his face the true nature of the woman whom he had seen, as little as five minutes prior, drop the masque and embody the very symbol of the meek; while he took on that of the man of ample piety.
The book is titled as a memoir because, as philosopher Horace M. Kallen wrote, Santayana's “true image” is better seen in The Last Puritan than in his autobiography, Persons and Places.
To make up, I have no heroine, but a worldly grandmother, a mother- the quintessence of all New England virtues- and various fashionable, High Church, emancipated, European, and sentimental young ladies.
The result is internal conflict that causes many Americans to fail to live up to their potential and to question their happiness, worth, and life's meaning.
Oliver, on the other hand, most exemplifies the tragedy of the genteel tradition through his Puritanism developed fully to its tragic, self-destructive end.
"Here says Santayana, is the tragedy of the Puritan: the spirit that seeks to govern and is not content to understand, that rebels against nature and animal faith and demands some absolute sanction for love.
Your true puritans, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions, were men and women of ardors, even gaiety.
"[32] "Oliver Alden's approach to the death prophesied by Mr. Denis Murphy stiffens the fabric of his personality, hardening to a tragic rigidity his divided allegiance, the rift of body and spirit.