Mistress Pat

Mistress Pat is the second novel of a series of two written by L.M.M Montgomery. Pat loves her house at Silver Bush obsessively but what she loves even more is the point in life that she is at. She loves her friends, she loves her loving family, she loves her cats and the secure bubble she lives in. Pat desperately does not want anything to change, but that of course is impossible. Friends die, people marry and move away and Pat scrabbles feverishly for constancy, pushing away her on-and-off fiance Hilary. Pat spends years holding fast to the Silver Bush house insisting to herself that she loves loneliness. Will Pat ever be strong enough to let go and move on?? It sounds so melodramatic.

I surprise myself daily that I enjoy reading books by L.M.M. Montgomery. The main characters are so frothy, floaty and feminine that I would normally scoff at people who enjoy them but here am I trapped in the spell of them. I even collect her books! I don't know why, but I do very enjoy her books. Maybe because they have a simplistic, other worldly charm. However, much as I laugh at them and they can really be very silly at times- sometimes I know the characters are more than a little insane with the strange things they say- hiding underneath the layers of giddy chatter is unexpected clarity of thought and strength of character.

Here are some classic L.M. moments, you chose, are they deep, inane or quirky?

“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”  - Anne of Green Gables

“There might be some hours of loneliness. But there was something wonderful even in loneliness. At least you belonged to yourself when you were lonely.” - Mistress Pat

“One can't get over the habit of being a little girl all at once.” - Anne of Avonlea

“If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.”  - The Blue Castle

“I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then.” - Anne's House of Dreams

“Don't be led away by those howls about realism. Remember-pine woods are just as real as pigsties and a darn sight pleasanter to be in.” Emily of the New Moon

“It is never quite safe to think we have done with life. When we imagine we have finished our story fate has a trick of turning the page and showing us yet another chapter.” Rainbow Valley