The Schoolmaster's Letters Page #2

"The Schoolmaster's Letters" by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a charming collection of correspondence written by a schoolmaster in a small community. Through his letters, the schoolmaster shares his observations about life, education, and the quirky characters in his village, blending humor with poignant reflections. The book captures Montgomery's signature warmth and keen insight into human nature, showcasing her deep appreciation for the rhythms of rural life and the transformative power of teaching. It offers readers a glimpse into a bygone era, filled with both lighthearted anecdotes and thoughtful commentary on the challenges and joys of community and education.

• Short story

								

    of baser passions and unworthy dreams. For all this I thank
    you, dear, and for all this surely the utmost that I can give
    of love and reverence and service is not too much.

    I could not have helped loving you. But if I could have helped
    it, knowing with just what measure of pain and joy it would
    brim my cup, I would have chosen to love you, Una. There are
    those who strive to forget a hopeless love. To me, the
    greatest misfortune that life could bring would be that I
    should forget you. I want to remember you always and love you
    and long for you. That would be unspeakably better than any
    happiness that could come to me through forgetting.

    Dear lady, good night. The sun has set; there is now but one
    fiery dimple on the horizon, as if a golden finger had dented
    it--now it is gone; the mists are coming up over the sea.

    A kiss on each of your white hands, dear. Tonight I am too
    humble to lift my thoughts to your lips.

The schoolmaster folded up his letter and held it against his cheek
for a little space while he gazed out on the silver-shining sea with
his dark eyes full of dreams. Then he took from his shabby trunk a
little inlaid box and unlocked it with a twisted silver key. It was
full of letters--his letters to Una. The first had been written months
ago, in the early promise of a northern spring. They linked together
the golden weeks of the summer. Now, in the purple autumn, the box was
full, and the schoolmaster's term was nearly ended.

He took out the letters reverently and looked over them, now and then
murmuring below his breath some passages scattered through the written
pages. He had laid bare his heart in those letters, writing out what
he never could have told her, even if his love had been known and
returned, for dead and gone generations of stern and repressed
forefathers laid their unyielding fingers of reserve on his lips, and
the shyness of dreamy, book-bred youth stemmed the language of eye and
tone.

    I will love you forever and ever. And even though you know it
    not, surely such love will hover around you all your life.
    Like an invisible benediction, not understood but dimly felt,
    guarding you from ill and keeping far from you all things and
    thoughts of harm and evil!

               *       *       *       *       *

    Sometimes I let myself dream. And in those dreams you love me,
    and we go out to meet life together. I have dreamed that you
    kissed me--dreamed it so reverently that the dream did your
    womanhood no wrong. I have dreamed that you put your hands in
    mine and said, "I love you." Oh, the rapture of it!

               *       *       *       *       *

    We may give all we will if we do not ask for a return. There
    should be no barter in love. If, by reason of the greatness of
    my love for you, I were to ask your love in return, I should
    be a base creature. It is only because I am content to love
    and serve for the sake of loving and serving that I have the
    right to love you.

               *       *       *       *       *

    I have a memory of a blush of yours--a rose of the years that
    will bloom forever in my garden of remembrance. Tonight you
    blushed when I came upon you suddenly among the flowers. You
    were startled--perhaps I had broken too rudely on some girlish
    musing; and straightway your round, pale curve of cheek and
    your white arch of brow were made rosy as with the dawn of
    beautiful sunrise. I shall see you forever as you looked at
    that time. In my mad moments I shall dream, knowing all the
    while that it is only a dream, that you blushed with delight
    at my coming. I shall be able to picture forevermore how you
    would look at one you loved.

               *       *       *       *       *

    Tonight the moon was low in the west. It hung over the sea
    like a shallop of ruddy gold moored to a star in the harbour
    of the night. I lingered long and watched it, for I knew that
    you, too, were watching it from your window that looks on the
    sea. You told me once that you always watched the moon set. It
    has been a bond between us ever since.

               *       *       *       *       *

    This morning I rose at dawn and walked on the shore to think
    of you, because it seemed the most fitting time. It was before
    sunrise, and the world was virgin. All the east was a shimmer
    of silver and the morning star floated in it like a dissolving
    pearl. The sea was a great miracle. I walked up and down by it
    and said your name over and over again. The hour was sacred to
    you. It was as pure and unspoiled as your own soul. Una, who
    will bring into your life the sunrise splendour and colour of
    love?

               *       *       *       *       *

    Do you know how beautiful you are, Una? Let me tell you, dear.
    You are tall, yet you have to lift your eyes a little to meet
    mine. Such dear eyes, Una! They are dark blue, and when you
    smile they are like wet violets in sunshine. But when you are
    pensive they are more lovely still--the spirit and enchantment
    of the sea at twilight passes into them then. Your hair has
    the gloss and brownness of ripe nuts, and your face is always
    pale. Your lips have a trick of falling apart in a half-smile
    when you listen. They told me before I knew you that you were
    pretty. Pretty! The word is cheap and tawdry. You are
    beautiful, with the beauty of a pearl or a star or a white
    flower.

               *       *       *       *       *

    Do you remember our first meeting? It was one evening last
    spring. You were in your garden. The snow had not all gone,
    but your hands were full of pale, early flowers. You wore a
    white shawl over your shoulders and head. Your face was turned
    upward a little, listening to a robin's call in the leafless
    trees above you. I thought God had never made anything so
    lovely and love-deserving. I loved you from that moment, Una.

               *       *       *       *       *

    This is your birthday. The world has been glad of you for
    twenty years. It is fitting that there have been bird songs
    and sunshine and blossom today, a great light and fragrance
    over land and sea. This morning I went far afield to a long,
    lonely valley lying to the west, girt round about with dim old
    pines, where feet of men seldom tread, and there I searched
    until I found some rare flowers meet to offer you. I sent them
    to you with a little book, an old book. A new book, savouring
    of the shop and marketplace, however beautiful it might be,
    would not do for you. So I sent the book that was my mother's.
    She read it and loved it--the faded rose-leaves she placed in
    it are there still. At first, dear, I almost feared to send
    it. Would you miss its meaning? Would you laugh a little at
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