The Complete Works of L M Montgomery

by L. M. Montgomery

  When I wrote of the book succeeding or not succeeding, I had in mind only a very moderate success indeed, compared to that which it did attain. I never dreamed that it would appeal to young and old. I thought girls in their teens might like to read it, that was the only audience I hoped to reach. But men and women who are grandparents have written to tell me how they loved Anne, and boys at college have done the same. The very day on which these words are written has come a letter to me from an English lad of nineteen, totally unknown to me, who writes that he is leaving for “the front” and wants to tell me “before he goes” how much my books and especially Anne have meant to him. It is in such letters that a writer finds meet reward for all sacrifice and labor.

  Well, Anne was accepted; but I had to wait yet another year before the book was published. Then on June 20th, 1908, I wrote in my journal:

  “To-day has been, as Anne herself would say, ‘an epoch in my life.’ My book came to-day, ‘spleet-new’ from the publishers. I candidly confess that it was to me a proud and wonderful and thrilling moment. There, in my hand, lay the material realization of all the dreams and hopes and ambitions and struggles of my whole conscious existence – my first book. Not a great book, but mine, mine, mine, something which I had created.”

  I have received hundreds of letters from all over the world about Anne. Some odd dozen of them were addressed, not to me, but to “Miss Anne Shirley, Green Gables, Avonlea, Prince Edward Island.” They were written by little girls who had such a touching faith in the real flesh and blood existence of Anne that I always hated to destroy it. Some of my letters were decidedly amusing. One began impressingly, “My dear long-lost uncle,” and the writer went on to claim me as Uncle Lionel, who seemed to have disappeared years ago. She wound up by entreating me to write to my “affectionate niece” and explain the reason of my long silence. Several people wrote me that their lives would make very interesting stories, and if I would write them and give them half the proceeds they would give me “the facts!” I answered only one of these letters, that of a young man who had enclosed stamps for a reply. In order to let him down as gently as possible, I told him that I was not in any need of material, as I had books already planned out which would require at least ten years to write. He wrote back that he had a great deal of patience and would cheerfully wait until ten years had expired; then he would write again. So, if my own invention gives out, I can always fall back on what that young man assured me was “a thrilling life-history!”

  Green Gables has been translated into Swedish and Dutch. My copy of the Swedish edition always gives me the inestimable boon of a laugh. The cover design is a full length figure of Anne, wearing a sunbonnet, carrying the famous carpet-bag, and with hair that is literally of an intense scarlet!

  With the publication of Green Gables my struggle was over. I have published six novels since then. Anne of Avonlea came out in 1909, followed in 1910 by Kilmeny of the Orchard. This latter story was really written several years before Green Gables, and ran as a serial in an American magazine, under another title. Therefore some sage reviewers amused me not a little by saying that the book showed “the insidious influence of popularity and success” in its style and plot!

  The Story Girl was written in 1910 and published in 1911. It was the last book I wrote in my old home by the gable window where I had spent so many happy hours of creation. It is my own favourite among my books, the one that gave me the greatest pleasure to write, the one whose characters and landscape seem to me most real. All the children in the book are purely imaginary. The old “King Orchard” was a compound of our old orchard in Cavendish and the orchard at Park Corner. “Peg Bowen” was suggested by a half-witted, gypsy-like personage who roamed at large for many years over the Island and was the terror of my childhood. We children were always being threatened that if we were not good Peg would catch us. The threat did not make us good, it only made us miserable.

  Poor Peg was really very harmless, when she was not teased or annoyed. If she were, she could be vicious and revengeful enough. In winter she lived in a little hut in the woods, but as soon as the spring came the lure of the open road proved too much for her, and she started on a tramp which lasted until the return of winter snows. She was known over most of the Island. She went bareheaded and barefooted, smoked a pipe, and told extraordinary tales of her adventures in various places. Occasionally she would come to church, stalking unconcernedly up the aisle to a prominent seat. She never put on hat or shoes on such occasions, but when she wanted to be especially grand she powdered face, arms and legs with flour!

