********
“June 25, 19 —
“We had our history examination to-day — the Tudor period. I’ve found it very fascinating — but more because of what isn’t in the histories than of what is. They don’t — they can’t tell you what you would really like to know. What did Jane Seymour think of when she was awake in the dark? Of murdered Anne, or of pale, forsaken Katherine? Or just about the fashion of her new ruff? Did she ever think she had paid too high for her crown or was she satisfied with her bargain? And was she happy in those few hours after her little son was born — or did she see a ghostly procession beckoning her onward with them? Was Lady Jane Gray ‘Janie’ to her friends and did she ever have a fit of temper? What did Shakespeare’s wife actually think of him? And was any man ever really in love with Queen Elizabeth? I am always asking questions like this when I study that pageant of kings and queens and geniuses and puppets put down in the school curriculum as ‘The Tudor Period.’
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“July 7, 19 —
“Two years of High School are over. The result of my exams was such as to please even Aunt Ruth, who condescended to say that she always knew I could study if I put my mind to it. In brief, I led my class. And I’m pleased. But I begin to understand what Dean meant when he said real education was what you dug out of life for yourself. After all, the things that have taught me the most these past two years have been my wanderings in the Land of Uprightness, and my night on the haystack, and the Lady Giovanna, and the old woman who spanked the King, and trying to write nothing but facts, and things like that. Even rejection slips and hating Evelyn Blake have taught me something. Speaking of Evelyn — she failed in her exams and will have to take her senior year over again. I am truly sorry.
“That sounds as if I were a most amiable, forgiving creature. Let me be perfectly frank. I am sorry she didn’t pass, because if she had she wouldn’t be in school next year.
********
“July, 20, 19 —
“Ilse and I go bathing every day now. Aunt Laura is always very particular about seeing that we have our bathing suits with us. I wonder if she ever heard any faint, far-off echoes of our moonlit petticoatedness.
“But so far our dips have been in the afternoon. And afterwards we have a glorious wallow on sun-warm, golden sands, with the gauzy dunes behind us stretching to the harbour, and the lazy blue sea before us, dotted over with sails that are silver in the magic of the sunlight. Oh, life is good — good — good. In spite of three rejection slips that came to-day. Those very editors will be asking for my work some day! Meanwhile Aunt Laura is teaching me how to make a certain rich and complicated kind of chocolate cake after a recipe which a friend of hers in Virginia sent her thirty years ago. Nobody in Blair Water has ever been able to get it and Aunt Laura made me solemnly promise I would never reveal it.
“The real name of the cake is Devil’s Food, but Aunt Elizabeth will not have it called that.
********
“Aug. 2, 19 —
“I was down seeing Mr. Carpenter this evening. He has been laid up with rheumatism and one can see he is getting old. He was very cranky with the scholars last year and there was some protest against keeping him on, but it was done. Most of the Blair Water people have sense enough to realize that with all his crankiness Mr. Carpenter is a teacher in a thousand.
“‘One can’t teach fools amiably,’ he growled, when the trustees told him there were complaints about his harshness.
“Perhaps it was his rheumatism that made Mr. Carpenter rather crusty over the poems I took to him for criticism. When he read the one I had composed that April night on a hill-top he tossed it back to me—’pretty little gossamer thing,’ he said.
“And I had really thought the poem expressed in some measure the enchantment of that evening. How I must have failed!
“Then I gave him the poem I had written after I had come in that night. He read it over twice, then he deliberately tore it into strips.
“‘Now — why?’ I said, rather annoyed. ‘There was nothing wrong about that poem, Mr. Carpenter.’
“‘Not about its body,’ he said. ‘Every line of it, taken by itself, might be read in Sunday-school. But its soul — what mood were you in when you wrote that in heaven’s name?’
“‘The mood of the Golden Age,’ I said.
“‘No — of an age far before that. That poem was sheer Paganism, girl, though I don’t think you realize it. To be sure, from the point of view of literature it’s worth a thousand of your pretty songs. All the same, that way danger lies. Better stick to your own age. You’re part of it and can possess it without its possessing you. Emily, there was a streak of diabolism in that poem. It’s enough to make me believe that poets are inspired — by some spirits outside themselves. Didn’t you feel possessed when you wrote it?’
“‘Yes,’ I said, remembering. I felt rather glad Mr. Carpenter had torn the poem up. I could never have done it myself. I have destroyed a great many of my poems that seemed trash on successive readings, but this one never seemed so and it always brought back the strange charm and terror of that walk. But Mr. Carpenter was right — I feel it.
“He also berated me because I happened to mention I had been reading Mrs. Hemans’ poems. Aunt Laura has a cherished volume, bound in faded blue and gold, with an inscription from an admirer. In Aunt Laura’s youth it was the thing to give your adored a volume of poetry on her birthday. The things Mr. Carpenter said about Mrs. Hemans were not fit to write in a young lady’s diary. I suppose he is right in the main — yet I do like some of her poems. Just here and there comes a line or verse that haunts me for days, delightfully.
“The march of the hosts as Alaric passed
is one — though I can’t give any reason for my liking it — one never can give reasons for enchantment — and another is,
“The sounds of the sea and the sounds of the night
Were around Clotilde as she knelt to pray
In a chapel where the mighty lay
On the old Provencal shore.
“That isn’t great poetry — but there’s a bit of magic in it for all that — concentrated in the last line, I think. I never read it without feeling that I am Clotilde, kneeling there—’on the old Provencal shore’ — with the banners of forgotten wars waving over me.
“Mr. Carpenter sneered at my ‘liking for slops’ and told me to go and read the Elsie books! But when I was coming away he paid me the first personal compliment I ever had from him.
“‘I like that blue dress you’ve got on. And you know how to wear it. That’s good. I can’t bear to see a woman badly dressed. It hurts me — and it must hurt God Almighty. I’ve no use for dowds and I’m sure He hasn’t. After all, if you know how to dress yourself it won’t matter if you do like Mrs. Hemans.’
“I met Old Kelly on the way home and he stopped and gave me a bag of candy and sent his ‘rispects to him.’
********
“August 15, 19 —
“This is a wonderful year for columbines. The old orchard is full of them — all in lovely white and purple and fairy blue and dreamy pink colour. They are half wild and so have a charm no real tamed garden flower ever has. And what a name — columbine is poetry itself. How much lovelier the common names of flowers are than the horrid Latiny names the florists stick in their catalogues. Heartsease and Bride’s Bouquet, Prince’s Feather, Snap-dragon, Flora’s Paint Brush, Dusty Millers, Bachelor’s Buttons, Baby’s Breath, Love-in-a-mist — oh, I love them all.
********
“September 1, 19 —
“Two things happened to-day. One was a letter from Great-aunt Nancy to Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Nancy has never taken any notice of my existence since my visit to Priest Pond four years ago. But she is still alive, ninety-four years old, and from all accounts quite lively yet. She wrote some sarcastic things in her letter, about both me and Aunt Elizabeth; but she wound up by offering to pay all my expenses in Shrewsbury next year, includi
ng my board to Aunt Ruth.
“I am very glad. In spite of Aunt Nancy’s sarcasm I don’t mind feeling indebted to her. She has never nagged or patronized me — or did anything for me because she felt it her ‘duty.’ ‘Hang duty,’ she said in her letter. ‘I’m doing this because it will vex some of the Priests, and because Wallace is putting on too many airs about “helping to educate Emily.” I dare say you feel yourself that you’ve done virtuously. Tell Emily to go back to Shrewsbury and learn all she can — but to hide it and show her ankles.’ Aunt Elizabeth was horrified at this and wouldn’t show me the letter. But Cousin Jimmy told me what was in it.
“The second thing was that Aunt Elizabeth informed me that, since Aunt Nancy was paying my expenses, she, Aunt Elizabeth, felt that she ought not to hold me any longer to my promise about writing fiction. I was, she told me, free to do as I chose about that matter.
