An encouraging quote from "Emily Climbs", by LM Montgomery

"Well, it all comes to this, there's no use trying to live in other people's opinions. The only thing to do is to live in your own. After all, I believe in myself. I'm not so bad and silly as they think me, and I'm not consumptive, and I can write. Now that I've written it all out I feel differently about it. The only thing that still aggravates me is that Miss Potter pitied me--pitied by a Potter!

"I looked out of my window just now and saw Cousin Jimmy's nasturtium bed--and suddenly the flash came--and Miss Potter and her pity, and her malicious tongue seemed to matter not at all. Nasturtiums, who coloured you, you wonderful, glowing things? You must have been fashioned out of summer sunsets.

"I help Cousin Jimmy a great deal with his garden this summer. I think I love it as much as he does. Every day we make new discoveries of bud and bloom.

"So Aunt Elizabeth won't send me to Shrewsbury! Oh, I feel as disappointed as if I'd really hoped she would. Every door in life seems shut to me.

"Still, after all, I've lots to be thankful for. Aunt Elizabeth will let me go to school another year here, I think, and Mr. Carpenter can teach me heaps yet; I'm not hideous; moonlight is still a fair thing; I'm going to do something with my pen some day--and I've got a lovely, grey, moon-faced cat who has just jumped up on my table and poked my pen with his nose as a signal that I've written enough for one sitting.

"The only real cat is a grey cat!"

        from "Emily Climbs" by LM Montgomery

 

A Gray Cat

Emily and Dean speak of the Alhambra, from "Emily Climbs"

"This evening after school Dean and I began to read The Alhambra over again, sitting on the stone bench in the garden. That book always makes me feel as if I had opened a little door and stepped

straight into fairyland.

"'How I would love to see the Alhambra!' I said.

"'We will go to see it sometime--together,' said Dean
.

"'Oh, that would be LOVELY,' I cried. 'Do you think we can ever manage it, Dean?'


 "Before Dean could answer I heard Teddy's whistle in Lofty John's bush--the dear little whistle of two short high notes and one long low one, that is OUR SIGNAL."

From "Emily Climbs", by LM Montgomery

Bench Sitting from "Emily Climbs"

"This view of it hadn't occurred to me. We sat down on the stone bench and thrashed it out. Dean is not going away this winter. I am glad--I would miss him horribly. If I can't have a good spiel with Dean at least once a fortnight, life seems faded. There's so much colour in our talks; and then at times he can be so eloquently quiet. Part of the time tonight he was like that: we just sat there in the dream and dusk and quiet of the old garden and heard each other's thoughts. Part of the time he told me tales of old lands and the gorgeous bazaars of the East. Part of the time he asked me about myself, and my studies and my doings. I like a man who gives me a chance now and then to talk about myself.

from "Emily Climbs", by LM Montgomery

Bench Sitting

 

A Garden Quote from Emily Climbs

"Big words are never beautiful--'incriminating'--'obstreperous'--'international'--'unconstitutional.' They make me think of those horrible big dahlias and chrysanthemums Cousin Jimmy took me to see at the exhibition in Charlottetown last fall. We couldn't see anything lovely in them, though some people thought them wonderful. Cousin Jimmy's little yellow 'mums, like pale, fairy-like stars shining against the fir copse in the north-west corner of the garden, were ten times more beautiful. But I am wandering from my subject--also a bad habit of mine, according to Mr. Carpenter. He says I must (the italics are his this time!) learn to concentrate--another big word and a very ugly one." from "Emily Climbs", by LM Montgomery

Miss Roselle's Garden

The Cat Who Liked Books

It is well known that LM Montgomery was an avid cat lover.

A few years ago, I was perusing the Religion nook of a cozy book store in Chapel Hill (a University town in NC) and a cat jumped up on the stool and perused with me.  He seems to be most interested in the Christianity Shelf.

I found this photo in my archives today and felt it should be shared with Kindreds

The Cat Who Likes Books