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136 pages

English

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Travel to the tranquil seaside village of Avonlea in this charming collection of tales from acclaimed author Lucy Maud Montgomery. From lighthearted stories about pampered pets and love triangles to more serious accounts of tragic loss, this varied volume is sure to please readers who fell in love with Chronicles of Avonlea or Montgomery's masterpiece, Anne of Green Gables.

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Children's

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 février 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775456810
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

FURTHER CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA
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LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY

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Further Chronicles of Avonlea First published in 1920 ISBN 978-1-77545-681-0 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Introduction I - Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat II - The Materalizing of Cecil III - Her Father's Daughter IV - Jane's Baby V - The Dream-Child VI - The Brother Who Failed VII - The Return of Hester VIII - The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily IX - Sara's Way X - The Son of His Mother XI - The Education of Betty XII - In Her Selfless Mood XIII - The Conscience Case of David Bell XIV - Only a Common Fellow XV - Tannis of the Flats
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Further Chronicles of Avonlea
Which have to do with many personalities and events in and aboutAvonlea, the Home of the Heroine of Green Gables, including talesof Aunt Cynthia, The Materializing of Cecil, David Spencer'sDaughter, Jane's Baby, The Failure of Robert Monroe, The Returnof Hester, The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily, Sara's Way, TheSon of Thyra Carewe, The Education of Betty, The Selflessness ofEunice Carr, The Dream-Child, The Conscience Case of David Bell,Only a Common Fellow, and finally the story of Tannis of theFlats.
All related byL. M. MONTGOMERY
Introduction
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It is no exaggeration to say that what Longfellow did for Acadia,Miss Montgomery has done for Prince Edward Island. More than amillion readers, young people as well as their parents and unclesand aunts, possess in the picture-galleries of their memories theexquisite landscapes of Avonlea, limned with as poetic a pencilas Longfellow wielded when he told the ever-moving story of GrandPre.
Only genius of the first water has the ability to conjure up sucha character as Anne Shirley, the heroine of Miss Montgomery'sfirst novel, "Anne of Green Gables," and to surround her withpeople so distinctive, so real, so true to psychology. Anne isas lovable a child as lives in all fiction. Natasha in CountTolstoi's great novel, "War and Peace," dances into our ken, withsomething of the same buoyancy and naturalness; but into what acommonplace young woman she develops! Anne, whether as the gaylittle orphan in her conquest of the master and mistress ofGreen Gables, or as the maturing and self-forgetful maiden ofAvonlea, keeps up to concert-pitch in her charm and herwinsomeness. There is nothing in her to disappoint hope orimagination.
Part of the power of Miss Montgomery—and the largest part—isdue to her skill in compounding humor and pathos. The humor ishonest and golden; it never wearies the reader; the pathos isnever sentimentalized, never degenerates into bathos, is nevermorbid. This combination holds throughout all her works, longeror shorter, and is particularly manifest in the presentcollection of fifteen short stories, which, together with thosein the first volume of the Chronicles of Avonlea, present aseries of piquant and fascinating pictures of life in PrinceEdward Island.
The humor is shown not only in the presentation of quaint andunique characters, but also in the words which fall from theirmouths. Aunt Cynthia "always gave you the impression of afull-rigged ship coming gallantly on before a favorable wind;" nofurther description is needed—only one such personage could befound in Avonlea. You would recognize her at sight. IsmayMeade's disposition is summed up when we are told that she is"good at having presentiments—after things happen." Whatcleverer embodiment of innate obstinacy than in IsabellaSpencer—"a wisp of a woman who looked as if a breath would swayher but was so set in her ways that a tornado would hardly havecaused her to swerve an inch from her chosen path;" or than inMrs. Eben Andrews (in "Sara's Way") who "looked like a womanwhose opinions were always very decided and warranted to wear!"
This gift of characterization in a few words is lavished also onmaterial objects, as, for instance; what more is needed todescribe the forlornness of the home from which Anne was rescuedthan the statement that even the trees around it "looked likeorphans"?
