“And—there was the sea”
L.M. Montgomery wrote about her love of the sea in letters to her friend G.B. MacMillan: “And—there was the sea,” she says in a letter of September 13, 1913. “I was not prepared for the flood of emotion which swept over me when I saw it. I was stirred to the very depths of my being—tears filled my eyes—I trembled! For a moment it seemed passionately to me that I could never leave it again.”
Lakeside Beach, Prince Edward Island, on a windy day
My family and I spent a few days in Prince Edward Island earlier this week, walking along beaches on the North and Eastern Shores and visiting bookstores in Charlottetown. (We also visited L.M. Montgomery’s Birthplace Museum—more about that in a future post.) In a second-hand bookstore, I found a copy of Spirit of Place: Lucy Maud Montgomery and Prince Edward Island, a collection of quotations from Montgomery’s writing edited by Francis W.P. Bolger with photography by Wayne Barrett and Anne MacKay, a book my grandmother had given me for my twelfth birthday. After we came home, I took my own copy off the shelf and started rereading it. The book includes several quotations from Montgomery’s letters to MacMillan. I read it many times when I was younger, and the beautiful quotations and photos continue to inspire me.
Lakeside Beach on a rainy evening
Panmure Island Provincial Park
Lakeside Beach at sunset
In a letter to MacMillan written on May 21, 1909, Montgomery speaks of her childhood wish to know what lay beyond the New London Cape: she says she felt sure it was “a very realm of enchantment … the land of lost sunsets.”
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Here are the links to the last two posts, in case you missed them:
My novel The Austens is now available for pre-order!
Shawna Lemay’s tribute to Jane Austen: on learning to “view the world at a comedic distance”
(P.S. If you’re interested in the celebration of “Jane Austen in the Public Gardens” in Halifax on August 17th, rsvp on our Facebook event page. All are welcome!)
Read more about my books, including The Austens, St. Paul’s in the Grand Parade, Jane Austen’s Philosophy of the Virtues, and Jane Austen and the North Atlantic, here.
Copyright Sarah Emsley 2025 ~ All rights reserved. No AI training: material on http://www.sarahemsley.com may not be used to “train” generative AI technologies.
