Description

[Montgomery] wished her journals to be preserved, believing them to have "a certain literary value" because they contain "a faithful record of one human being's life." She suggested that her "descendants or literary heirs" (51) might publish an abridgement after her death. Her literal descendant, the late Dr. Stuart Macdonald, authorized their publication and advised the editors on material to be selected or omitted. Rubio and Waterston are certainly literary heirs, since Montgomery, as they attest, "contributed powerfully" to their "moral, intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional fibres, both through her novels and now through her journals" (xxiv). [Ewan Macdonald]'s attacks of what have been diagnosed as religious melancholia are a major element in the troubled marriage but not the only one. Far more than in previous journals, Montgomery here recognizes a basic lack of congeniality. Ewan, she writes, is completely without "feeling for or understanding of literature" (156). Her attachment to beloved places is incomprehensible to him. Moreover, he is jealous not only of her literary achievements but of any praise she receives, even on minor occasions. In the spirit of a modern feminist, Montgomery writes, "Ewan's attitude to women . . . is that of a medieval mind. A woman is a thing of no importance intellectually -- the plaything and servant of man -- and couldn't possibly do anything that would be worthy of real tribute" (48). Rubio and Waterston feel that, during this period, Montgomery is "increasingly in a mood that we would now call 'feminist'" (xii)., Source type: scholarlyjournals; Object type: Review; Copyright: Copyright Association for Canadian Studies in the U.S. Winter 1993; DOCID: 441706131; PCID: 6685961; PMID: 54848; ProvJournalCode: ARCS; PublisherXID: CBCAARCS3172324, Source type: Electronic(1), http://search.proquest.com/docview/213984251?accountid=14670