Today is the first of October, which means that today is the day several memes start going around quoting chapter 16 of Anne of Green Gables, in which Anne says to Marilla, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
Although that’s probably one of the most frequently quoted sentences from Montgomery’s work, it is not the only time she wrote about the wonders of October. (One extract that comes to mind is from The Blue Castle, but I don’t want to quote it here out of respect for members of the L.M. Montgomery Readathon who are reading the book for the first time.) Instead, this morning I decided to share with you an excerpt from “Around the Table,” the newspaper column that Montgomery wrote for the Halifax Daily Echo over a nine-month period between September 1901 and May 1902. This column is narrated and signed by “Cynthia,” a single woman of indeterminate age who shares a Halifax boarding house with Polly, Ted, and Theodosia. In the instalment published on 26 October 1901, Cynthia writes about the complexities of waking up early to catch a beautiful October sunrise.
Is there anything in the world more lovely than a fine October morning? When I ask questions like this Polly and Ted laugh heartlessly and say that if I try to describe an October sunrise I must do it by dead reckoning, because I never get up early enough to see. But that’s a libel—born of their mean malice, you know. I do get up early sometimes—and I always enjoy it so much that I make a resolution on the spot that I will rise with the lark every morning thereafter for the space of my natural life. And the next morning I sleep so late that I have to gobble down my breakfast standing, and pin my hat and put my gloves on as I tear down the street! There ought to be a law against making resolutions.
The full text of “Around the Table” appears exclusively in A Name for Herself: Selected Writings, 1891–1917, available from the publisher (at a substantial discount) or from your favourite bookseller.
Image: Detail from the Canadian Favourites edition of Anne of Ingleside, published by McClelland and Stewart in 1972. Artist unknown.
Maude gave me an appreciation for trees, fields and wild flowers and so much more; I hope she now surrounded by PEI of Heaven with those she loved there.
Thanks for your comment, Anna! I’m so glad to know L.M. Montgomery’s books have been so meaningful to you.
I relate to Cynthia. I, too, hate mornings.