I eventually got around to reading some of her books and letters, and found a lot to comment on.
She wrote a letter in which she says much the same as I did about the lack of respect for words; it supports what she said in another letter about talking to non-creative people:
"I’ve done a lot of "gadding" this summer, and it was really a horrible waste of time because there was no pleasure in it. Had there been, I’d have considered it a very wise use of time. I had to go out to tea and attend garden parties galore and I was generally bored to death, especially when people thought themselves bound to say something about my book. They all say practically the same thing and I say the same thing in reply and I’m tired of it. Then I talked gossip and made poor jokes and altogether wished I were home in my den with a book or a pen.”
Many other creative people feel the same way, and have, quite independently, said as much.
It is better to be alone than with incompatible people.
Reading, writing and learning are much more rewarding and make better use of one’s time than listening to platitudes and unoriginal drivel and spending time with people who never think about what they are saying and have no respect for the English language.
There is little point in just going through the motions of interacting with such people if there are no benefits at all. It is like asking for bread and being given a stone.
L. M. Montgomery loved to talk to the right people but, as she said in that other quoted letter, kindred spirits are in short supply. So are people who speak from their hearts in their own words:
“Not that I don’t enjoy real conversation. There is nothing I enjoy more. But it’s not once in a thousand times I get it and anything else is like brown sugar in the god’s nectar.“
As Rudyard Kipling said, “Who having known the diamond will concern himself with glass?”
L. M. Montgomery goes on to support the idea that it is a crime, a sin even, to habitually use empty words:
""For every idle word ye speak ye shall give account in the day of judgment." May the Lord have mercy on my soul! I have talked idle words by the million this summer. By the way, what a vital thought that is—like so many other thoughts in that wonderful old Bible. "Idle words." Not bad words, or bitter words, or wicked words! They have some strength and purpose and vitality in them that almost justifies them. But idle words,—words that desecrate the sacredness of language meant to convey heart and soul’s deepest meaning to heart and soul, debased coin of speech that discredits the image and superscription of the godhead inscribed on it; weak words, silly words, empty words, "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals"—yea, verily, ’tis of these we must give account, and who of us have not so sinned?"
She uses Biblical language and says ‘debased coin’ where I think in terms of devalued currency, but our views on the abuse of words are much the same.
The above extracts are from The Green Gables Letters from L. M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber, 1905–1909:
Reading, writing and learning are much more rewarding and make better use of one’s time than listening to platitudes and unoriginal drivel and spending time with people who never think about what they are saying and have no respect for the English language.
There is little point in just going through the motions of interacting with such people if there are no benefits at all. It is like asking for bread and being given a stone.
L. M. Montgomery loved to talk to the right people but, as she said in that other quoted letter, kindred spirits are in short supply. So are people who speak from their hearts in their own words:
“Not that I don’t enjoy real conversation. There is nothing I enjoy more. But it’s not once in a thousand times I get it and anything else is like brown sugar in the god’s nectar.“
As Rudyard Kipling said, “Who having known the diamond will concern himself with glass?”
L. M. Montgomery goes on to support the idea that it is a crime, a sin even, to habitually use empty words:
""For every idle word ye speak ye shall give account in the day of judgment." May the Lord have mercy on my soul! I have talked idle words by the million this summer. By the way, what a vital thought that is—like so many other thoughts in that wonderful old Bible. "Idle words." Not bad words, or bitter words, or wicked words! They have some strength and purpose and vitality in them that almost justifies them. But idle words,—words that desecrate the sacredness of language meant to convey heart and soul’s deepest meaning to heart and soul, debased coin of speech that discredits the image and superscription of the godhead inscribed on it; weak words, silly words, empty words, "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals"—yea, verily, ’tis of these we must give account, and who of us have not so sinned?"
She uses Biblical language and says ‘debased coin’ where I think in terms of devalued currency, but our views on the abuse of words are much the same.
The above extracts are from The Green Gables Letters from L. M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber, 1905–1909:
