238 Properly, “I say the tale as ’twas said to me.” From “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” a long poem by Scott. This tale appears in slightly different form in chapter 18 of The Story Girl, also entitled “How Kissing Was Discovered” (see SG, 185–90). An unidentified and undated clipping entitled “When Kissing Came into the World,” signed C. Lauron Hooper (her surname is partly obscured by another clipping), appears in Montgomery’s Blue Scrapbook. In this extended version, Aglaia is named Eurybia.
[CHARMS AND SUPERSTITIONS, TRICKS AND SURPRISES]
“Around the Table.” By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 7 April 1902, 8.
Also in Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 8 April 1902, 5.
239 “Monday’s Child,” a mid-nineteenth-century fortune-telling nursery rhyme for children of which there are numerous versions; chapter 4 of Montgomery’s Pat of Silver Bush is entitled “Sunday’s Child.”
240 I have corrected the original, which reads “I argue with Theodosia.”
[SMILES AND TEARS]
“Around the Table.” By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 14 April 1902, 8.
Also in Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 15 April 1902, 6.
241 “April! thou art like woman – beautiful, / Made up of smiles and tears – a glimpse of heaven / And then – a cloud.” From “April,” an unsigned poem published in The New England Magazine in 1833.
[THE GREAT ART OF LETTER-WRITING]
“Around the Table.” By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 21 April 1902, 8.
Also in Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 24 April 1902, 6.
242 Properly, “if eyes were made for seeing, / Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.” From “The Rhodora,” a poem by Emerson.
243 This brand of water-soluble cocoa, sold as a breakfast food, was manufactured in London, England, by the James Epps Company in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often advertised with the slogan “Grateful – Comforting.” In Anne of Ingleside, Jem Blythe tells his “mother dearwums,” Anne, that she looks “sweet and pure … pure as Epps’ cocoa” (AIn, 134; ellipsis in original).
244 An allusion to Isaiah 44:3 (KJV): “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.”
245 This paragraph and the three that follow appear as “Advice about Writing Letters,” in McCabe, “Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Table Talk,” 165.
246 From the Latin proverb “Verba volant, scripta manent,” literally translated as “Spoken words fly away, written words remain.”
247 Properly, “She’ll vish there was more, and that’s the great art o’ letter writin’.” From The Pickwick Papers, a novel by Dickens.
248 An allusion to Song of Solomon 2:12 (KJV): “The voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”
[THE GREAT ART OF PACKING A TRUNK]
“Around the Table.” By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 28 April 1902, 8.
249 A shorter version of this anecdote, attributed to Philippa Gordon, appears in Anne of the Island (see AIs, 99–100). Montgomery likewise “flitted” to a new boarding house around this time, although she gave no details about her move; see Montgomery, 1 May 1902, in CJLMM, 2: 52–53.
250 “The Man without a Country,” a short story by Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909), American writer, published in The Atlantic in 1863; Peter Schlemihl, or, The Man without a Shadow (1874), a play by J.H. Treadwell based on a novella by Adelbert von Chamisso (1781–1838), French-born German poet.
251 Properly, “Do the corners first, and the middle will take care of itself,” an American proverb.
252 This traditional marriage vow is rooted in Ephesians 5:21–24 (KJV).
253 French phrase denoting a social system in which men dominate or are prioritized over women.
254 The original reads “The ten ladies, / one man left behind, returned to their / merely smiling contemptuously on the / homes satisfied with the success of their / raid.” Two lines of text appear in the wrong order, an error that Montgomery corrects in ink in her scrapbook.
[JONAH DAYS]
“Around the Table.” By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 5 May 1902, 8.
Also in Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 6 May 1902, 5.
255 See “Around the Table,” note 248, above. Montgomery had also used this allusion in “Cynthia’s” article “Many Admiring Glances Bestowed upon Graduates,” published less than a week before this column but appearing later in this volume.
256 The phrase “Et tu, Brute?” (Latin for “And you, Brutus?”) is used to question the loyalty of a friend during a moment of unexpected betrayal; it appears in Julius Caesar (ca. 1599), a tragic play by Shakespeare.
