A few more quotations from L. M. Montgomery's Green Gables Letters

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.

More wise words about writing
Everything that L. M. Montgomery has to say about the art of writing, the compulsion to write for example, is of great interest and worth highlighting. 

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 between the Orange and the Green
The connection between Irish Catholics and the colour green  has been mentioned earlier. Their long-term enemies the Irish Protestants favour the colour orange. 

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 Anthony Armstrong's 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.

Green shirts and green kirtles: some good and bad associations

Oscar Wilde's proposition that favouring the colour green is a sign of creativity in individuals but of moral laxity and decadence in nations has made me think of a few green items that have both positive and negative aspects and associations. 

Green shirts and green kirtles for example are worn by both good and bad people.

A few of John Buchan's books are relevant here, and so is one of C. S. Lewis's Narnian books.

Good and bad real-life Greenshirts
John Buchan's fictional Evallonian Greenshirts, who appear in The House of the Four Winds, were described earlier. 

There are some interesting connections here involving an unusual character called John Gordon Hargrave (1894 – 1982), who was an artist, a pagan cult leader, a Utopian thinker, a believer in both science and magic, and many other things. His life story is fascinating, but only a few elements are relevant here.

Hargrave was getting assignments to illustrate books by the age of 12, including some of John Buchan's works!

Hargrave founded various organisations for social change, including one called The Green Shirts. They were dedicated to smashing fascism and campaigning for a universal basic income in the UK.

They may also have been the inspiration for John Buchan's Greenshirts.

Rather ironically, Hargrave's anti-Fascist Greenshirts were balanced by the Irish Greenshirts, a small off-shoot of the Blueshirts, Ireland's largest fascism-inspired movement. Green was chosen because it was the colour of Irish nationalism.

John Hargrave and his militaristic Greenshirts:

Hargrave's Greenshirts are mentioned on his gravestone: