On
Christmas Eve, 1798, a week after turning 23, Jane Austen returned home from a
visit to the Bigg sisters at their nearby Hampshire family estate, Manydown, and
wrote the following lively, witty, amusing gossip to sister Cassandra, away in
Kent chez brother Edward at his grand
estate, Godmersham:
“I
returned from Manydown this morning, and found my mother certainly in no
respect worse than when I left her. She does not like the cold weather, but
that we cannot help. I spent my time very quietly and very pleasantly with
Catherine [Bigg]. Miss Blackford is agreeable enough. I do not want people to
be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them
a great deal. I found only Catherine and her when I got to Manydown on
Thursday.…. Mr. Calland …appeared as usual with his hat in his hand, and stood
every now and then behind Catherine and me to be talked to and abused for not
dancing. We teased him, however, into it at last. I was very glad to see him
again after so long a separation, and he was altogether rather the genius and
flirt of the evening. He enquired after you. There were twenty dances, and I
danced them all, and without any fatigue. …My black cap was openly admired by
Mrs. Lefroy, and secretly I imagine by everybody else in the room.”
In
1908, just before the end of her first novel, Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote the following
passage about Avonlea seen through the precocious eyes and mind of her young heroine,
Anne Shirley:
“Anne
worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert was as intense as it had
ever been in Avonlea school, although it was not known in the class at large,
but somehow the bitterness had gone out of it. Anne no longer wished to win for
the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for the proud consciousness of a
well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It would be worth while to win, but she
no longer thought life would be insupportable if she did not.
In
spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant times. Anne
spent many of her spare hours at Beechwood and generally ate her Sunday dinners
there and went to church with Miss Barry. The latter was, as she admitted,
growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor the vigor of her tongue in the
least abated. But she never sharpened the latter on Anne, who continued to be a
prime favorite with the critical old lady.
"That
Anne-girl improves all the time," she said. "I get tired of other
girls--there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne has as
many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts. I
don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child, but she
makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much
trouble in making myself love them."
Aside
from noting the similar witty, lively tone in both these passages, I hope you
also picked up on one very striking parallelism between Austen’s “Miss
Blackford is agreeable enough. I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” and
Montgomery’s Miss Barry’s fond comments
about Anne: “I don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a
child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It
saves me so much trouble in making myself love them."
It’s
not just the close tracking of verbiage and epigrammatic style, it’s the identical
idea behind both. I.e., Montgomery provides the other side of the proverbial
coin to Austen’s wonderfully Wildean ironic epigram. Whereas Austen drily notes
her reciprocation of Miss Blackford’s cold indifference, Miss Barry drily
acknowledges that she has come to love Anne, because Anne is the anti-Miss
Blackford-she works hard to win over Miss Barry, and in so doing, unwittingly
reminds Miss Barry of her imaginative, passionate, brilliant much younger self.
On
the basis of this one startling parallel alone, I claim that the 34 year old L.
M. Montgomery, in her very first novel, published in 1908, was broadly hinting
that she had already read Jane Austen’s above quoted Christmas Eve 1798 letter,
which appeared in numerous editions of Austen’s letters published between 1884
and 1906. This is apparently news in the world of Montgomery scholarship,
because iit’s only surprisingly recently (given the longstanding, large overlap
between readership of Austen’s and Montgomery’s novels, respectively) that a systematic
case has even been made that Montgomery was an avid Janeite.
This
was convincingly demonstrated several years ago by my fellow JASNA member, Prof.
Miriam Rheingold Fuller: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol29no1/fuller.html “Jane of
Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery’s Reworking of Austen’s Legacy”. Here’s the
core of Fuller’s argument:
“These
similarities are deliberate. Montgomery enjoyed Austen very much; she
writes in her journal after rereading Emma: “There are some things
I am not sick of, . . . and one of them is Jane Austen’s
novels”…She owned at least three Austen novels: Pride and Prejudice,
Mansfield Park, and Emma…it is probable that she owned other
Austen works. Montgomery scholar and biographer Mary Rubio believes that
Montgomery “read all of Jane Austen many times” as she did with any work that
she particularly enjoyed. Montgomery classed Austen with other great
writers whom she admired…The connections between Anne Shirley, Austen’s
heroines, and Montgomery herself are extremely complex….” END QUOTE FROM FULLER ARTICLE
So, I believe my catch today establishes that Montgomery was so focused
not only on Austen’s novels, but also on her life and letters, that in her
first novel, Lucy Maud chose to hide this unmistakable hint
of that love of Austen in plain sight.