257 An abbreviation of “pro tempore,” a Latin phrase meaning “for the time being.”
258 “An impure bicarbonate of potash containing more carbon dioxide than pearl-ash does, much used as an ingredient in baking-powders. Now also applied to sodium bicarbonate used for the same purpose” (OED).
259 See “Around the Table,” note 59, above.
260 In their edition of Montgomery’s complete early journals, Rubio and Waterston note that Ada Estey, wife of Methodist minister John Estey, “once mixed liniment into a cake” (Rubio and Waterston, in CJLMM, 1: 231n1). Montgomery had already used this incident in her 1898 story “A New-Fashioned Flavoring” and would use it again in chapter 21 of Anne of Green Gables, entitled “A New Departure in Flavourings.” See also “Author Tells How He Wrote His Story,” 34.
261 In the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament, Jonah tries to escape a divine mission given to him by God and suffers as a result. Here, a “Jonah day” refers to a day during which everything goes wrong. Chapter 12 of Anne of Avonlea is entitled “A Jonah Day.” This paragraph and the three that follow appear as “A Jonah Day,” in McCabe, “Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Table Talk,” 165.
262 Located at 1451 Barrington Street in Halifax, Government House is the official residence not only of the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia but also of any British monarch who visited the province.
263 Euphemism for spring that originates in The Winter’s Tale (1623), a play by Shakespeare. Montgomery would publish a short story entitled “In the Sweet o’ the Year” in 1907.
[ON PHOTOGRAPHY]
“Around the Table.” By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 12 May 1902, 4.
Also in Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 13 May 1902, 6.
Also as “‘Cynthia’s’ 1902 Article on Photography,” in Epperly, Through Lover’s Lane, 179–82.
264 See Proverbs 25:4 (KJV): “Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.” In other words, remove waste from what is valuable.
265 This paragraph and the remaining portions of this column appear with minor variations as “Photography as a Hobby: Cynthia’s Advice to Beginners,” in McCabe, “Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Table Talk,” 166–67.
266 This freestanding bell tower, completed in the late fourteenth century, is located in the Tuscan city of Pisa in central Italy.
267 This classical saying and oxymoron is sometimes translated into English as “more haste, less speed.”
268 “A place for everything and everything in its place,” a seventeenth-century proverb.
269 Montgomery took such a photo in Leaskdale in 1922 and inserted it in her journal; see Montgomery, 17 September 1922, in LMMCJ, 3: 53.
[THE MORAL OF MAY]
“Around the Table.” By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 19 May 1902, 8.
Also in Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 20 May 1902, 5.
270 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay entitled “Compensation,” but while the phrase “There are always compensations” is frequently attributed to him, a search for this phrase in his body of work has proven inconclusive.
271 Wilhelmina (1880–1962), who reigned as Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948, had given birth to a stillborn son on 4 May 1902, two weeks before the publication of this column.
272 This anecdote would be attribut
ed to Stella Maynard in Anne of the Island (see AIs, 86–88).
273 To live in luxury, an early eighteenth-century expression.
274 Properly, “To teach the young idea how to shoot.” From “Spring,” part of The Seasons (1730), by James Thomson (1700–1748), Scottish poet and playwright.
275 The origin of this expression is unknown, but Montgomery uses it elsewhere: see Montgomery, 7 March 1903, in Montgomery and Lefurgey, “‘ … Where Has My Yellow Garter Gone?,’” 54; Montgomery to Weber, 2 September 1909, in GGL, 90.
276 “An early form of motion-picture camera and projector combined” (OED), a word introduced in the mid-1890s.
277 See Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4, and Luke 4:4 (KJV).
278 Properly, “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad,” an ancient proverb.
279 This student composition about birds, used in “Crooked Answers” earlier in this volume, returns in Anne of Avonlea (see AA, 112–13).
[DELIGHTFUL DAYS]
“Around the Table.” By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 26 May 1902, 1.
Also in Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 27 May 1902, 3.
280 A community east of Halifax, now part of Halifax Regional Municipality.
281 Godey’s Lady’s Book of Philadelphia was launched in 1830, had a circulation of 150,000 by 1860, and ceased publication in 1878. As Montgomery mentions in “The Alpine Path” later in this volume, the title of her celebrity memoir came from a poem published in that magazine during her childhood.
