The work of the American science fiction and fantasy artist Frank Kelly Freas has been featured in a Defence Against the Dark Arts article.
One of his pictures appears in an article about two amusing stories, and another was selected for Halloween.
This post contains a few of his pictures that are suitable for the festive season.
Father Christmas is running late:
Carol singing is a very seasonal activity:
This beautiful cover picture has a magical atmosphere:
The Scottish writer, speaker and pastor George MacDonald was born on December 10th 1824, 200 years ago today. xx
His goblins are mentioned in the article about Michael de Larrabeiti's Borribles, and a spot-on comment he made is featured in a post about unsatisfactory politicians.
His name is in the list of of writers with Celtic connections; he also appears in the list of Sagittarian writers, where I said this:
“It is time to take another look at some of his work, which I last read when still at school.”
While the reader's dilemma of 'so many books, so little time' applies here, I have refreshed my memories of a few of his stories that I particularly liked; I have also learned a little about their author.
While the details of George MacDonald's life are very interesting and some of his fantasy stories are still enjoyable to read despite their being very dated, he and his many works do not on the whole inspire much in the way of commentary. However, two books that made a very big impression when I first discovered them deserve a mention here.
I thought that the goblins with their hard heads and soft toeless feet were both sinister and very funny. I loved the little poem that the miner's son Curdie makes to frighten off the goblins. It includes these lines:
Curdie and Princess Irene being pursued by a goblin:
I really liked the story when I first read it, but I was too young to have got much from the philosophical statements that the book contains.
This is another article in the series about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little volume of essays on books, reading and associated topics Through the Magic Door.
This post was inspired by the following passage, which appears just after the invitation to enter the magic world of books:
“No matter what mood a man may be in, when once he has passed through the magic door he can summon the world’s greatest to sympathize with him in it. If he be thoughtful, here are the kings of thought. If he be dreamy, here are the masters of fancy. Or is it amusement that he lacks? He can signal to any one of the world’s great story-tellers, and out comes the dead man and holds him enthralled by the hour.
The dead are such good company that one may come to think too little of the living. It is a real and a pressing danger with many of us, that we should never find our own thoughts and our own souls, but be ever obsessed by the dead. Yet second-hand romance and second-hand emotion are surely better than the dull, soul-killing monotony which life brings to most of the human race. But best of all when the dead man’s wisdom and the dead man’s example give us guidance and strength and in the living of our own strenuous days.“
Conan Doyle makes some good points here; they are best dealt with individually.
I have often asked myself what type of reading material I am in the mood for. Do I feel like reading something light and amusing? Do I want to be inspired, informed or entertained? Perhaps some familiar comfort food would be best – or maybe I should try something new for a change. Sometimes I read to lift my mood: I may select an uplifting book to counter-balance the effects of reading a very depressing one.
What we get from books may indeed seem more appealing and rewarding than what we are getting from real life. This applies to both the people in our lives and the life that we are leading.
Each article in the series inspired by Dion Fortune's five occult novels seemed like the last one at the time, but, even though the returns diminish, a further trawl always produces a little more material to comment on.
This article contains a few more particularly striking expressions and propositions, many of which speak for themselves.
This is a very neat way of describing a major internal disaster. It is spot on: people do sometimes feel as though they have been hit by a truck, and they may well need some assistance to get going again.
The crash victim is called Ursula. She is in a bad way because she has been in the power of an energy vampire. Dion Fortune comes up with some very good images here: Ursula is described as being like a run-down battery and a sucked-out orange, while her vampiric victimiser swells up like a bullfrog!
This cover picture by Bruce Pennington shows Ursula the psychological car crash victim and the breakdown lorry:
These very true words are from Moon Magic:
“...there are no anaesthetics in psychology.”
Dion Fortune got that one right. Some people will have no idea what she is talking about; they are the lucky ones. Others will know only too well how excruciatingly painful dealing with the inner world can be; they will have learned the hard way that there is no pain relief so their agony just has to be endured.
A recent article features a statement from the Scottish writer George MacDonald to the effect that as no good person would go into politics, anyone who is elected to power will not be a decent human being.
His words may be unwelcome and depressing, but there are many recent examples in both the UK and the US that support them.
Other people mentioned on here have said much the same thing.
This is from Benjamin Disraeli, who saw it all from the inside:
Taylor Caldwell, who had something to say about the causes of major wars, also said this in her historical novel Captains and the Kings:
“...politics and moral ethics never mix. Politics and ethics are a contradiction in terms. An honest politician is either a hypocrite—or he is doomed.”