But that’s not all I see. As I reread the above quoted passage in Anne
of Green Gables, I made a further leap, and realized that the allusion to Jane Austen’s Christmas
eve letter was only the tip of an iceberg, and that Anne’s de facto Aunt Josephine was
actually Montgomery’s veiled portrait of Jane Austen herself! Miss Barry is
also a woman born long before Montgomery and her alter ego, Anne, and I believe
Montgomery conceived Miss Barry as a Jane Austen figure, who would love the much
younger writer for her literary ambition and fearless mind and heart?
There are a couple of passages in Anne of Green Gables which confirm my hunch.
First, see the following in Chapter 19, when Miss Barry is first introduced to
the reader, after Anne and her friend Diana have disturbed the elderly lady by
inadvertently jumping on her while she slept in bed:
"Who is your Aunt
Josephine?"
"She's father's aunt and she
lives in Charlottetown. She's awfully old--seventy anyhow--and I don't believe
she was EVER a little girl. We were expecting her out for a visit, but not so
soon. She's awfully prim and proper and she'll scold dreadfully about this, I
know. Well, we'll have to sleep with Minnie May--and you can't think how she
kicks."
Miss Josephine Barry did not appear
at the early breakfast the next morning. Mrs. Barry smiled kindly at the two
little girls.
"Did you have a good time last
night? I tried to stay awake until you came home, for I wanted to tell you Aunt
Josephine had come and that you would have to go upstairs after all, but I was
so tired I fell asleep. I hope you didn't disturb your aunt, Diana."
Diana preserved a discreet silence,
but she and Anne exchanged furtive smiles of guilty amusement across the table.”
Eventually, Anne bravely decides to
confess to Miss Barry that she was the true culprit:
“With this encouragement Anne
bearded the lion in its den--that is to say, walked resolutely up to the
sitting-room door and knocked faintly. A sharp "Come in" followed.
Miss Josephine Barry, thin, prim,
and rigid, was knitting fiercely by the fire, her wrath quite unappeased and
her eyes snapping through her gold-rimmed glasses. She wheeled around in her
chair, expecting to see Diana, and beheld a white-faced girl whose great eyes
were brimmed up with a mixture of desperate courage and shrinking terror.
"Who are you?" demanded
Miss Josephine Barry, without ceremony.
"I'm Anne of Green
Gables," said the small visitor tremulously, clasping her hands with her
characteristic gesture, "and I've come to confess, if you please."
"Confess what?"
"That it was all my fault about
jumping into bed on you last night. I suggested it. Diana would never have
thought of such a thing, I am sure. Diana is a very ladylike girl, Miss Barry.
So you must see how unjust it is to blame her."
"Oh, I must, hey? I rather
think Diana did her share of the jumping at least. Such carryings on in a
respectable house!"
"But we were only in fun,"
persisted Anne. "I think you ought to forgive us, Miss Barry, now that
we've apologized. And anyhow, please forgive Diana and let her have her music
lessons. Diana's heart is set on her music lessons, Miss Barry, and I know too
well what it is to set your heart on a thing and not get it. If you must be
cross with anyone, be cross with me. I've been so used in my early days to
having people cross at me that I can endure it much better than Diana
can."
Much of the snap had gone out of the
old lady's eyes by this time and was replaced by a twinkle of amused interest.
But she still said severely: "I don't think it is any excuse for you that
you were only in fun. Little girls never indulged in that kind of fun when I
was young. You don't know what it is to be awakened out of a sound sleep, after
a long and arduous journey, by two great girls coming bounce down on you."
"I don't KNOW, but I can
IMAGINE," said Anne eagerly. "I'm sure it must have been very
disturbing. But then, there is our side of it too. Have you any imagination,
Miss Barry? If you have, just put yourself in our place. We didn't know there
was anybody in that bed and you nearly scared us to death. It was simply awful
the way we felt. And then we couldn't sleep in the spare room after being
promised. I suppose you are used to sleeping in spare rooms. But just imagine
what you would feel like if you were a little orphan girl who had never had
such an honor."
All the snap had gone by this time.
Miss Barry actually laughed--a sound which caused Diana, waiting in speechless
anxiety in the kitchen outside, to give a great gasp of relief. "I'm afraid my imagination is a little
rusty--it's so long since I used it," she said. "I dare say your
claim to sympathy is just as strong as mine. It all depends on the way we look
at it. Sit down here and tell me about yourself."
"I am very sorry I can't,"
said Anne firmly. "I would like to, because you seem like an interesting
lady, and you might even be a kindred spirit although you don't look very much
like it. But it is my duty to go home to Miss Marilla Cuthbert. Miss Marilla
Cuthbert is a very kind lady who has taken me to bring up properly. She is
doing her best, but it is very discouraging work. You must not blame her because
I jumped on the bed. But before I go I do wish you would tell me if you will
forgive Diana and stay just as long as you meant to in Avonlea."