  As I have already said, the story of Nancy and Betty Sherman was founded on fact. The story of the captain of the Fanny is also literally true. The heroine is still living, or was a few years ago, and still retains much of the beauty which won the Captain’s heart. “The Blue Chest of Rachel Ward” was another “ower-true tale.” Rachel Ward was Eliza Montgomery, a cousin of my father’s, who died in Toronto a few years ago. The blue chest was in the kitchen of Uncle John Campbell’s house at Park Corner from 1849 until her death. We children heard its story many a time and speculated and dreamed over its contents, as we sat on it to study our lessons or eat our bed-time snacks.

  In the winter of 1911, [sic] Grandmother Macneill died at the age of eighty-seven, and the old home was broken up. I stayed at Park Corner until July; and on July 5th was married. Two days later my husband and I sailed from Montreal on the Megantic for a trip through the British Isles, another “dream come true,” for I had always wished to visit the old land of my forefathers. A few extracts from the journal of my trip, may be of interest.

  Glasgow, July 20, 1912

  Thursday afternoon we left for an excursion to Oban, Staffa, and Iona. We went by rail to Oban and the scenery was very beautiful, especially along Loch Awe, with its ruined castle. Beautiful, yes! And yet neither there nor elsewhere in England or Scotland, did I behold a scene more beautiful than can be seen any evening at home, standing on the “old church hill” and looking afar over New London Harbor. But then – we have no ruined castles there, nor the centuries of romance they stand for!

  Oban is a picturesque little town, a fringe of houses built along the shore of a land-locked harbour, with wooded mountains rising steeply behind them. Next morning we took the boat to Iona. It was a typical, Scottish day, bright and sunny one hour, showery or misty the next. For a few hours I enjoyed the sail very much. The wild, rugged scenery of cape and bay and island and bleak mountain – the whole of course, peppered with ruined, ivy-hung castles – was an ever changing panorama of interest, peopled with the shades of the past.

  Then, too, we had a Cook’s party of French tourists on board. They jabbered incessantly. There was one nice old fellow in particular, with a pleasant, bronzed face and twinkling black eyes, who seemed to be the expounder-in-chief of the party. They got into repeated discussions, and when the arguments reached a certain pitch of intensity, he would spring to his feet, confront the party, wave his arms, umbrella, and guide book wildly in the air, and lay down the law in a most authoritative tone and fashion.

  As the forenoon wore away I began to lose interest in everything. Ruined castle, towering mountain, white torrent, ghosts, and French tourists lost their charm. In the morning I had been much worried because I heard that it might be too rough to stop at Staffa, and I wanted so badly to see Fingal’s Cave. But now I did not care in the least for Fingal’s Cave, or for any other earthly thing. For the first time in my life I was horribly seasick.

  The steamer did stop at Staffa, however, and two boatloads went ashore. I let them go. What cared I? The waves would not have daunted me, the pouring rain would not have appalled me, but seasickness!

  However, the steamer was now still and I began to feel better. By the time the boats came back for the second load I was quite well and once more it seemed a thing of first importance to see Fingal’s Cave. I joyfully scrambled down into the boat and was rowed ashore with the others to the Clamshe
ll cave. From there we had to scramble over what seemed an interminably long distance – but really I suppose it was nor more than a quarter of a mile – over the wet, slippery, basalt columns that fringe the shore, hanging in the worst places to a rope strung along the cliff. Owing to my much scrambling over the rocks of Cavendish shore in early life, I got on very well and even extorted a compliment from the dour guide; but some of the tourists slipped to an alarming degree. Never shall I forget the yelps and sprawls of the old Frenchman aforesaid.

  Nobody fell off, however, and eventually we found ourselves in Fingal’s Cave, and felt repaid for all our exertions.

  ’Tis a most wonderful and majestic place, like an immense Gothic cathedral. It is hard to believe that it could have been fashioned merely by a freak of nature. I think every one there felt awed; even those irrepressible French tourists were silent for a little time. As I stood there and listened to the deep, solemn echo of the waves the memory of a verse of Scripture came to me “He inhabiteth the halls of eternity.” And it seemed to me that I stood in very truth in a temple of the Almighty that had not been builded by hands.

