The sheer amount of emotion involved in this book was really incredible to me, and so enjoyable! It covers five years of Elnora Comstock's life and takes her through some incredibly challenging and joyful events in her life, not the least of which were high school and a courtship. Her honor and strength are beautiful. She comes to town from the Limberlost, a forest of great trees, swamps, and valuable moths.
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"S'pose we'd taken Elnora when she was a baby, and we'd heaped on her all the love we can't on our own, and we'd coddled, petted, and shielded her, whould she have made the woman that living alone, learning to think for herself, and taking all the knocks Kate Comstock could give, have made of her?"
"You bet your life!" cried Wesley warmly. "Loving anybody don't hurt them. We wouldn't have done anything but love her. You can't hurt a child loving it. She'd have learned to work, to study, and grown into a woman with us, without suffering like a poor homeless dog."
"But you don't see the point, Wesley. She would have grown into a fine woman with us; but as we would have raise her, would her heart ever have known the world as it does now? Where's the anguish, Wesley, that child can't comprehend? Seeing what she's seen of her mother hasn't hardened her. She can understand any mother's sorrow. Living life from the rough side has only broadened her. Where's the girl or boy burning with shame, or struggling to find a way, that will cross Elnora's path and not get a lift from her? She's had the knocks, but there'll never be any of the thing you call 'false pride' in her. I guess we better keep out. Maybe Kate Comstock knows what she's doing. Sure as you live, Elnora has grown bigger on knocks than she would on love." (p51)
Now some of that is good sense to me, but some of it is baloney. Allowing children to see and feel adversity and understand the world is important. But it doesn't have to come with unrighteous dominion or neglect. Loving anybody doesn't hurt them, but shielding and coddling can.
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"I am almost sorry I have these [new] clothes," she said to Ellen.
"In the name of sense, why?" cried the astonished girl.
"Everyone is so nice to me in them, it sets me to wondering if in time I could have made them be equally friendly in the others."
Ellen looked at her introspectively. "I believe you could," she announced at last. "But it would have taken time and heartache, and your mind would have been less free to work on your studies. No one is happy without friends." (p77)
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Here are the grosbeaks of which Elnora is speaking in this letter she dictates to Philip's fiance:
"I am writing this," she began, "in an old grape arbor in the country, near a log cabin where I had my dinner. From where I sit I can see directly into the home of the next-door neighbor on the west. His name is R.B. Grosbeak. From all I have seen of him, he is a gentleman of the old school; the oldest school there is, no doubt. He always wears a black suit and cap and a white vest, decorated with one large read heart, which I think must be the emblem of some ancient order. I have been here a number of time, and I never have seen him wear anything else, or his wife appear in other than a brown dress with touches of white.
"It has appealed to me at times that she was a shade neglectful of her home duties, but he does not seem to feel that way. He cheerfully stays in the sitting-room, while she is away having a good time, and sings while he cares for the four small children... I just had an encounter with him at the west fence, and induced him to carry a small gift to his children. When I see the perfect harmony in which he lives, and the depth of content he and the brown lady find in life, I am almost persuaded to buy a nice little home in the country, and settle down there for life." (p214)
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Elnora's father was a violinist and she found his violin through a neighbor in the first year of high school. She divided her practice time so that half was dedicated to playing the sounds of nature. She was a great proficient at the master's pieces, but the following description is of how she played nature after just three or four years of practice. This scene takes places in a forest "room" with trees for walls and violets as carpet. (p141, 220-221)
Elnora lifted the violin and began to play. She wore a school dress of green gingham, with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. She seemed a part of the setting all around her. Her head shone like a small dark sun, and her face never had seemed so rose-flushed and fair. ... Elnora played the song of the Limberlost. It seemed as if the swamp hushed all its other voices and spoke only through her dancing bow. ... She played as only a peculiar chain of circumstances puts it in the power of a very few to play. All nature had grown still, the violin sobbed, sang, danced and quavered on alone, no voice in particular; the soul of the melody of all nature combined in one great outpouring.
...When the last note fell and the girl laid the violin in the case... she came to him. Philip stood looking at her curiously...
"With some people it makes a regular battlefield of the human heart--this struggle for self-expression," said Philip. "You are going to do beautiful work in the world, and do it well. When I realize that your violin belonged to your father, that he played it before you were born, and it no doubt affected you mother strongly, and then couple with that the years you have roamed these fields and swamps finding in nature all you had to lavish your heart upon, I can see how you have evolved. I understand what you mean by self-expression. I know something of what you have to express. The world never so wanted your message as it does now. It is hungry for the things you know. I can see easily how your position came to you. What you have to give is taught in no college, and I am not sure but you would spoil yourself if you tried to run your mind through a set groove with hundreds of others. I never thought I should say such a thing to anyone, but I do say to you, and I honestly believe it; give up the college idea. Your mind does not need that sort of development. Stick close to your work in the woods. You are becoming so infinitely greater on it, than the best college girl I ever knew, that there is no comparison. When you have money to spend, take that violin and go to one of the world's great masters and let the Limberlost sing to him; if he thinks he can improve it, very well. I have my doubts."
...When the last note fell and the girl laid the violin in the case... she came to him. Philip stood looking at her curiously...
"With some people it makes a regular battlefield of the human heart--this struggle for self-expression," said Philip. "You are going to do beautiful work in the world, and do it well. When I realize that your violin belonged to your father, that he played it before you were born, and it no doubt affected you mother strongly, and then couple with that the years you have roamed these fields and swamps finding in nature all you had to lavish your heart upon, I can see how you have evolved. I understand what you mean by self-expression. I know something of what you have to express. The world never so wanted your message as it does now. It is hungry for the things you know. I can see easily how your position came to you. What you have to give is taught in no college, and I am not sure but you would spoil yourself if you tried to run your mind through a set groove with hundreds of others. I never thought I should say such a thing to anyone, but I do say to you, and I honestly believe it; give up the college idea. Your mind does not need that sort of development. Stick close to your work in the woods. You are becoming so infinitely greater on it, than the best college girl I ever knew, that there is no comparison. When you have money to spend, take that violin and go to one of the world's great masters and let the Limberlost sing to him; if he thinks he can improve it, very well. I have my doubts."
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