Although Captains and the Kings is set in the United States and the story starts in the 1850s, much of the material has wider applications.
Some of cartoonist and illustrator Malcolm Bird's amusing witch pictures were featured earlier.
This post contains a few more examples of his work in the form of pictures with a Halloween theme.
This witch is proud of her pumpkins:
These pictures are from The Witch's Handbook:
Information about Malcolm Bird and his works can be found on his website:
A previous article has something to say about the pain of being interrupted while reading. It contains an extract from Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Princess that describes very well how annoying such intrusions can be.
Being interrupted while immersed in a book is bad enough; being discouraged or even prevented from reading it in the first place is even worse!
"I am not in the least anxious about her education," Captain Crewe said, with his gay laugh, as he held Sara's hand and patted it. "The difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much. She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she wants grown-up books—great, big, fat ones—French and German as well as English—history and biography and poets, and all sorts of things. Drag her away from her books when she reads too much. Make her ride her pony in the Row or go out and buy a new doll. She ought to play more with dolls."
Captain Crewe buys a doll for his daughter Sara:
The head of the girls' school in Charlotte Brontë's Villette is concerned about the detrimental effect that the amount of reading Lucy Snowe does might have on her health:
“Madame Beck...often and solemnly used to warn me not to study too much, lest “the blood should all go to my head.”"
My first encounter with Richard Barham's Ingoldsby Legends was in the pages of Rider Haggard's exciting adventure story King Solomon's Mines.
The hero Allan Quatermain says that while he is not a literary man, he is very devoted to the Old Testament and the Ingoldsby Legends. He reads these two books for the comfort of the familiar and the wisdom that they contain.
He refers to and quotes from the Legends several times, and in the sequel Allan Quatermain says that he often reads them when awake at night.
Intrigued by these references and hoping to find a new source of good reading material, I decided to get the book so that I could experience its attractions for myself. I found a very old copy in a second-hand bookshop and opened it eagerly when I got home.
There was much more material in the book than I was expecting, and I wasn't disappointed in the stories either. I found many of the Legends very amusing and enjoyable to read. I could now understand why this book always accompanied Allan Quatermain in his wanderings.
The Legends are attributed to 'Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor', but they were actually written by the Reverend Richard Harris Barham.
Much of the material in the Legends is based on traditional Kentish myths, legends and folklore.
There are many references to ghosts, witches and demons, and Old Nick i.e. the devil makes many appearances. However, as the Legends are intended to entertain the readers they are just as funny as they are frightening.
This is yet another article in the series inspired by Dion Fortune's occult novels. It contains a few more of her thought-provoking propositions.
“Dr Latimer had brains and kindness, but no strength; the hard-faced man had brains and strength, but no kindness; the newcomer had all three, and Veronica knew by this that he was a far greater man in every way than either of the others was ever likely to be.”
Each of these qualities needs to be developed to a far greater than average degree. Finding people who meet two of the requirements must be difficult enough; good luck with finding someone who meets all three! Such people may exist in fiction, but how many are to be found in real life?
“...although unbalanced mercy is but weakness, unbalanced justice is cruelty and oppression.”
When I first saw this, I immediately thought of some words from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre that support the above proposition:
“Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.”
Feeling that is not balanced with rationality may well be not much good to anyone on the receiving end, and judgement that is not balanced with compassion may indeed be too harsh for most people to digest.
This is yet another article in the series inspired by Through the Magic Door, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's little volume of essays about books, reading and associated topics.
This post highlights two propositions that Conan Doyle makes about inspiration and creative people: he suggests that inspiration comes from outside and that creative people are often frail and die young.
It also mentions a few other writers in connection with these topics.
“...the feeling which every writer of imaginative work must have, that his supreme work comes to him in some strange way from without, and that he is only the medium for placing it upon the paper...Is it possible that we are indeed but conduit pipes from the infinite reservoir of the unknown? Certainly it is always our best work which leaves the least sense of personal effort.”
That last sentence is often very true. Rudyard Kipling said something similar when he gave his Daemon credit for assisting and inspiring him in his work: he said that the writing he did under this influence was 'frictionless'.
Conan Doyle's mention of a conduit pipe reminds me of another of Rudyard Kipling's Daemon-related images: he likens the end of a good run of genuine, friction-free creativity to “the water-hammer click of a tap turned off.”
