Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Woman Behind The Books - Memoirs & Private Letters (Including The Complete Anne of Green Gables Series, Emily Starr Trilogy & The Blue Castle). Lucy Maud Montgomery
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been doing a lot of work for juveniles and scooping in several checks of $8 and $10. In April the Youth’s Companion took a poem and sent $12. They have four of mine on hand now, two of them for over two years. Outing sent $38 for my orchard article. Last week the National accepted a ghost story to be published in September, price $10. The Housekeeper, Minneapolis, accepted a story yesterday and sent a check for $25. This is a new place as I never landed them before. I’ve had a lot of my MSS. go astray this winter—never had such a time. I always keep a copy of course but the loss of time—and possible checks—is very annoying.
I had a letter from Miss C. last week. She, too, concocted a serial for Am. Home but hadn’t heard from it.
I have invested in a new type writer. My old one, only a second-hand to begin with, was about worn out so I traded it off for a practically new one—an “Empire.” It does fine work. But it has a different keyboard and so I have to learn all over again and I’m very slow. But this is a universal keyboard so when I do get expert at it I’ll be able to write on any of the high-priced machines.
No, I had no MS in San Francisco. That ’quake was terrible. I suppose in a few weeks we will be inundated with stories of it and next year a whole flood of novels. Well, it would make a great subject—and require a great pen to do it justice.
Some callers have just come in. I must go down and as I will not have time to write any more tonight I’ll finish this up although it is the merest apology for a letter. Next time I’ll try to redeem my reputation.
Very sincerely yours,
L. M. Montgomery.
Monday Evening,
Seven O’clock,
October 8, 1906.
My dear Mr. W.:—
This is perfectly dreadful! But I won’t apologize. I haven’t had time, that is the simple fact. It seems almost uncanny that I have a spare hour tonight. Your letter has been haunting me like a reproachful spectre in the background of consciousness for weeks. Never mind, the long autumn and winter evenings are at hand and I shall behave ever so much better.
It has been awfully cold today and I’ve gone about with my teeth chattering. But we have had the loveliest fall, ever since the first of September—all purple and gold and mellowness in earth, air and sky.
Well, today I laughed until I cried. I only wish you had been handy to laugh too. You certainly would have laughed—or wept! Perhaps the latter would have been more fitting. It was certainly enough to make angels weep.
I received back a rejected MS. from Lippincotts’ Magazine. This was not what I laughed over—or wept over either, being too well accustomed to that. But I thought it seemed much bulkier than it should so before putting it away in my desk I examined it and found that another MS had been returned with it—not mine, but, as the rejection slip showed, some Miss Richardson’s of Philadelphia. I read it—and good heavens!
Anything like it I never heard of nor imagined. If I had not seen it “with my own eyes” I could not have believed that such stuff could ever be offered for publication in all seriousness—and to such a magazine as Lippincotts at that. Oh, I wish you could see it! Look here—you shall see it—you must see it! I’ll send it to you in a separate parcel and you’ll bless me forever for it. You can return it to me as soon as you’ve read it and I’ll send it to the author. When you read it you will understand that delay is of no moment and you will also realize that my action in sending it to you justifies itself. If it doesn’t kill you you’ll enjoy it I think. I did, at least. Great masterpieces of humour have amused me less! Remember that this MS was offered in all seriousness to a first-rate American Magazine. I shall never growl at an Editor again. No matter what Editors do, they should not be blamed when they have to read such AWFUL stuff. It’s a wonder they don’t all have nervous prostration. Perhaps they don’t read it though. Probably they never went beyond the first page of this. And yet the rejection slip was typewritten—said to be a mark of special favour!!!—while I got merely a printed slip. Probably the editor felt grateful to the author for a good laugh.
The American Home cashed up Saturday Oct. 6, after holding up my serial ever since last April. They sent me eighty dollars for it. It was fully all—and more—that it was worth for it was sensational trash. The last serial they bought from me, though of the same length, only brought in $40. It was about 20,000 words long and I wrote it in two weeks.
I have been home all summer. Last week I went to town for three days and had an enjoyable little outing. You say you wonder why I don’t travel. It is simply because I cannot leave home. Grandma is 82 and I cannot leave her, for even a week’s cruise. We live all alone and there is no one I can get to stay with her. I am very much tied down but it cannot be helped. Some day I hope to be able to see a bit of the world.
I’ve been writing busily all summer, mostly it must be admitted, juvenile and S. School work. I picked up enough ten and fifteen dollar checks to make it worth while. Holland’s Magazine, Texas, and The Pilgrim, Detroit, were two new places I got into. The former paid $3 for a short 2000 word sketch and the latter promises ten on publication for a 3000 word story. I have done a good deal for East and West of Toronto. They only pay $5 per story so I just send them second-rates. Often they send me pictures and ask me to write stories to suit. I loathe doing this—but still I do it! The other day I had a letter from the American Messenger asking me for my photograph to be published among their contributors in their December announcement number! The Boy’s World asked me for four stories for 1907. East and West also asked me to write a 6 chapter serial for them but I declined. They would only pay $5 per chapter and in the same time I could write six short stories for American papers that would net $10 apiece.
Yes, I teach a Sunday School class—but I don’t like it much. I have a class of half grown girls but they seem stupid and commonplace. They never dream of asking a question, much as I have tried to induce them to, and all their idea of “studying” a lesson seems to be to learn the printed questions in the quarterlies off by heart. I never can get them to give an answer in their own words and I don’t believe they ever get one scrap of real good out of the lesson. I have to follow the old traditional paths of thought & expression or I would get into hot water immediately. Cavendish is wholesomely (?) old-fashioned and orthodox.
By the way, do you notice how that word “orthodox” is degenerating? With the preceding generation it was a term of honour and commendation. With ours, it is tinged with contempt. With the next generation it will be a term of reproach. Even words have to follow the inevitable natural law of rise, perihelion and decline.
My N.Y. correspondent is, to speak frankly, not much account. I don’t care for his letters very much. He is the personal friend of a personal friend of mine and that is how I “met” him. If he were any good I would try to arrange a correspondence between you and him but I assure you it would not be worth while. I think that, personally, he is a fine, upright, clean-minded man, but intellectually he is only a cipher and our correspondence is not interesting, that’s all. He has known quite a lot of famous writers though and seems to make his living out of journalism, etc. No, Outing hasn’t published my sketch yet—won’t till next summer. I had a story in September Gunters but I haven’t been paid for it yet. They are always slow. I’m always expecting them to smash up, they publish such trash.
I like my Empire typewriter very much. Yes, it’s a visible machine and does excellent work. A “universal keyboard” means a keyboard common to all the standard machines—that is, the arrangement of letters, etc. is the same and if you learn to write on one you can write on them all. My former machine did not have this keyboard so that I had to learn all over again when I got my Empire. But I’m getting pretty “slick” at it now.
A caller has just come in and I must close though I had a few more things to comment on. What do you think of the spelling reform agitation and Roosevelt’s action thereon? Have you read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle? If not, don’t—if you ever want to eat sausages or canned goods again!! It