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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the jargon of his type I honestly didn’t know what he meant, and seeing my puzzled expression he translated “Are you a Christian?” I admit I was furious at his impertinence and bad taste. I coldly said, “I might answer that question, sir, if I were not afraid that you would thereby feel encouraged to ask me if I expected to be married soon and how much money I have in the bank—since they are certainly less sacred subjects.”
I don’t think the creature had brains enough to understand my snub. He answered that he would not think of asking questions upon personal subjects!!!
I call myself a Christian, in that I believe in Christ’s teachings and do my poor best to live up to them. I am a member of the church believing that with all its mistakes and weakness it is the greatest power for good in the world and I shall always do what I can to help its cause. But oh, this hideous cant of “being washed in the blood.” To me that phrase always summons up a disgusting physical picture that revolts me.
By the way, just for the sake of curiosity I read Bob Ingersoll’s lectures recently. I expected to be horribly shocked for when I was a child it was “aut Ingersoll aut diabolus.” Well, I was amazed. With the exception of his disbelief in a personal God, Christ’s divinity and eternal punishment—and as you know, the last two would not be exceptions with all ministers—everything he states would be admitted openly or tacitly by any minister under 40 years of age today. He was howled down because he believed in evolution and denied that the garden of Eden was a historical fact, because he denied predestination, and stated that the God of the old testament was not a deity worthy of undiluted love and admiration and denied the verbal inspiration of the Bible. These were his principal “heresies.” However, the lectures were rather blatant and vulgar and his views were stated in an offensive fashion. If they were clothed in more considerate language they might be—and are—preached from the majority of pulpits today. He minces up poor old Talmage without mercy and I was with him there for I abhor Talmage and all his works—or rather sermons, for I don’t think he ever did anything but preach vapid sensational sermons. Grandma adores Talmage’s sermons—reads them every Sunday and cries over them! Well, I don’t object—but I must be excused from sharing in her enthusiasm.
I don’t think Kipling is “written out.” I think he is just in a transition period and that he will emerge from it with something better than he has yet done. Still, of course he may not. I don’t think our writers of today have the “staying power” of the older novelists. They are more of sky-rockets than of calm planetary continuance. When a man begins “playing to the gallery” he is done for.
No, McClure’s have never printed my story yet. Of course they paid for it at acceptance. It is probably lying forgotten in the dusty corner of some editorial safe. Everybodys published my story last April. I thought you’d seen it. I mailed you an old copy of it yesterday. I don’t think it was worth a hundred dollars—but I didn’t send the check back and ask them to make it fifty, for all that!! I understand that a lady elocutionist in New York has made quite a hit with it on the platform. This letter is a fearful scrawl. I have such bad ink that I have to write large or it will blot everything. I’m written out—like Kipling—and must close. I’m going to read the Bible now—I’ve got as far along as Isaiah. He is splendid, isn’t he? But what calamity howlers those old prophets were. And they never did any good with their scolding.
Yours sincerely,
L. M. Montgomery.
Cavendish, P.E.I.,
Thursday Evening,
Sept. 10, 1908.
My dear Mr. Weber:—
I know my correspondents all think I’m dead. I’m not—but I’m so tired and worn out, after a summer of steady grind, that I might almost as well be, as far as real living is concerned. To tell the truth, I feel horribly “played out.”
You see, Anne seems to have hit the public taste. She has gone through four editions in three months. As a result, the publishers have been urging me to have the second volume ready for them by October—in fact insisting upon it. I have been writing “like mad” all through the hottest summer we have ever had. I finished the book last week and am now typewriting it, which means from three to four hours’ pounding every day—excessively wearisome work; I expect it will take me a month to get it done—if I last so long.
Thank you for your kind remarks on Anne. I suppose she’s all right but I’m so horribly tired of her that I can’t see a single merit in her or the book and can’t really convince myself that people are sincere when they praise her. You did not make the criticism I expected you to make and which a couple of the reviews did make—that the ending was too conventional. It was; and if I had known I was to be asked to write a second Anne book I wouldn’t have “ended” it at all but just “stopped.” However, I didn’t know and so finished it up as best I could.
There has been some spice in my life so far this summer reading the reviews. So far I have received sixty, two were harsh, one contemptuous, two mixed praise and blame and the remaining fifty-five were kind and flattering beyond my highest expectations. So I feel satisfied as far as that goes. I wish you could see the reviews; but as you can’t I’ll copy the main points herewith. Don’t think me extremely vain for doing so. I know you are interested in your fellow-writer’s adventures. I enclose the Toronto Globe review of which I have a spare copy and you may keep it.
Phila. Inquirer. “A wholesome and stimulating book.”
Montreal Herald. “A book which will appeal to the whole English speaking world—one of the most attractive figures Canadian fiction has produced.”
Boston Transcript. “Anne is one of the most delightful girls that has appeared for many a day. She is positively irresistible.”
St. John Globe. “A truly delightful little girl.”
Pittsburg Chronicle. “Those who enjoy originality, quaintness, and character portrayal of a high order will make a grievous mistake if they ignore Anne of Green Gables! The heroine is one of the cleverest creations in recent fiction.”
Boston Herald. “It could only have been written by a woman of deep and wide sympathy with child nature. A delightful story.”
Detroit Saturday Night. “Here’s to your good fortune, Anne. You will brighten many a career and darken nary a one.”
Montreal Star. “The most fascinating book of the season.”
Record Herald, Chicago. “Here is a literary bouquet full of life and naturalness and quiet humour and pathos.”
Milwaukee, Free Press. “Anne has the elusive charm of personality. Every word she utters partakes of it and every one of her quaint expressive ways. She is full of flavour. A better book for girls there could hardly be for it possesses a freshness and vivacity very rare indeed among books for girls, or indeed among any books for children.”
N.Y. American. “An idyllic story, one of the most delightful books we have read for many a day.”
Phila. North American. “One of the most delightful characters in juvenile fiction—with graceful touches of fancy and in an original and captivating vein of humour.”
Brooklyn Times. “Anne is very funny but she is not convincing.”
N.Y. Times. “A mawkish, tiresome impossible heroine, combining the sentimentality of an Alfred Austin with the vocabulary of a Bernard Shaw. Anne is a bore.”
N.Y. World. “The people in this book are delightfully studied and it is a pleasure to know them.”
The Outlook. “One of the best books for girls we have seen this long time, with plenty of character and originality.”
Buffalo News. “A story after the true lover’s heart—full of absorbing interest from first to last.”
Boston Budget. “A very engaging