Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery.
Title: Chronicles of Avonlea.
Author: L.M. Montgomery.
Genre: Fiction, short stories, YA, children's lit, romance, humour.
Country: Canada.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1912.
Summary: A collection of 12 short stories that features the fictional Canadian village of Avonlea, where Anne Shirley had grown up, and it's residents. In The Hurrying of Ludovic, Anne Shirley is behind Ludovic Speed's proposal to Theodora Dix after their very long courtship. In Old Lady Lloyd, Lady Lloyd, thought to be very rich and stand-offish, encounters the daughter of her former beau and tries to help her, though both her circumstances and her temperament are not what they seem. In Each in His Own Tongue, Reverend Stephen Leonard attempts to stifle his son Felix's gifted violin-playing, which he sees as unholy. In Little Joscelyn, Aunty Nan hears of Joscelyn Burnett's, whom she knew when she was very young, return to Prince Edward Island, and greatly desires to hear her old friend sing. In The Winning of Lucinda, Lucinda and Romney Penhallow's long-time feud, standing in the way of romance, is resolved. In Old Man Shaw's Girl, Mrs Peter Blewett attempts to destroy Old Man Shaw's hopes regarding the return of his beloved daughter Sara ("Blossom"), who comes back to a simple life with her father from the bustling success of the city. In Aunt Olivia's Beau, Olivia Sterling is courted by Malcolm McPherson. In Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's, a severe man-hater Angelina "Peter" MacPherson is quarantined for smallpox with Alexander Abraham Bennett, a misogynist who has not allowed a woman in his house for years. In "Pa Sloane's Purchase, Pa Sloane rashly buys a baby at an auction and must deal with the consequences. In The Courting of Prissy Strong, Stephen Clark courts Prissy Strong, despite her sister Emmeline's strong opposition. In The Miracle at Carmody, avowed atheist Judith Marsh, and her religious sister Salome, attempt to raise young Lionel Hezekiah. In The End of a Quarrel, Peter Wright and Nancy Rogerson meet again, many years after a quarrel over his grammar broke them up.
My rating: 9/10
My Review:
♥ At such times she felt very bitter and resentful towards Fate for having taken everything from her. She had nothing to love, and that is about as unwholesome a condition as is possible to anyone.
♥ No more letters came; Leslie Gray never returned; and one day Margaret wakened to the realization that she had put love out of her life for ever. She knew it would never be hers again; and from that moment her feet were turned from youth to walk down the valley of shadow to a lonely, eccentric age.
♥ "It's sweet to sacrifice for one we love - it's sweet to have someone to sacrifice for," thought the Old Lady.
♥ Desire grows by what it feeds on.
♥ I'm only sorry that I ever shut my neighbours out of my life because of my foolish pride. Everyone has been so kind to me, Sylvia. In the future, if my life is spared, it is going to be a very different sort of life. I'm going to open it to all the kindness and companionship I can find in young and old. I'm going to help them all I can and let them help me. I can help people - I've learned that money isn't the only power for helping people. Anyone who has sympathy and understanding to give has a treasure that is without money and without price...
~~Old Lady Lloyd.
♥ Felix Moore was standing opposite to him, before an untidy stove, where the noon fire had died down into pallid, scattered ashes. Under his chin he held old Abel's brown, battered fiddle; his eyes, too, were fixed on the ceiling; and he, too, saw things not lawful to be uttered in any language save that of music; and of all music, only that given forth by the anguished, enraptured spirit of the violin. And yet this Felix was little more than twelve years old, and his face was still the face of a child who knows nothing of either sorrow or sin or failure or remorse. Only in his large, gray-black eyes was there something not of the child - something that spoke of an inheritance from many hearts, now ashes, which had aforetime grieved and joyed, and struggled and failed, and succeeded and grovelled. The inarticulate cries of their longings had passed into this child's soul, and transmuted themselves into the expression of his music.
♥ "Come now, play something more for me before you go - something that's bright and happy this time, so as to leave me with a good taste in my mouth. That last thing you played took me straight to heaven, - but heaven's awful near to hell, and at the last you tipped me in."
♥ It was the wish of his heart that Felix should be a minister, as he would have wished his own son to be, had one been born to him. Mr. Leonard thought rightly that the highest work to which any man could be called was a life of service to his fellows; but he made the mistake of supposing the field of service much narrower than it is - of failing to see that a man may minister to the needs of humanity in many different but equally effective ways.
~~Each in His Own Tongue.
♥ He was as blithe as a pilgrim on a pathway climbing to the west. He had learned the rare secret that you must take happiness when you find it - that there is no use in marking the place and coming back to it at a more convenient season, because it will not be there then. And it is very easy to be happy if you know, as Old Man Shaw most thoroughly knew, how to find pleasure in little things. He enjoyed life, he had always enjoyed life and helped others to enjoy it; consequently, his life was a success, whatever White Sands people might think of it. What if he had not "improved" his farm? There are some people to whom life will never be anything more than a kitchen garden; and there are others to whom it will always be a royal palace with domes and minarets of rainbow fancy.
♥ She had a way of embroidering life with stars.
~~Old Man Shaw's Girl.
♥ I never stop to argue matters with a dog that doesn't bark. I know when discretion is the better part of valour.
~~Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's.