Many other writers have speculated about where their inspiration might come from.
Robert Louis Stevenson for example said that it came from vivid dreams caused by the Brownies!
Frances Hodgson Burnett thought of herself as just the custodian rather than the originator of her gift. So where did this gift come from then?
Maybe some fiction writers really do channel or download their works and ideas from somewhere.
As mentioned in the article that marks the tenth anniversary of this blog, the very first post is dated September 9th 2009, the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of the century.
It is worth repeating that the number nine is associated with magic and with Odin, or Woden, the seeker after knowledge and wisdom who is associated with magic and mystery and is said to inspire creativity.
Another five years have passed; today is the fifteenth anniversary of the launch of this blog, and once again it is time to take stock.
I have since seen a huge increase in the number of views for the article about Princess Margaret's death. I found that this happened just after one of the TV programmes that dramatise the royal family had featured her. People had been searching online for more information and found my article!
I was very surprised to see the first article about Madeleine L'Engle's Zachary Grey or Gray suddenly appear in the top ten list. I discovered that this is a case of mistaken identity: there are a few real-life Zachary Greys and Grays of interest!
While it is understandable why the greatest number of views will always come from the US, it is still a mystery why this blog gets more readers from Germany than from the UK.
Andrew Murray (1917 – 1998) was an artist who painted in the naïve style.
I like his depictions of London very much. I used to buy many of his greetings cards and postcards. I even met him once.
Red buses, black taxis and groups of white, triangular-shaped clouds appear in many of his London scenes. Critics might say that if you have seen one of these pictures, you have seen them all!
A few examples are enough to give a good idea of Andrew Murray's style.
This picture of Piccadilly Circus is typical of his London cards:
Trafalgar Square is another major London landmark:
The River Thames looks rather narrow in this one of Lambeth Palace and the Houses of Parliament:
This is the Lakeside Terrace at the Barbican:
Six of Andrew Murray's London scenes appear on this 1,000-piece jigsaw:
Andrew Murray painted cities other than London and he also painted Biblical and other subjects, but in my opinion his best work consists of pictures such as are shown above.
A key scene in Dion Fortune's occult novel Moon Magic inspired an article about communicating via metaphysical means.
In this scene, Priestess of Isis Lilith Le Fay describes how she attracted the right person to her by sending out a call on the right wavelength.
In another significant passage in this novel. Lilith Le Fay describes how she looked for clues to the pattern and purpose of her occult work:
“...it suddenly occurred to me that there was a kind of pattern running through my slowly formulating work which I had not observed before. It is well known to those who deal with the hidden side of things that such patterns exist, they are, in fact, caused by the invisible forces with which we work, and when these have been got in hand and are being directed by a planning will, the pattern appears. I knew, therefore, that if I could discern the plan of the pattern, all would be clear. There is a central thread that runs through all these things; find that, and you have the clue.
I know how to look for this thread — one seeks that which recurs and keeps on recurring. In the present instance there was one recurring factor, and one only...”
She is talking about unseen influences, the invisible forces that are at work in our lives!
Dion Fortune wrote elsewhere about the part that the Unseen sometimes plays in certain people's lives; here, she may be referring to a hidden hand that operates behind the scenes.
I find these words very interesting. They have a much wider application. Many people would benefit from performing a similar exercise, one in which they look back and try to identify and learn from important recurring factors in their lives.
I have been noticing more and more occurrences of the alarming prediction that World War III is both inevitable and imminent.
There are many conspiracy theories about the causes of major wars; they often involve power and money: 'cui bono' and all that.
These sinister theories may be new to some people, but they have been circulating for a very long time. There is nothing new in the observation that differing factions often unite in the face of a common enemy either.
The author Taylor Caldwell, who has been mentioned in a few articles on here, said something in a book first published in 1952 that is very applicable to the current global political situation:
“You see,” went on the doctor warmly, “when a nation threatens another nation the people of the latter forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious hostilities, and band together as one unit. Leaders know that, and that is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis, or when the people become discontented and angry...
Attacking another nation, then, acts as a sort of catharsis, temporarily, on men’s fear of their immediate neighbors. This is the explanation of all wars, all racial and religious hatreds, all massacres, and all attempts at genocide.”
From The Devil's Advocate
The recent series of violent riots in the UK is an indication that all is not well here. The US economy is reported to be slowing down, with many job losses.
Are the people becoming increasingly discontented and angry? Are the US and the UK moving towards a time of national crisis?
If so, are the leaders going to whip up a war or two?
Benjamin Disraeli too had something to say on the subject of conflicts between nations.
Perhaps we should take his advice and hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
The recent general election in the UK was held on July 4th, a day of great significance in the US; the impending presidential election in the US will be held on November 5th, a a day of great significance in the UK.
Some of the people standing for and elected to office do not inspire much confidence. Is this really the best that the political parties can do? Why can't they come up with better people?
The Victorian author and poet George Macdonald, who has been mentioned in a few articles on here, said something that is very relevant to the current unsatisfactory situation:
The article about L. M. Montgomery's compulsion to read and write contains this quotation from one of her journals:
“I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.”
For an avid reader, a 'book drunkard' as L. M. Montgomery called herself, the dilemma of there not being enough hours in the day to do all the reading they would like to is a very real and major one.
The 'so many books, so little time' dilemma does indeed often involve making a decision to select a familiar old friend rather than a fresh new book to read or vice versa; in other words, all reading is at the expense of other reading.
I commented on L. M. Montgomery's thoughts about reading and the feelings of nostalgia that old books can invoke at the time. I have since come across another quotation about the advantages of old over new books, and this has inspired a few more words on the subject.
The first article in the series inspired by Dion Fortune's occult novels contains quotations relevant to the topic of operating from a position of weakness versus operating from a position of strength.
This article features three memorable statements from The Sea Priestess about what Douglas Adams called Life, the Universe and Everything. They seem both very true and very depressing to me.
“It seemed to me that life is an all-in wrestling match without a referee. It had fairly got me down.“
It seems like that to many people!
Life does indeed often feel like one long fight for survival, one long battle against hostile forces with no one to see fair play.
The problems and attacks keep coming; they are unrelenting and never-ending and there is often no respite.
There is no justice in the world; no one is minding the store, so people who behave badly towards others do indeed often get away with it.
No wonder people get depressed!
All this reminds me of something that Marvin the Paranoid Android says in Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
“Life! Don't talk to me about life.”
“It is said that the gods always make you pay the price for any great blessing, but in my case, having sent me a pretty unmitigated curse, they funded up handsomely in other directions.”
“Then I told her my idea that whereas the gods are always reputed to make mortals pay up for any great benefit bestowed, I, by virtue of my asthma, seemed to be running a kind of credit account with them. She agreed.”
The context of the speaker's remarks is not really relevant to this article; it is the proposition that great gifts come at a great price that is of interest here.
This article was inspired by a comment that I came across in one of Dion Fortune's occult novels.
The speaker, a man, decides to send a male colleague who will make a good impression to talk in person to a woman about property matters:
“It is my experience that women take things in much better when they are told than when they are written to. As a matter of fact, being out of their depth when it comes to house property, they judge the man and not the scheme.”
From The Sea Priestess
This may at first sight seem rather patronising, not to mention just not true! However, the speaker does qualify what he says: he is not generalising about all women, just the ones he has been involved with in connection with his estate agency business.
The context of his remark is not relevant to this article; it is the underlying propositions that some people prefer to receive information in person and that the messenger is sometimes more important than the message that are of interest here.
While I much prefer to get information in writing and see the message as being more important than the messenger, I know from experience that some people do indeed want to be told rather than written to and often are more influenced by the teller than by the tale.
Introverts may find it frustrating and annoying when such people want to meet rather than just exchange emails, however despite my personal preferences I can see that there is something to be said in favour of passing on information in person.
Some posts on here contain material that supports the proposition that distress signals often attract predators. A particularly good example of this phenomenon can be found in the article that features a predator with a pram.
It is advisable to be very wary of anyone who suddenly appears in our lives when we are in a distressed state.
The predators usually attack in person, but they sometimes sense the distress remotely.
This reminds me of yet another incident of interest; it happened many years ago.
I received an email one evening from someone who was in a bad way. He was tormented by the feeling that he hadn't tried hard enough to persuade someone not to leave him. He was convinced that she would have stayed if he had only managed to get his feelings across to her and begged her desperately not to go.
I disagreed; I said that he was wrong to blame himself. I told him I knew from experience that once someone's mind is made up in such situations there is nothing that can be said or done to change it.
We exchanged a string of messages. I became more and more affected not only by the state that I sensed he was in and the messages that he was sending but also by the distressing memories from the past that I was digging up and giving as examples for his benefit.
Our conversation was suddenly interrupted by a new email message. It was from someone I didn't know who had heard on the grapevine about my freelance services and wanted to discuss the possibility of my doing some database work for their company.
All my warning bells went off! The abrupt arrival, uncanny timing and rather peremptory tone of the message gave me some bad feelings about the sender. I felt threatened; I sensed possible trouble ahead!
The thought-provoking proposition that people of Celtic origin are particularly open to certain unseen influences was first mentioned in an article about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novella The Parasite.
A list of writers of interest with Celtic connections followed, and there are references to this heritage in a few other articles.
The Reverend Dr. Donald Omand, a Scotsman and a Church of England exorcist, is another example of someone who attributes his psychic powers to his Celtic origin.
From his book Experiences of a Present Day Exorcist (1970):
“...the gift of ‘second sight’, so prevalent among people of Celtic origin...”
“Ferguson was a strange mixture of devil and saint, as is so often found in Celtic peoples.“
“Being called on so often to counter the machinations of Black Magicians, I have learned how they achieve their ends. If I did turn from Jekyll to Hyde, I should be more dangerous than most through the feyness which has been passed on to me by my Celtic forebears, I am afraid to think uncharitably of people, even of those who may wish to harm me, for I know what the result may be.”
It is lucky then for everyone he encountered that Dr. Omand always used his powers for good rather than evil!
He has some amazing stories to tell and much to say about topics such as witchcraft, ill-wishing and curses in his book:
After producing a series of articles in which I highlight and comment on material of special interest from Steven Hassan's best-selling guidebooks Combating Cult Mind Control and Freedom of Mind, I thought that I had reached the end of the exercise. However, Freedom of Mind has inspired just one more post.
Steve Hassan's detailed advice about how families and friends can help cult members and cult leavers via his Strategic Interactive Approach (SIA) is very useful indeed. It is best to go straight to the source for his wise words on building teams, planning interventions, role playing, winning the trust of the cult member, asking key questions and other associated exercises and procedures; here I just want to feature a few miscellaneous extracts of particular interest, some of which have a wider application.
“I have had several families contact me after their cult son or daughter told them not to get a professional counselor to get them out. Before the cult member made that remark, the families had not realized that they could contact someone like me for help.”
This approach could be used in other situations - and I don't mean just by people who say, “It's my birthday tomorrow, but please don't tell anyone and don't get me anything!”
“You don’t know what you do want, but you do know what you don’t want.
Steve Hassan says something similar:
“It is useful, for instance, to be able to recognize and articulate the difference between what you do not want (a mediocre job) and knowing what you do want (a fulfilling career).”
It is indeed very useful to bring goals, preferences and requirements out into the open and nail them down.
Steve Hassan calls this exercise 'assertive motivation'. It can help to remove blocks, increase understanding and get someone going in the right direction.
As mentioned in the article inspired by The Demon Lover, there are scenes in Dion Fortune's occult novels that have particular relevance to some of the topics on here.
This post features another of these scenes, this time from Moon Magic (1956). It presents the idea that people with certain metaphysical powers and the right training and intention can use occult methods to draw others to them for mutual benefit.
I skip through many of the occult scenes myself, but find this novel worth reading for the commentary-inspiring material that it contains.
Lilith Le Fay is one of the main characters. She is a priestess of Isis and a practitioner of ceremonial magic.
She needs to find someone to work with her when she performs the rituals. She advertises the job vacancy in a very unusual way:
“There was nothing for me to do but watch and wait. I could not go and find the people I wanted; I had to wait for them to find me. This I knew they would do because I was sounding the call of Isis, vibrating it on the Inner Planes as a wireless operator sounds his key-call. Those who were on my wave-length would soon be picking it up, and then curious combinations of circumstances would do the rest. They would come from the ends of the earth like homing pigeons, picking up the call subconsciously and not knowing what it was that drew them.“
The procedure may seem preposterous and the practitioner delusional, but it works! Lilith Le Fay attracts the right man for the job by broadcasting on the right wavelength: she puts out the call, and a man who has the qualities that she requires eventually appears in her life.
Further consideration by such people may cause them to realise that, assuming it is correct, this proposition has some alarming implications; they may rightly suspect that the forces involved do not always work for the benefit of the people using or affected by them.
In particular, there is a negative or shadow side to the calling phenomenon.
Extracts from L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery's Green Gables letters have appeared in several articles in the past.
Ephraim Weber, the recipient of these letters, was someone to whom she could express her true thoughts and feelings about many mundane, metaphysical and philosophical topics and experiences. She was very lucky to have this kindred spirit in her life.
She covered a lot of ground: she wrote about envy, writing, religion, the flowers in her garden, books, housework and many other things. Her letters also contain some amusing anecdotes.
The inspiration for this article comes from some thought-provoking words that she wrote about two kinds of pain.
As with the extracts in the previous article, this one was chosen because it reminded me of something that I had read in the works of other writers.
“...I agree with you in regard to one kind of pain. There are two kinds, don’t you think! The pain God sends to us and the pain we bring on ourselves; the former is the fire of heaven, the latter the flame of hell.
God’s pain is indeed one of his ministering spirits. Great mysteries of soul-birth and soul growth are bound up in it and if we have the courage and the endurance to make a friend of it it will bring great gifts to us. But the pain we bring on ourselves through folly or wilfulness or even simple blindness! Ah, it is horrible; it is degrading; there is no fine, high ministry in it; it burns and scars and defaces for our punishment.”
This is strong stuff; it is all very biblical. It contrasts the purifying flames of Purgatory with the everlasting fires of Hell.
This is not the place to go into the events in L. M. Montgomery's life that caused her to develop these ideas about pain – and at this point the worst was still to come. For now, I just want to give examples of two other people's words on two very different kinds of pain.
The article about the future of public libraries was intended to be the final one in the series, but I have recently learned of an interesting new development that is worth highlighting.
I said previously that public libraries have changed with the times in their fight for survival. For example, some of them are providing various community educational services and calling themselves Idea Stores.
I came across another new community initiative when I went past a library on a bus and saw a notice in the window advertising items for hire. Cleaning, camping, gardening, DIY and events were among the uses mentioned.
This seemed like a great idea to me. I investigated online when I got home, and found that there is a new social enterprise called the Library of Things.
The company lends tools, equipment and other useful objects rather than books, and they do this through the public library system. Their aim is to promote community spirit and the sharing economy and reduce excessive consumption:
Why buy when you can borrow?
Borrow useful Things for your home, projects and adventures.
Affordable. Convenient. Kinder to the planet.
Of the steadily growing number of participating libraries,16 are in London. The one I saw is in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
London's first Library of Things opened in Crystal Palace in 2018. Their collection of 50 useful items included an ice cream maker, a carpet cleaner, a lawn mower and a ukulele:
Many campaigners are fighting to save their local branches. Guardian cartoonist Tom Gauld has some useful suggestions:
Library of Things encourages people to join or start new campaigns to bring the community borrowing service to their neighbourhood.
I really hope that this new scheme will help to keep some public libraries open.
It certainly gives 'browsing the shelves' a new meaning:
Many elements in the life, letters and works of L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery are of great relevance to this blog; several topics and publications associated with her have been featured or referenced on here in various articles in the past.
This article contains some further extracts of interest from The Green Gables Letters, which were written by Lucy Maud to her pen friend Ephraim Weber between 1905 and 1909.
Each of these extracts reminds me of something that I have read in the works of another writer.
This is her advice to Ephraim Weber:
“...don’t give up writing; it’s the best method of soul cultivation there is; even if you never published another thing the writing of it would bring you a beatitude.”
This reminds me of what Steve Hassan has to say about how cult leavers benefit from writing their story down.
The battle continued when Irish people emigrated to the New World.
This amusing anecdote describes an incident outside the building of L. M. Montgomery's American publisher L. C. Page & Company:
“In July a big party of Orangemen were going on a picnic. At the Boston North St. station, they saw a copy of Anne of Green Gables bound in green on a newsstand. They took, or pretended to take—they were likely half drunk—the title as a personal insult, marched across to the Page building, the band playing horrible dirges, and nearly mobbed the place. One of the editors came out and told them that although the title might be offensive “the heroine, Anne, had hair of a distinct orange hue.” Thereupon they “adopted” Anne as their mascot, gave her three cheers and went on their way rejoicing.”
So the Orangemen accepted Anne's orange connection and overlooked the green.
This story has made me think of the rejection by both the Red and the White sides in the Wars of the Roses of a member of the Prune family because he wore a pink rose! By coincidence, L. M. Montgomery says in one of her letters that she much prefers pink roses to red ones.
F or anyone who is looking for something suitable for the holiday season, here is a summary to date of the articles that feature Christmas ...
