Money and envy in Stella Gibbons's My American

This article in the series inspired by Stella Gibbons’s My American contains some minor material of particular interest.

The power of money
Stella Gibbons obviously knew the value of money. Some of her books describe the big difference that a small increase in someone's wages - or even a few extra coins - can make. 

She informs us that the Beeding children were rather afraid of their mother – until they became old enough to leave school and start earning some money for themselves:

“All three were larger, more self-confident, less afraid of their mother than they had been three years ago. Mona and Maurice’s weekly pay envelopes had done that for them...Dora had recently been given a rise of five shillings a week and promoted to taking letters in Spanish, which had considerably increased her ambition and self-respect.”

There are some good points here. I know from experience that having an income of one's own – money that has been fairly earned from suitable work, reflects competence and is a by-product of self-improvement – does indeed increase morale and self-assurance. A certain amount of independence is no bad thing; people treat you better when they know that you have other options.

Stella Gibbons balances the positive effect that earning a wage has on the young Beedings with an account of Amy Lee's increasing unhappiness after she becomes very wealthy: 

“It is commonly admitted that money is delightful: but it must also be admitted that money is not much use if you happen to want things which money cannot buy. There is no extraordinary merit in wanting such things; to want them does not give you the right to despise other people who want the things that money can buy; it only means that your money, though useful, will not be more important to you than anything else in the world.

Amy did not know what she wanted; but she was already sure that money could not buy it. She was deeply unhappy, and her unhappiness grew deeper every week. Her luxurious home, her lovely clothes, the charming and intelligent people to whom Lady Welwoodham had introduced her, did not make her one atom less unhappy.”

What do Alan Garner and L. M. Montgomery have in common?

A previous article describes how neither Noel Streatfeild nor Isaac Asimov ever forgot being refused some information that they had eagerly asked for. They never forgave their teachers for impatiently brushing them off either.

I have since read about two more very different writers who also experienced painful incidents that they never forgot: as children they were unjustly and cruelly punished for speaking in ways that their teachers disapproved of. 

The first incident was mentioned by L. M. Montgomery in a letter she wrote in 1907 about some discoveries she made while reading the Bible:

“When I was a child a school teacher gave me a whipping because I used the expression "by the skin of my teeth." He said it was slang. If I had but known then what I know now!!! It is in Job—those very words.”

From The Green Gables Letters from L. M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber 1905-1909

What’s wrong with a gentle reminder of the importance of speaking good English? That teacher should have known his Bible too.

I wonder if that teacher ever learned about the literary achievements of his former pupil.

The second incident involves Alan Garner.

L. M. Montgomery and Rudyard Kipling’s Cat

The Cat That Walked by Himself is one of the stories in Rudyard Kipling’s children’s classic Just So Stories (1902). 

This book contains tales about various wild animals:

“...the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.”

The Cat walks through the Wet Wild Woods, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.

L. M. Montgomery knew this story, and it meant a lot to her. Her heroine Emily Starr mentions it after her friend Dean warns her about the pressure to conform at school:

“"...Don't let them make anything of you but yourself, that's all. I don't think they will.’

"No, they won't," said Emily decidedly. "I'm like Kipling's cat--I walk by my wild lone and wave my wild tail where so it pleases me. That's why the Murrays look askance at me. They think I should only run with the pack."”
From Emily Climbs (1925)

Later in the book, Emily gets the chance to go to live in New York. She is very torn, thinking about what she might gain and what she might lose:

“Would the Wind Woman come to her in the crowded city streets? Could she be like Kipling's cat there?”

She decides to remain with her people and the old farm on her beloved Prince Edward Island, even though it means missing many opportunities to broaden her horizons and have a career. 

Lucy Maud Montgomery made some very different decisions, and she came to regret them as terrible mistakes.