This post arrives from lovely Prince Edward Island in Canada. This was where the authoress, Lucy Maud Montgomery, was born and grew up. The Gentle Island they call it and it truly is. The countryside is, as Lucy Maud put it in her journals, all ruby, emerald and sapphire...the most stunning colours of earth, sea and sky. The pace of life is still slow, courteous, friendly and feeling. Her most famous work is, of course, Anne of Green Gables. And when one is on PEI it is a must to do the Anne pilgrimage to her varied locations and museums. One must walk along leafy Lovers Lane with it's forget-me-nots blooming in the hedges, see the dancing, glittering sunshine on the Lake of Shining Waters and hear the sinister soughing of the wind in the firs of the Haunted Wood.
I have, as it happens, just been introduced to these stories by my daughter who loved them in her young days. I never knew of them sadly. Reading them now is a pleasure but I found that what was lacking is that sense of mystical absorption into the character and the author who wrote the books that one experiences as child. Thus, fascinated as I was by the personality and character of Lucy Maud, who wrote with such immense feeling and reverence about her beloved island, I could not feel that thrill I had when visiting the homes of Louisa Alcott or Mary Webb. The feeling of 'Wow, the writer actually sat here and wrote, lay in this bed, ate from these plates!' It just didn't happen. I felt detached though interested.
Still my daughter thoroughly enjoyed it all and that's the main thing. It's a shame really as I know that Lucy Maud and I would truly have been 'kindred spirits.'
