Saturday Mar. 5, 1921
Leaskdale, Ont.
Most of last week I was busy reading the proofs of “Ingleside.” Also had a letter form some locality called “Mrytel Station” entreating me to go down and “give a missionary address” in their (Methodist) church on Easter Sunday evening!
I declined!
Monday I went in to Toronto and stayed till Thursday doing spring shopping. Came home Thursday night and had a drive home over terrible roads of frozen mud. I wonder if I shall ever be able to live near a station. The drive was further “en-wretched” for me by the fact that Ewan said a letter had come from Stokes complaining that “Ingleside” was “too gloomy”, and wanting me to omit and tone down some of the shadows. Also, subtly intimating that I had not “taffied up” the U.S. enough in regard to the war—this last being the real fault, though they did not like to say so bluntly.
Well, I didn’t and I won’t! I wrote of Canada at war—not of the U.S. But I have felt worried by the matter. I do not like ot feel that my publishers are dissatisfied with my book. Mac liked it—said it was a good story and would sell well. This last is what Stokes doubts—and he has made me doubt it.
But I had a nice letter from Mrs. Estey, stating that Dr. Logan of Acadia University, recently lecturing gin St. John, said that Canada had produced “one woman of genius”—that “L.M. Montgomery” in the opinion of eminent critics “equaled or surpassed Dickens in her depictions of child life and character.”
Ha-hum! No, I’m not a genius but thank you all the same, Dr. Logan.
Mrs.Willis of Uxbridge writes me that they want me to give them an address at some cantata performance around Easter on “Jerusalem, Past, Present, and Future.” I told Mrs. Willis I didn’t know enough about the past or present of Jerusalem to be worth telling, and had no conceit of myself as a prophet.
To read more of Montgomery’s journal entries, take a look at The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Vols. I & II, available here at ShopAtSullivan.com.
