Tag: Lucy Maud Montgomery

Nothing Is Ever Really Lost To Us As Long As We Remember It

Lucy Maud Montgomery? Adelaide Anne Procter? Walt Whitman? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: The popular Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery is best known for the children’s novel “Anne of Green Gables”. Apparently, she once made a powerful statement about transience, mortality, and memory:

Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.

Numerous webpages claim that this quotation appeared in Montgomery’s 1911 novel “The Story Girl”, but I have carefully searched that novel, and the quotation is absent. Would you please help to find a correct citation?

Quote Investigator: The quotation did not appear in “The Story Girl”; however, it did appear in the 1913 sequel by Lucy Maud Montgomery titled “The Golden Road”. Both works featured a character named Sara Stanley who was referred to as the Story Girl. The quotation was spoken by her father who was discussing Sara’s departed mother. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:[1] 1913 Copyright, The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery (Lucy Maud Montgomery), Chapter 27: The Old Order Changeth, Quote Page 320, The Page Company, Boston, Massachusetts. (Google Books Full View) link

“She was as slim and lithe as a young, white-stemmed birch tree. How I loved her! How happy we were! But he who accepts human love must bind it to his soul with pain, and she is not lost to me. Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading Nothing Is Ever Really Lost To Us As Long As We Remember It

References

References
↑1 1913 Copyright, The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery (Lucy Maud Montgomery), Chapter 27: The Old Order Changeth, Quote Page 320, The Page Company, Boston, Massachusetts. (Google Books Full View) link

Sometimes I Sits and Thinks, and Sometimes I Just Sits

A. A. Milne? Satchel Paige? William Gunning King? Lucy Maud Montgomery? Alice G. Young? Woodrow Wilson? Anonymous?

Dear Quote Investigator: I enjoy relaxing and daydreaming, so I’ve always been attracted to the following saying:

Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.

These words have been credited to the creator of Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne, and to the prominent baseball player, Satchel Paige. Yet, I am skeptical because I haven’t been able to find any solid citations. Would you please help?

Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in February 1905 within multiple newspapers such as “The Pittsburg Press” of Pennsylvania[1] 1905 February 18, The Pittsburg Press, How He Spent His Time, Quote Page 2, Column 5, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com) and the “The Buffalo Sunday News” of New York.[2] 1905 February 19, The Buffalo Sunday News, The Simple Life, Quote Page 15, Column 5, Buffalo, New York. (Newspapers_com) These papers acknowledged “The Boston Record” of Massachusetts. Emphasis added to excerpts by QI:

A bond salesman just back from Maine says he asked an old fisherman in a snow-bound hamlet what he did with himself evenings.

The reply was: “Oh, sometimes I sit and think, and then again I just sit.”

—Boston Record

Thus, the first version employed the phrase “I sit” instead of “I sits”. The originator was described as an anonymous old fisherman, and the key propagator was an anonymous bond salesman.

Thanks to Barry Popik for his pioneering research on this topic. He found a March 1905 citation.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading Sometimes I Sits and Thinks, and Sometimes I Just Sits

References

References
↑1 1905 February 18, The Pittsburg Press, How He Spent His Time, Quote Page 2, Column 5, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com)
↑2 1905 February 19, The Buffalo Sunday News, The Simple Life, Quote Page 15, Column 5, Buffalo, New York. (Newspapers_com)
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