{"id":92372,"date":"2015-11-30T12:35:03","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T17:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=92372"},"modified":"2015-11-30T12:35:03","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T17:35:03","slug":"i-tried-always-to-do-my-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/30\/i-tried-always-to-do-my-best\/","title":{"rendered":"I Tried Always to Do My Best"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Lucy Maud Montgomery. Photo: KindredSpiritMichael<\/p><\/div>\n

Should you visit Google today, you\u2019ll find that the daily \u201cdoodle\u201d commemorates the birthday of Lucy Maud Montgomery, born November 30, 1874. The animation portrays Montgomery\u2019s most famous creation, the red-haired Anne-with-an-e<\/em> Shirley, turning green as she cuts into a piece of adulterated cake. (Herein lies my acknowledgment of Cyber Monday\u2014and understand it is not intended as an ad.)<\/p>\n

Like so much of Montgomery\u2019s writing, this moment in Anne of Green Gables<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>is heartwarming and gently funny, part of the long journey toward love and acceptance by Anne\u2019s strict guardian, Marilla Cuthbert. These early books\u2014before Anne becomes overly ethereal and perfect and beset with dozens of clamoring suitors\u2014are the best loved, and certainly my favorites. But in her day, all Montgomery\u2019s novels sold well, even less-inspired fare like\u00a0Kilmeny of the Orchard<\/em>\u00a0or the mopey\u00a0Emily series. By the time of her death the author was a bona fide celebrity, and Mark Twain called Anne \u201cthe dearest and most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Montgomery\u2019s death was deemed a coronary thrombosis, and even today it\u2019s disputed\u2014was the portentous, apologetic note found by her bedside merely an errant page from a missing journal? As one of her relatives\u00a0explains<\/a>, they did not like to think of gay, jolly Aunt Maud in such terms, and as such no one in the family ever discussed the matter\u2014even though it was known that her husband battled mental illness for years, requiring great care, and that Maud herself spoke frankly of bouts of melancholia. If the subject is of interest, I highly recommend Mary Henley Rubio\u2019s biography\u00a0Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings<\/em>\u00a0and Montgomery\u2019s collected journals, edited by the same. The portrait that emerges is not just one of early-modern literary celebrity or of a particular moment in a changing Canada (although that\u2019s there) but of a deeply complex figure\u2014far more complex than most of her heroines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here is what the note said:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

I have lost my mind by spells and I do not dare think what I may do in those spells. May God forgive me and I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand. My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it. What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should you visit Google today, you\u2019ll find that the daily \u201cdoodle\u201d commemorates the birthday of Lucy Maud Montgomery, born November 30, 1874. The animation portrays Montgomery\u2019s most famous creation, the red-haired Anne-with-an-e Shirley, turning green as she cuts into a piece of adulterated cake. (Herein lies my acknowledgment of Cyber Monday\u2014and understand it is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[8074,9158,12555,20357,2186,1466,1045,20356,20358,6024,157],"class_list":["post-92372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-anne-of-green-gables","tag-birthdays","tag-childrens-literature","tag-cyber-monday","tag-death","tag-doodles","tag-google","tag-lucy-maud-montgomery","tag-melancholia","tag-suicide","tag-writers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Strange Note at Lucy Maud Montgomery\u2019s Bedside<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Did the author of Anne of Green Gables commit suicide?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/30\/i-tried-always-to-do-my-best\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Tried Always to Do My Best by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 30, 2015 \u2013 Should you visit Google today, you\u2019ll find that the daily \u201cdoodle\u201d commemorates the birthday of Lucy Maud Montgomery, born November 30, 1874. 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