282 A mantilla is “a large light veil or scarf, often of black lace, worn by (esp. Spanish) women over the head and covering the shoulders” (OED).
283 Thackeray provided illustrations for his novels, most notably Vanity Fair. Montgomery seems to be referring to the time period depicted in these texts rather than their aesthetic qualities.
284 “Wooed and Married and A’,” a poem by Alexander Ross (1699–1784), Scottish poet.
HALF AN HOUR WITH CANADIAN MOTHERS
By L.M. Montgomery. The Ladies’ Journal (Toronto), November 1901, 20–21. Also in Scrapbook 6.
1 The text of “What to Teach Your Son” appears with minor variants under several titles (“Mother, Teach Your Son,” “Teach the Boy,” “What to Teach Boys,” “What to Teach the Boy,” “What to Teach Your Boy,” and “What to Teach Your Son”), some of them signed “L.M. Montgomery” and others unsigned. These two versions of “One Mother’s Opinion” claim to reprint the piece from a magazine called The Interior, but that publication has not yet been located.
2 The original reads “children’s,’ garden,” but Montgomery corrects the erroneous comma and the quotation mark in her scrapbook.
3 As a transitive verb, “to bedight” means “to equip, furnish, apparel, array, bedeck” (OED).
4 “Foxglove” is “the popular name of Digitalis purpurea, a common ornamental flowering plant,” whereas “sweet William” refers to “a species of pink, Dianthus barbatus, cultivated in numerous varieties, bearing closely-clustered flowers of various shades of white and red, usually variegated or parti-coloured” (OED). For definitions of “bride’s bouquet” and “bleeding hearts,” see “Around the Table,” note 14, above.
5 The original says “Lama,” but Montgomery corrects this to “Alma” in ink in her scrapbook copy.
6 Montgomery would return to this notion of birth and commemorative trees in The Story Girl (see SG, 12–14).
7 The Second Boer War, also known as the South African War, had been fought since October 1899 and would result in a British victory in May 1902. For more on the Battle of Paardeberg, see “Around the Table,” note 155, above.
8 The published text reads “serving,” but Montgomery corrects this to “sewing” in ink in her scrapbook copy. Paul Irving refers to his late mother as his “little mother” throughout Anne of Avonlea.
9 Montgomery would return to this mother–daughter conflict in a 1931 essay (see Montgomery, “The ’Teen-Age Girl,” 276).
10 Between “It” and “is” at the start of this sentence, an extraneous and apparently unrelated line of text appears in the original publication: “voice, ‘won’t you come up here and.” Montgomery omitted this line in her scrapbook copy, so I do not include it here.
11 In “The Alpine Path,” later in this volume, Montgomery writes of the humiliation she felt when forced as a child to wear “baby aprons” to school – except that her grandmother, in stark contrast to the “Little Mother” described here, did not alter these garments in an attempt to reduce her humiliation.
12 The phrase “wilderness of woe” appears in several Christian hymns from the nineteenth century.
13 This joke would appear again in Anne of Avonlea (see AA, 109).
14 This joke first appeared in “Crooked Answers” earlier in this volume and would appear again in Anne of Avonlea (see AA, 110).
15 Like the childlike misunderstanding of the definition of “glacier,” this joke also appeared first in “Crooked Answers,” earlier in this volume, and in Anne of Avonlea (see AA, 109–10).
16 A similar childlike misunderstanding about the surname “Lord” reappears in “Innocent Irreverence,” later in this volume.
17 In 2 Kings in the Old Testament, Elijah and Elisha, two of the most prominent prophets of Israel, cross the Jordan River on dry land. After Elijah is taken to heaven on a chariot of fire, Elisha picks up Elijah’s mantle (the term referring to a cloak likely made of animal skin), which has fallen, as a symbol of Elisha inheriting Elijah’s wisdom. This joke about Elisha inheriting Elijah’s old clothes would be repeated in Anne of Avonlea (see AA, 174).
CHRISTMAS SHOPPING IN HALIFAX STORES
Excerpted from Halifax Daily Echo, 9 December 1901, 1;
10 December 1901, 1; 11 December 1901, 6; 12 December 1901, 1; 13 December 1901, 1; 16 December 1901, 8; 17 December 1901, 8; 18 December 1901, 10; 19 December 1901, 10.