The poetic touch, too, never fails in the right place and isnever too frequently introduced in her descriptions. They throwa glamor over that Northern land which otherwise you mightimagine as rather cold and barren. What charming Springs theymust have there! One sees all the fruit-trees clad in bridalgarments of pink and white; and what a translucent sky smilesdown on the ponds and the reaches of bay and cove!
"The Eastern sky was a great arc of crystal, smitten through withauroral crimsonings."
"She was as slim and lithe as a young white-stemmed birch-tree;her hair was like a soft dusky cloud, and her eyes were as blueas Avonlea Harbor in a fair twilight, when all the sky is a-bloomover it."
Sentiment with a humorous touch to it prevails in the first twostories of the present book. The one relates to thedisappearance of a valuable white Persian cat with a blue spot inits tail. "Fatima" is like the apple of her eye to the rich oldaunt who leaves her with two nieces, with a stern injunction notto let her out of the house. Of course both Sue and Ismay detestcats; Ismay hates them, Sue loathes them; but Aunt Cynthia'sfavor is worth preserving. You become as much interested inFatima's fate as if she were your own pet, and the climax is noless unexpected than it is natural, especially when it is madealso the last act of a pretty comedy of love.
Miss Montgomery delights in depicting the romantic episodeshidden in the hearts of elderly spinsters as, for instance, inthe case of Charlotte Holmes, whose maid Nancy would have sentfor the doctor and subjected her to a porous plaster whilewaiting for him, had she known that up stairs there was anote-book full of original poems. Rather than bear the stigmaof never having had a love-affair, this sentimental ladyinvents one to tell her mocking young friends. The dramatic andunexpected denouement is delightful fun.
Another note-book reveals a deeper romance in the case of MissEmily; this is related by Anne of Green Gables, who once ortwice flashes across the scene, though for the most part herfriends and neighbors at White Sands or Newbridge or Grafton aswell as at Avonlea are the persons involved.
In one story, the last, "Tannis of the Flats," the secret ofElinor Blair's spinsterhood is revealed in an episode whichcarries the reader from Avonlea to Saskatchewan and shows theunselfish devotion of a half-breed Indian girl. The story isboth poignant and dramatic. Its one touch of humor is whereJerome Carey curses his fate in being compelled to live in thatdesolate land in "the picturesque language permissible in thefar Northwest."
Self-sacrifice, as the real basis of happiness, is a favoritetheme in Miss Montgomery's fiction. It is raised to the nthpower in the story entitled, "In Her Selfless Mood," where anugly, misshapen girl devotes her life and renounces marriage forthe sake of looking after her weak and selfish half-brother. Thesame spirit is found in "Only a Common Fellow," who is haloedwith a certain splendor by renouncing the girl he was to marry infavor of his old rival, supposed to have been killed in France,but happily delivered from that tragic fate.
Miss Montgomery loves to introduce a little child or a baby as asolvent of old feuds or domestic quarrels. In "The Dream Child,"a foundling boy, drifting in through a storm in a dory, saves aheart-broken mother from insanity. In "Jane's Baby," ababy-cousin brings reconciliation between the two sisters,Rosetta and Carlotta, who had not spoken for twenty years because"the slack-twisted" Jacob married the younger of the two.
Happiness generally lights up the end of her stories, howevertragic they may set out to be. In "The Son of His Mother," Thyrais a stern woman, as "immovable as a stone image." She had onlyone son, whom she worshipped; "she never wanted a daughter, butshe pitied and despised all sonless women." She demandedabsolute obedience from Chester—not only obedience, but alsoutter affection, and she hated his dog because the boy loved him:"She could not share her love even with a dumb brute." WhenChester falls in love, she is relentless toward the beautifulyoung girl and forces Chester to give her up. But a terriblesorrow brings the old woman and the young girl into sympathy, andunspeakable joy is born of the trial.
Happiness also comes to "The Brother who Failed." The Monroeshad all been successful in the eyes of the world except Robert:one is a millionaire, another a college president, another afamous singer. Robert overhears the old aunt, Isabel, call him atotal failure, but, at the family dinner, one after anotherstands up and tells how Robert's quiet influence and unselfishaid had started them in their brilliant careers, and the oldaunt, wiping the tears from her eyes, exclaims: "I guess there'sa kind of failure that's the best success."
In one story there is an element of the supernatural, whenHester, the hard older sister, comes between Margaret and herlover and, dying, makes her promise never to become Hugh Blair'swife, but she comes back and unites them. In this, Margaret,just like the delightful Anne, lives up to the dictum that"nothing matters in all God's universe except love." The storyof the revival at Avonlea has also a good moral.
There is something in these continued Chronicles of Avonlea,like the delicate art which has made "Cranford" a classic: thecharacters are so homely and homelike and