- Illustration by Garth Williams
“I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet simple things of life which are the real ones after all.”
~Laura Ingalls Wilder
Poetry Friday: Louisa May Alcott
A Cicely Mary Barker Flower Fairy
The moonlight fades from flower and rose
And the stars dim one by one;
The tale is told, the song is sung,
And the Fairy feast is done.
The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers,
And sings to them, soft and low.
The early birds erelong will wake:
‘T is time for the Elves to go.
O’er the sleeping earth we silently pass,
Unseen by mortal eye,
And send sweet dreams, as we lightly float
Through the quiet moonlit sky;–
For the stars’ soft eyes alone may see,
And the flowers alone may know,
The feasts we hold, the tales we tell;
So’t is time for the Elves to go.
From bird, and blossom, and bee,
We learn the lessons they teach;
And seek, by kindly deeds, to win
A loving friend in each.
And though unseen on earth we dwell,
Sweet voices whisper low,
And gentle hearts most joyously greet
The Elves where’er they go.
When next we meet in the Fairy dell,
May the silver moon’s soft light
Shine then on faces gay as now,
And Elfin hearts as light.
Now spread each wing, for the eastern sky
With sunlight soon shall glow.
The morning star shall light us home:
Farewell! for the Elves must go.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><>
I was given a small book of fairy tales and poems by Lousia May Alcott long ago for my birthday… they are sweet and gentle, and I think they go well with Cicely Mary Barker’s beautiful flower fairy illustrations.
~Meg
Wednesday Quotes: Cranford
“I would prefer it if I did not enjoy oranges. Consuming them is a most incommodious business.”
~Miss Deborah in Elizabeth Gaskell’s “Cranford” (2007, BBC)
All Good Gifts Around Us
- Jennie Branscome-First Thanksgiving
We plow the fields, and scatter
the good seed on the land,
but it is fed and watered
by God’s almighty hand;
he sends the snow in winter,
the warmth to swell the grain,
the breezes and the sunshine,
and soft refreshing rain.
Refrain:
All good gifts around us
are sent from heaven above,
then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
for all his love.
He only is the Maker
of all things near and far;
he paints the wayside flower,
he lights the evening star;
the winds and waves obey him,
by him the birds are fed;
much more to us, his children,
he gives our daily bread. Refrain
We thank thee, then, O Father,
for all things bright and good,
the seed time and the harvest,
our life, our health, and food;
no gifts have we to offer,
for all thy love imparts,
and, what thou most desirest,
our humble, thankful hearts. Refrain
This is a beautiful hymn that we love to sing this time of year… and we sing the refrain as a table blessing year-round. This is just one lovely way to offer up our thanks to God this Thanksgiving season, as we feast and celebrate in His honor.
~Meg
Wednesday Quotes: Mr. Bennet Speaking
Illustration by Hugh Thompson
“So, Lizzy,” said he one day, “your sister is crossed in love I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.”
~Mr. Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Lucy Maud Montgomery: A post by Beth Ann
Many thanks to Beth Ann of Genuine Beauty for this post!
If she had written nothing but Anne of Green Gables, she would still be as famous and as well-loved the world over as she is today.
Lucy Maud Montgomery (called “Maud” by her friends) wrote the well know book Anne of Green Gables in 1908, it was her first published novel. Born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Canada in the year 1874, Maud was a sensitive, solitary, and very imaginative young girl. She enjoyed reading Longfellow, Byron, and Dickens and writing her own stories and poems- a talent which she developed at a very young age.
When Maud was only two years old her mother Clara died, and her grief-stricken father sent her to live with her grandparents at their isolated farmhouse in Cavendish, P.E.I.
In 1890 her father, remarried and with a new family, requested that she come and join him in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. She found her stepmother uncongenial toward her though and her father too busy with business– political, and social–to be much of a companion.
Although she did make several very good friends and was thrilled when in November 1890 her first published piece, a poem, appeared in the Charlottetown, P.E.I., Daily Patriot newspaper, she still longed to go back to Prince Edward Island.
In August 1891 she returned and went to Prince of Wales College two years later, in which three years of teaching in small schools followed.
By the mid-1980’s Maud had achieved moderate success as an authoress and had written many stories and poems.
It was in 1907 when Maud’s previously rejected novel was at last accepted and published by the L.C. Page Company of Boston in 1908. Anne of Green Gables, the beautiful story of an imaginative, red-headed orphan girl who was adopted by two elderly Prince Edward Islanders entered into the hearts of thousands both young and old.
Among the overabundance of fan mail was a letter from Mark Twain, describing Maud’s heroine as “the dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice.”
Lucy Maud Montgomery died April 24, 1942 after a long illness, leaving her two sons Chester and Stuart and her husband Ewan MacDonald to grieve their loss.
If you wished to have known L.M. Montgomery, you still can; just read about Anne Shirley’s life to understand more about Maud’s, for they were one in the same, they were kindred spirits.
~Beth Ann
This Day in History…
… in the year 1885, Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder were married.
I always loved reading the accounts of their marriage in both These Happy Golden Years and The First Four Years. In fact, I was just re-reading the latter as I lay awake one night. Laura puts it simply: “Laura and Manly were married for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer.” It ended up being for poorer at first, as Almanzo was farming and their crop (which would have been enormous) was ruined by hail. Actually, before they were married, Laura told him (whom she called Manly) that she didn’t want to marry a farmer, knowing how poor farmers were and how hard they had to work. When Manly explained all his plans and how they would become wealthy, she agreed to try farming for three years. If she didn’t like it, Manly said he would do whatever she wanted him to do. So Laura stayed at home all day every day, miles away from town and family, doing the cooking, cleaning, washing, baking, sewing… and she was perfectly content with just the animals for friends until Manly came home at night. She amazes me with her fortitude. But of course, she doesn’t make it seem like a great hardship in her book; it was just the pioneer way of life. Women like that are who I like to call heroines.
~Meg
Wednesday Quotes: Beatrix Potter
“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”
~Beatrix Potter
Poetry Friday: Emily Dickenson
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
<><><><><><><><><><><>
Emily Dickenson has a peculiar way of writing poetry that I enjoy greatly. Some poets use grand words and images that take your breath away or awe you, but Emily Dickenson goes straight to my heart with simplicity and sweetness.
~Meg
Wednesday Quotes: Charlotte Mason
Painting: Good Neighbors, by J. W. Waterhouse
“We owe it to the past to use its gains worthily and to advance from the point at which it left off. We owe it to the future to prepare a generation better than ourselves. We owe it to the present to live, to live with all expansion of heart and soul, all reaching out of our personality towards those relations appointed for us.”
~Charlotte Mason, Volume 3 of her 6 Volume Series