  We went on to Iona and landed there for a brief, hurried, scrambling exploration. Iona is interesting as the scene of St. Columba’s ministry. His ancient cathedral is still there. Of greater interest to me was the burial place of the earliest Scottish kings, about sixty of them, it is said, finishing with that Duncan who was murdered by Macbeth. They were buried very simply, those warriors of ancient days. There they lie, in their island cemetery, beneath the gray sky. Neither “storied urn nor animated bust” mark their resting place. Each grave is covered simply by a slab of worn, carved stone. But they sleep none the less soundly for that, lulled by the eternal murmur of the waves around them.

  I would have liked to have spent several days in Iona, prowling by myself around its haunted ruins and getting acquainted with its quaint inhabitants. There is really little pleasure in a hurried scramble around such places in the midst of a chattering, exclaiming mob of tourists. For me, at least, solitude is necessary to real enjoyment of such places. I must be alone, or with a few ‘kindred souls’ before I can dream and muse, and bring back to life the men and women who once dwelt there and made the places famous.

  We returned to Glasgow yesterday by water and were glutted with scenery. I was very tired when we reached our hotel. But weariness fell away from me when I found letters from home. How good they tasted in a foreign land! They bridged the gulf of ocean, and I saw the Cavendish hills and the green gloom of the maple wood at Park Corner. Ah! beautiful as the old world is, the homeland is the best.

  July 30, 1912.

  Royal Hotel,

  Prince’s St.,

  Edinburgh.

  Monday we went out to Ayr with a Cook guide. As a rule we dislike the Cook parties and go alone wherever we can. But this expedition was pleasant, as there were only two besides ourselves and they were Canadians, Mr. and Mrs. T. from Ontario. We had also a very nice guide. Two things subtracted from the pleasure of the day, it poured rain most of the time and I had a grumbling facial neuralgia. But in spite of both drawbacks I enjoyed myself ‘where’er we trod ’twas haunted, holy ground.’ We saw the room – the low-ceilinged, humble little room where once a cotter’s son was ‘royal born by right divine,’ and we explored the ruins of the old Alloway Kirk made classic forever by Tam O’Shanter’s adventures.

  Then we went to the Burns monument just because it was on the list of ‘sights’ and the guide was bound to do his duty by us. I have no interest whatever in monuments. They bore me horribly. But two things in the monument did interest me, a lock of Highland Mary’s fair hair and the Bible upon which she and Burns swore their troth in their parting tryst. Poor, sweet Highland Mary! I don’t suppose she was anything more than a winsome little country lass, no sweeter or prettier than thousands of other maidens who have lived and died, if not unwept, at least unhonoured and unsung. But a great genius flung over her the halo of his love and lo! she is one of the immortals, one of the fair ladies of old romance who will be forever remembered because of the man who loved her. She is of the company of Laura and Beatrice, and Stella, of Lucasta and Julia, and of the unknown lady of Arvers’ sonnet.

  Wednesday we went to the Trossachs. This is one of the expeditions I have looked forward to all my life, ever since I read “The Lady of the Lake” in schooldays. Sitting behind my old desk at school I dreamed out the panorama of hill and lake and pass, where Ellen lived and Fitz-James wandered and Roderick Dhu brooded like a storm cloud over a Highland hill. And I made a covenant with myself that when my ship came in I should go and see it.

  We sailed up Loch Lomond to Inversnaid and there took coaches for a five-mile drive across to Loch Katrine. Of all the ways of locomotion I have ever tried I like coaching best. It beats motoring ‘hollow.’ We soon reached Stronachlachar, which in spite of its dreadful name, is an exquisite spot, and took the boat down Loch Katrine to the Trossachs pier.

  I cannot decide whether Loch Katrine disappointed me or not. I think it did, a little. It was as beautiful as I had dreamed it, but it was not my Loch Katrine, not quite the Loch Katrine of my “Chateau en Espagne.” And I resented the difference, as one might resent a change made in his childhood’s home on going back to it after long years.

  The lower portion of the lake is certainly much smaller than my idea of it as given by the poem. And the famous ‘Silver Strand’ is a poor affair now. Since the instalment of the Glasgow waterworks the lake has risen several feet and covered ‘the beach of pebbles white as snow.’ I brought a handful of them home with me as souvenirs. But I think I shall keep the Loch Katrine of my dream in my geography of the “Lady of the Lake.” I like it better than the real one.

  We coached through the Trossachs to the Trossachs hotel. The Trossachs is beautiful and grand and perhaps before the carriage road was made it was wild enough, especially for some benighted wanderer who had all too good reason to fear “Highland plunderers.” But it is far from being the wild, riven, precipitous dell of my fancy. No, it is not the Trossachs where I have so often wandered with Fitz-James.

  The hotel is in a lovely spot, on the shore of Loch Achray.

  “Where shall we find in foreign land

  So lone a lake, so sweet a strand?”

  Yet Loch Achray, too, was on a smaller scale than I had expected. We walked along it that night as far as the ‘Brig of Turk,’ gathering bell-heather and bluebells as we went. Scottish bluebells are certainly the sweetest things! They seem the very incarnation of old Scotia’s romance.

  Next morning we walked through the Trossachs to Loch Katrine in a pouring rain and hired one of the boatmen to row us to and around “Ellen’s Isle.” I don’t think I liked it because it, too, was not the islet of my dream, and I was conscious of a foolish disappointment.

  Ben Venue, however, did not disappoint me. It dominates the landscape. Everywhere we went, there was old Ben Venue, rugged and massive, with a cloud-wreath resting on his ‘summit hoar.’ I was very sorry that the night we spent there was wet. I should have loved to have seen a sunset effect on Ben Venue.

  August 6, 1912

  Last Monday morning we went by train to Melrose and coached over six miles of most beautiful road to Abbotsford. Although we went on our own account we could not help falling in with a Cook excursion and this somewhat spoiled the day for us. But the scenery along the road is exquisite and we saw the Eildon Hills, cleft in three by the spells of wizardry. Abbotsford is most interesting, crowded with relics I should have loved to have dreamed over in solitude. But that might not be. The rooms were filled by a chattering crowd, harangued by a glib guide. I wondered if Scott would have liked to think of his home being so over-run by a horde of curious sight-seers.

  We drove from Abbotsford to Dryburgh where Scott is buried. As we were able to escape from the “Cookies” here we enjoyed the magnificent ruin doubly. Then we returned to Melrose and explored the ruins of the Abbey there. We could n
ot follow Scott’s advice, which I never believed he failed, as is asserted, to take himself, and view it by moonlight. But in that mellow, golden-gray evening light it was beautiful enough, beautiful and sad, with the little bluebells growing in its ruined courts and over its old graves. Michael Scott is reputed to be buried there, and there the heart of Robert Bruce was buried, and doubtless, rests as quietly as though it had, according to his wish, been laid in the soil of the Holy Land.

  There is some wonderful hand-carving still left in Melrose, and the little hand high up on one of the arches is as suggestive as it is beautiful. What fair lady’s hand was chiselled there in lasting stone? One cannot but think it was wrought by a lover. On Wednesday we left for Inverness, but stopped off en route to visit Kirriemuir, the “Thrums” of Barrie’s stories. In particular, I wanted to see the ‘Den’ where Sentimental Tommy and his cronies held their delightful revels. It is a lovely spot. One thing about it made me feel at home, its paths, which Barrie calls ‘pink,’ are the very red of our own island roads. I could have fancied that I was prowling in the woods around Lovers’ Lane.

  Of all the places we have visited in Scotland thus far I like Inverness best. In itself it is only a small gray town but the surrounding scenery is magnificent.

  We drove out to Culloden the evening of our arrival and it is one of the drives that, for sheer pleasure, will always stand out in my memory. The road was exceedingly lovely and we were fortunate enough to have a nice old driver who knew all the history and legend of everything, and was very willing to tell it in delightful broad Scotch.

  The next day we visited Tomnahurich, the famous cemetery of Inverness. It deserves its fame; I am sure it must be the most beautiful cemetery in the world. It is a large hill outside the city, rising in a perfect cone, and thickly covered with trees. The name is a Gaelic word meaning ‘the hill of the fairies,’ and surely it must once have been a spot meet for a fairy kingdom and the revels of Titania. Seen at eventide, against a sunset sky, it seems a veritable outpost of the Land of Old Romance.