"I think perhaps I will if you
will come over and talk to me occasionally," said Miss Barry.
That evening Miss Barry gave Diana a
silver bangle bracelet and told the senior members of the household that she
had unpacked her valise. "I've made
up my mind to stay simply for the sake of getting better acquainted with that
Anne-girl," she said frankly. "She amuses me, and at my time of life
an amusing person is a rarity."
Marilla's only comment when she
heard the story was, "I told you so." This was for Matthew's benefit.
Miss Barry stayed her month out and
over. She was a more agreeable guest than usual, for Anne kept her in good
humor. They became firm friends. When
Miss Barry went away she said: "Remember,
you Anne-girl, when you come to town you're to visit me and I'll put you in my
very sparest spare-room bed to sleep."
"Miss Barry was a kindred
spirit, after all," Anne confided to Marilla. "You wouldn't think so
to look at her, but she is. You don't find it right out at first, as in
Matthew's case, but after a while you come to see it. Kindred spirits are not
so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of
them in the world."
I am sure Montgomery did think of Jane Austen as a kindred spirit, and
that’s why she gives the following wink that zeroes in with pinpoint aim on Austen’s
Christmas Eve letter where Lucy Maud found that epigram about saving trouble,
in this passage in Chapter 25 of Anne of Green Gables:
When the commonplace breakfast was
over Diana appeared, crossing the white log bridge in the hollow, a gay little
figure in her crimson ulster. Anne flew down the slope to meet her.
"Merry Christmas, Diana! And
oh, it's a wonderful Christmas. I've something splendid to show you. Matthew
has given me the loveliest dress, with such sleeves. I couldn't even
imagine any nicer."
"I've got something more for
you," said Diana breathlessly. "Here-- this box. Aunt Josephine sent
us out a big box with ever so many things in it--and this is for you. I'd have
brought it over last night, but it didn't come until after dark, and I never
feel very comfortable coming through the Haunted Wood in the dark now."
Anne opened the box and peeped in.
First a card with "For the Anne-girl and Merry Christmas," written on
it; and then, a pair of the daintiest little kid slippers, with beaded toes and
satin bows and glistening buckles.
"Oh," said Anne,
"Diana, this is too much. I must be dreaming."
So, I see the kid slippers as
Montgomery’s clever symbol for Jane Austen’s letter as a Christmas “present”
from Jane Austen to her—they each allow Montgomery’s imagination to dance!
But
the veiled portrait is not all sweetness and light-a very chapters before
Montgomery’s veiled quotation from JA’s Christmas Eve letter, we see the
bittersweet side of Anne’s making Miss Barry love her, when the lonely old
woman has to send her niece and her lively friend home after a long, lovely day
at an Exhibition:
"Well, I hope you've enjoyed
yourselves," said Miss Barry, as she bade them good-bye.
"Indeed we have," said
Diana.
"And you, Anne-girl?"
"I've enjoyed every minute of
the time," said Anne, throwing her arms impulsively about the old woman's
neck and kissing her wrinkled cheek. Diana would never have dared to do such a
thing and felt rather aghast at Anne's freedom. But Miss Barry was pleased, and
she stood on her veranda and watched the buggy out of sight. Then she went back
into her big house with a sigh. It seemed very lonely, lacking those fresh
young lives. Miss Barry was a rather selfish old lady, if the truth must be
told, and had never cared much for anybody but herself. She valued people only
as they were of service to her or amused her. Anne had amused her, and
consequently stood high in the old lady's good graces. But Miss Barry found
herself thinking less about Anne's quaint speeches than of her fresh
enthusiasms, her transparent emotions, her little winning ways, and the
sweetness of her eyes and lips.
"I thought Marilla Cuthbert was
an old fool when I heard she'd adopted a girl out of an orphan asylum,"
she said to herself, "but I guess she didn't make much of a mistake after
all. If I'd a child like Anne in the house all the time I'd be a better and
happier woman."
So, in conclusion, I think it’s very clear indeed that Lucy Maud
Montgomery imagines Jane Austen as “a kindred spirit”, a fiercely independent,
brilliant single author, who would have recognized literary genius in Montgomery
as a young novelist. And, it’s also clear that Montgomery’s lively wit took
strong inspiration from the “rusty” imagination of Jane Austen (dead nearly a
century in body) living on forever in the minds and hearts of LM Montgomery and
all the readers who love them both.
Cheers, ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode on Twitter
P.S.: The above lends further support to my claim six weeks ago of the
daring lesbian allusion to
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