The Ghost Breakers

Don't you love the vintage picture?

The Ghost Breakers (1940)

starring: Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard

An old favorite of mine and my mom's is the 1940 movie The Ghost Breakers. Filled with hilarious escapades, frightening occurences, and the hint of a love story, this movie has it all--"ghosts", a mysterious castle in Cuba, a zombie, and so much more. It is the perfect clean but ghostly movie to watch on a dark and stormy night. So break out the popcorn and oreo blizzards (those are my favorite movie night snacks) and get ready to fall in love with an old classic. Watch The Ghost Breakers.

Larry Lawrence: "I'm in great shape, for the shape I'm in."

Alex: "Alot of folks don't like you, boss. I expect some of these mornings when I come to get you out of bed, I'll have to pull the sheet up instead of down."

Larry: "The girls call me Pilgrim, because every time I dance with one I make a little progress."

Geoff Montgomery: "A zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring."

Larry Lawrence: "You mean like Democrats?"


The Alpine Path: Lucy Maud Montgomery



L. M. Montgomery

One of my very favorite authors is Lucy Maud Montgomery. This post is for all of her fans. I am sharing excerpts from a school report I wrote about her last year. For research, I read her autobiography The Alpine Path: the Story of My Career, a thick, intriguing book called The Lucy Maud Montgomery Album compiled by Kevin McCabe, a short book called Spirit of Place: Lucy Maud Montgomery and Prince Edward Island by Francis W. P. Bolger, Wayne Barrett, and Anne MacKay, and Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L. M. Montgomery by Elizabeth Rollins Epperley. There are a few little-known facts about her life included in this post. Enjoy!

Born in 1874 to Hugh John and Clara Montgomery, Maud began life as an ordinary child. When Maud was only 21 months old, tuberculosis caused the premature death of her mother. While her father moved to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the child was sent to live with her grandparents, a stern couple who provided Maud with every luxury and the latest fashions in clothing, but lacked the love and encouragement the young girl craved. Nevertheless, Maud's childhood proved a happy one. Growing up in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, Maud gained an early love for the sea and her homeland that later influenced much of her writing.
Young Maud's first experience in publication was at age nine, when her article about the wreck of the Marco Polo, which had washed ashore on the Cavendish beach, was printed in the Montreal Witness and the Charlottetown Daily Patriot. The first of her literary successes ignited Maud's passion for writing. In the same year, Maud discovered a poem in one of her grandmother's magazines. It was titled "The Fringed Gentian," author unknown. Maud adopted the final stanza as her life's poem:

"Then whisper, blossom, in thy sleep
How I may upward climb
The Alpine Path, so hard, so steep,
That leads to heights sublime,
How I may reach that far-off goal
Of true and honored fame,
And write upon its shining scroll
A woman's humble name."
These lines inspired Montgomery for many years. Her heroine Emily, from the Emily of New Moon trilogy, adopted this verse of poetry as her own inspiration, as well. (And I have done the same--it has been the poem that inspires my writing since I first read Emily of New Moon, my favorite book in the whole, wide world.)
From 1901-1902, Miss Montgomery authored "Around the Table," a series of weekly columns in the Daily Echo which covered various topics--serious, humorous, lighthearted, and sentimental.

In 1911, Maud married the Rev. Ewen MacDonald and after a two-month honeymoon tour of Scotland and England, the couple settled into the Leaskdale Manse, which became their home for fifteen years. Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald's first child, Chester Cameron, was born on July 7, 1912. By 1914, World War I was just beginning, a difficult time for everyone. This and the tragedy of their stillborn child, Little Hugh, left Maud anxious and depressed. She volunteered helping the Red Cross nurses, and on October 7, 1915, at age 41, Maud gave birth to a another baby boy, Ewen Stuart.
Though Rev. MacDonald constantly battled depression and an incessant fear that he was predestined to go to hell, he loved and spent time with his family and was very proud of his two sons.
The idea for L. M. Montgomery's most famous novel, Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908, was derived from a true occurence. A brother and sister with whom Maud was acquainted intended to adopt a strong, young boy to help with the work on their farm. When they arrived at the train station, the couple found a small boy and his younger sister. Feeling that the two should not be separated, the couple adopted both of the children. With a small variation, Maud had her story.