“‘Though I shall never approve of your writing fiction,’ she said, gravely. ‘At least I hope you will not neglect your studies.’
“Oh, no, dear Aunt Elizabeth, I won’t neglect them. But I feel like a released prisoner. My fingers tingle to grasp a pen — my brain teems with plots. I’ve a score of fascinating dream characters I want to write about. Oh, if there only were not such a chasm between seeing a thing and getting it down on paper!
“‘Ever since you got that cheque for a story last winter Elizabeth’s been wondering if she oughtn’t to let you write,’ Cousin Jimmy told me. ‘But she couldn’t bring herself to back down till Aunt Nancy’s letter gave her the excuse. Money makes the Murray mare go, Emily. Want some more Yankee stamps?’
“Mrs. Kent has told Teddy he can go for another year. After that he doesn’t know what will happen. So we are all going back and I am so happy that I want to write it in Italics.
********
“September 10, 19 —
“I have been elected president of the Senior class for this year. And the Skulls and Owls sent me a notice that I had been elected a member of their august fraternity without the formality of an application.
“Evelyn Blake, by the way, is at present laid up with tonsilitis!
“I accepted the presidency — but I wrote a note to the Skull and Owl declining membership with awful politeness.
“After black-beaning me last year, indeed!
********
“October 7, 19 —
“There was great excitement to-day in class when Dr. Hardy made a certain announcement. Kathleen Darcy’s uncle, who is a Professor of McGill, is visiting here, and he has taken it into his head to offer a prize for the best poem, written by a pupil of Shrewsbury High School — said prize being a complete set of Parkman. The poems must be handed in by the first of November, and are to be ‘not less than twenty lines, and no more than sixty.’ Sounds as if a tape-measure was the first requisite. I have been wildly hunting through my Jimmy-books to-night and have decided to send in Wild Grapes. It is my second best poem. A Song of Sixpence is my best, but it has only fifteen lines and to add any more would spoil it. I think I can improve Wild Grapes a bit. There are two or three words in it I’ve always been dubious about. They don’t exactly express fully what I want to say, but I can’t find any others that do, either. I wish one could coin words, as I used to do long ago when I wrote letters to Father and just invented a word whenever I wanted one. But then, Father would have understood the words if he had ever seen the letters — while I am afraid the judges in the contest wouldn’t.
“Wild Grapes should certainly win the prize. This isn’t conceit or vanity or presumption. It’s just knowing. If the prize were for mathematics Kath Darcy should win it. If it were for beauty Hazel Ellis would win it. If it were for all round proficiency, Perry Miller — for elocution, Ilse — for drawing, Teddy. But since it is for poetry, E. B. Starr is the one!
“We are studying Tennyson and Keats in Senior Literature this year. I like Tennyson but sometimes he enrages me. He is beautiful — not too beautiful, as Keats is — the Perfect Artist. But he never lets us forget the artist — we are always conscious of it — he is never swept away by some splendid mountain torrent of feeling. Not he — he flows on serenely between well-ordered banks and carefully laid-out gardens. And no matter how much one loves a garden one doesn’t want to be cooped up in it all the time — one likes an excursion now and then into the wilderness. At least Emily Byrd Starr does — to the sorrow of her relations.
“Keats is too full of beauty. When I read his poetry I feel stifled in roses and long for a breath of frosty air or the austerity of a chill mountain peak. But, oh, he has some lines —
“Magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn —
“When I read them I always feel a sort of despair! What is the use of trying to do what has been done, once and for all?
“But I found some other lines that inspire me — I have written them on the index-page of my new Jimmy-book.
“He ne’er is crowned
With immortality who fears to follow
Where airy voices lead.
“Oh, it’s true. We must follow our ‘airy voices,’ follow them through every discouragement and doubt and disbelief till they lead us to our City of Fulfilment, wherever it may be.
“I had four rejections in the mail to-day, raucously shrieking failure at me. Airy Voices grow faint in such a clamour. But I’ll hear them again. And I will follow — I will not be discouraged. Years ago I wrote a ‘vow’ — I found it the other day in an old packet in my cupboard — that I would ‘climb the Alpine Path and write my name on the scroll of fame.’
