Verso Pages
These back-of-page seemingly random, out-of-order scrap pieces are drafts of Montgomery’s early short stories and poems. Some were already published when she drafted Anne in 1905 and 1906, and others were probably typed up and kept elsewhere. Some verso scrap sheets show early experiments: “A Baking of Gingersnaps” (1895) was her first published short story; she tests the pen names Maud Cavendish and Maud Eglinton. After Chapter 15, she started writing Anne front-to-back. Why did she switch from scrap pages to fresh sheets?
View an index of the verso contents here, or explore the full collection of Verso pages below:
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Chapter 22. Anne Is Invited Out to Tea.
“And what are your eyes popping out of your head about now”? asked Marilla, when Anne had just come in from a run to the post office. “Have you discovered another kindred spirit?” G13 “No, Marilla, but oh, what do you think? I am invited to tea at the351 405
and was vaguely troubled over it, realizing that the ups and downs of existence would probably bear hardly on this impulsive soul ^I13 Therefore Marilla conceived it to be her duty to drill Anne into a tranquil uniformity of disposition as impossible and alien to her as to a dancing sunbeam in one of the brook shallows. She did not make much headway as she sorrowfully admitted to herself. The downfall of some dear hope ^or plan plunged Anne into “deeps of affliction.” The fulfilment thereof exalted her to dizzy realms of delight. Marilla had almost given up begun to despair of ever fashioning Anne this waif of the world into her model little girl of demure
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nights before the day on which you are invited to take tea at the manse. The morning, in spite of Matthew’s predictions, was fine, and Anne’s spirits soared to their highest.
“Oh, Marilla, there is something in me to-day that makes me just love everybody I see,” she exclaimed ^as she washed the breakfast dishes. “You don’t know how good I feel! Wouldn’t it be nice if it could last? But Oh, Marilla, it’s a s I believe I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea every day. But oh, Marilla, it’s a solemn occasion, too. I feel so anxious. What if I shouldn’t behave properly? ^L13 Would it be good manners to take a second helping of anything if you wanted to very much?”
“The trouble with you, Anne, is that
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time. I feel that I have not lived in vain, When I and I shall always feel like that even if I should never be invited to tea at a manse again. When I got there Mrs. Allan met me at the door. She was dressed in the sweetest dress of pale pink organdy, with dozens of frills and elbow sleeves, and she looked just like a seraph. I really think I’d like to be a minister’s wife when I grow up, Marilla. ^O13 But then one would have to be naturally good and I’ll never be that, so I suppose there’s no use in thinking about it. Some people are naturally good, you know and others are not. ^P13 Mrs. Allan is one of the naturally good people. I love her passionately. You know there are some people, like like Matthew and Mrs. Allan, that you can love right off,
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R13
Lauretta had to go home early because there is a big concert in the White Sands hotel tonight and her sister is to recite at it. Lauretta says the Americans at the hotel give a concert every fort-night in aid of the Charlottetown hospital and they ask lots of the White Sands people to recite. S13 After she had gone Mrs. Allan and I had a talk heart to heart talk. I told her everything—about Mrs. Thomas and the twins and Katie Maurice and Violetta and coming to Green Gables and my troubles over geometry and would you believe it, Marilla? Mrs. Allan told me she was a dunce at geometry, too. You don’t know how that encouraged me. Mrs. Lynde came to the manse just before I left