Also, in substantially abridged form, in Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 10 December 1901, 6; 11 December 1901, 6; 13 December 1901, 3; 14 December 1901, 8; 19 December 1901, 6.
1 See Montgomery, 8 December 1901, in CJLMM, 2: 37; see also Montgomery, 12 December 1901, in CJLMM, 2: 37.
2 The Nova Scotia Furnishing Company was located at 1668 Barrington Street.
3 Reclining chair first marketed by Morris & Company in the 1860s.
4 A reefer is “a thick, close-fitting double-breasted jacket” (OED).
5 These shoes were manufactured by the Arnold Shoe Company of North Abington, Massachusetts, founded in 1875.
6 “Coney” refers to fur from a rabbit, whereas “electric seal” refers to rabbit fur that has been altered to simulate sealskin.
7 For the definition of “sacque,” see “The Usual Way,” note 6, above.
8 The original reads “a thoughtful a” followed by white space and then “most cases” on the next line, so I have added “and in” as my best guess of what wording should be there.
9 A repeater watch (or clock) chimes the time on demand, to be used in the dark or by visually impaired individuals; because of the mechanical intricacies involved, repeater watches were considered a status symbol.
10 The term “aerated” refers to carbonated beverages.
11 The Labatt Brewing Company, founded in London, Ontario, by Irish-born John Kinder in 1847; Glen Moray whiskey, distilled in Scotland since 1897.
MANY ADMIRING GLANCES BESTOWED UPON GRADUATES
By Cynthia. Halifax Daily Echo, 30 April 1902, 1. Also in Scrapbook 3.
1 Properly, “most potent, grave, and reverend signors.” From Othello (ca. 1603), a tragic play by Shakespeare. The word “signors” refers to “a title of courtesy for or form of address to an Italian man,” whereas “seignior” could also mean “a person high in rank or authority” (OED).
2 John Forrest (1842–1920), a Presbyterian minister and a professor of history and political economy, was president of Dalhousie University from 1885 to 1911. For the origins of
the names “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry” as a grouping, see “Around the Table,” note 138, above.
3 This phrase refers to Tennyson’s “The Princess,” extracts of which Montgomery used as the epigraph to her article “A Girl’s Place at Dalhousie College,” included earlier in this volume.
4 Jeanette Cann (1880–1956) would go on to teach English at Victoria College in British Columbia. She would serve as president of the Victoria branch of the Canadian Federation of University Women from 1912 to 1914 and again from 1928 to 1929.
5 William Bernard Wallace (1861–1928), once a writer for the Morning Chronicle, had been judge of the County Court of Halifax since January 1901.
6 Frederick Courtney (1837–1918), an Anglican priest, was the fifth Bishop of Nova Scotia.
7 Robert Alexander Falconer (1867–1943), born in Charlottetown, taught New Testament Greek at Pine Hill Divinity Hall in Halifax; he would later serve as president of the University of Toronto from 1907 to 1932.
NETTED DOILY
By L.M. Montgomery. The Modern Priscilla (Boston), April 1903, 21.
1 Montgomery, 27 January 1902, in CJLMM, 2: 43.
INNOCENT IRREVERENCE
By L.M. Montgomery. Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine (Philadelphia), July 1905, A38.
TWO SIDES OF A LIFE STORY
By J.C. Neville. Unidentified and undated clipping. Red Scrapbook 1, L.M. Montgomery Collection, University of Guelph archives.
1 I have corrected the original, which reads “vowed the the future.”
THE ALPINE PATH: THE STORY OF MY CAREER
By L.M. Montgomery. Everywoman’s World (Toronto), June 1917, 38–39, 41; July 1917, 16, 32–33, 35; August 1917, 16, 32–33; September 1917, 8, 49; October 1917, 8, 58; November 1917, 25, 38, 40.
1 The short story “Akin to Love” (previously published as “The Courtship of Josephine”) appeared in May 1915, the serial “Schooled with Briars” (previously published as “The Bitterness in the Cup”) from May to August 1916, the short story “The Old Mirror” (previously published in 1904) in August 1916, the poem “If I Were King” in January 1917, and the short story “The Schoolmaster’s Bride” in July 1917.
A Name for Herself Page 43