“I’ll keep on climbing!
********
“October 20, 19 —
“I read my Chronicles of an Old Garden over the other night. I think I can improve it considerably, now that Aunt Elizabeth has lifted the ban. I wanted Mr. Carpenter to read it, but he said,
“‘Lord, girl, I can’t wade through all that stuff. My eyes are bad. What is it — a book? Jade, it will be time ten years from now for you to be writing books.’
“‘I’ve got to practise,’ I said indignantly.
“‘Oh, practise — practise — but don’t try out the results on me. I’m too old — I really am, Jade. I don’t mind a short — a very short story — now and then — but let a poor old devil off the books.’
“I might ask Dean what he thinks of it. But Dean does laugh now at my ambitions — very cautiously and kindly — but he does laugh. And Teddy thinks everything I write perfect, so he’s no use as a critic. I wonder — I wonder if any publisher would accept The Chronicles? I’m sure I’ve seen books of the kind that weren’t much better.
********
“November 11, 19 —
“This evening I spent “expurgating” a novel for Mr. Towers’ use and behoof. When Mr. Towers was away in August on his vacation the sub-editor, Mr. Grady, began to run a serial in the Times called A Bleeding Heart. Instead of getting A. P. A. stuff, as Mr. Towers always does, Mr. Grady simply bought the reprint of a sensational and sentimental English novel at the Shoppe and began publishing it. It was very long and only about half of it has appeared. Mr. Towers saw that it would run all winter in its present form. So he bade me take it and cut out ‘all unnecessary stuff.’ I have followed instruction mercilessly—’cutting out’ most of the kisses and embraces, two-thirds of the love-making and all the descriptions, with the happy results that I have reduced it to about a quarter of its normal length; and all I can say is may heaven have mercy on the soul of the compositor who has to set it in its present mutilated condition.
“Summer and autumn have gone. It seems to me they go more quickly than they used to. The golden-rod has turned white in the corners of the Land of Uprightness and the frost lies like a silver scarf on the ground o’ mornings. The evening winds that go ‘piping down the valleys wild’ are heart-broken searchers, seeking for things loved and lost, calling in vain on elf and fay. For the fairy folk, if they
be not all fled afar to the southlands, must be curled up asleep in the hearts of the firs or among the roots of the ferns.
“And every night we have murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson across the harbour, with a star above them like a saved soul gazing with compassionate eyes into pits of torment where sinful spirits are being purged from the stains of earthly pilgrimage.
“Would I dare to show the above sentence to Mr. Carpenter? I would not. Therefore there is something fearfully wrong with it.
“I know what’s wrong with it, now that I’ve written it in cold blood. It’s ‘fine writing.’ And yet it’s just what I felt when I stood on the hill beyond the Land of Uprightness to-night and looked across the harbour. And who cares what this old journal thinks?
********
“December 2, 19 —
“The results of the prize poem competition were announced to-day. Evelyn Blake is the winner with a poem entitled A Legend of Abegweit.
“There isn’t anything to say — so I say it.
“Besides, Aunt Ruth has said everything!
********
“December 15, 19 —
“Evelyn’s prize poem was printed in the Times this week with her photograph and a biographical sketch. The set of Parkman is on exhibition in the windows of the Booke Shoppe.
“A Legend of Abegweit is a fairly good poem. It is in ballad style, and rhythm and rhyme are correct — which could not be said of any other poem of Evelyn’s I’ve ever seen.
“Evelyn Blake has said of everything of mine she ever saw in print that she was sure I copied it from somewhere. I hate to imitate her — but I know that she never wrote that poem. It isn’t any expression of her at all. She might as well have imitated Dr. Hardy’s handwriting and claimed it as her own. Her mincing, copperplate script is as much like Dr. Hardy’s black, forcible scrawl as that poem is like her.
“Besides, though A Legend of Abegweit is fairly good it is not as good as Wild Grapes.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 275