Originally, Anne of Green Gables was intended to be printed in installments in a newspaper, but once Maud began writing, the tale was expanded into a novel-length story. It became Maud's first published novel. The sequel, Anne of Avonlea, soon followed, and eventually the story of Anne Shirley the orphan girl and her beloved Gilbert Blythe became a series of eight books. The Watchman and Other Poems, Montgomery's only book of poetry, was published soon after, in 1916.
In 1923, Maud began her Emily of New Moon trilogy. These books were said to have been her most autobiographical works. In later years, Montgomery said of her heroines Emily and Anne, "People were never right in saying I was Anne, but in some respects, they will be right if they write me down as Emily."

At the time of her death in 1942 (at age 67), Maud had published over twenty novels and hundreds of short stories. Her husband Ewen died in December, 1943, at age 73. After their deaths, a plaque was placed in the Norval Presbyterian Church, where they had served for nine years: "To the glory and in the grateful and affectionate memory of the Rev. Ewen MacDonald, minister of this congregation from 1926 to 1935, and his beloved wife L. M. Montgomery, authoress of Green Gables and other books. Together they worked for the Master, showing understanding and devotion that endeared them to all."

                                                                 Climbing the Alpine Path,

Northanger Abbey

"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her..."
These are the opening lines to one of the sweetest, dearest books I have read--perhaps the most light-hearted of Jane Austen novels, Northanger Abbey.

This is the story of an overimaginative young girl's first trip away from home with a fashionable "society family." Catherine is introduced to many new acquaintances, but she particularly befriends the kindhearted Henry Tilney and his sweet sister Eleanor. When the Tilneys invite Catherine to stay for a while at their home, a large manor called Northanger Abbey, the girl's love for mystery stories and Gothic horror novels begins to overtake her imagination. She begins to hope that she will uncover a dreadful secret, that the manor will be haunted...Catherine allows her imagination to convince her that her hopes and suspicions are reality, even causing herself to believe that a murder has taken place. The impressionable girl soon learns how harmful such suspicion can be to her dearest friends. Will Mr. Tilney and his family ever forgive her for her dreadful mistake?

Northanger Abbey is decidedly the perfect book to read on a stormy night! And if you're feeling especially daring, read it by candlelight...Sweet dreams:)

Jane Eyre: a THRILLING Read

There are only a few books I have encountered that have literally driven me to tears. Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Bronte and published in 1847, is one of these rare few.
I have truly learned not to hastily judge a book by its cover, nor even by its title. What could sound plainer or more uninteresting than Jane Eyre? Yet when I read beyond the cover and past the first few chapters (rather slow for my liking), I suddenly found myself thrust into a world like none other. I found myself knowing and learning to care for the delightful characters. I recognized in Jane qualities similar to my own. And I was soon introduced to Mr. Edward Rochester. Need I say more? I found him to be utterly intriguing. He was lonely, secretive, brooding, mysterious, courageous, restless, and intelligent. 
When tragedy after tragedy occurred, it seemed that Mr. Rochester's fate was to be forever void of happiness and content. I agonized with Jane when they were separated for a long period of time, both clinging to a small hope the other was still alive. (You must read the story to find out why.) And I was reduced to tears when poor Mr. Rochester--my dear Mr. Rochester was blinded and his right hand maimed. I rejoiced when sweet Jane promised never to be parted from him, once they had at last reunited. Faithful are the bonds of true love!
If you have not yet read the book, this should pique your curiosity: the tale involves an arsonist, a mysterious old manor,  a strange visitor from Jamaica, a wounded man hidden in an upstairs room, a lunatic woman with a red scarf, a gypsy fortune teller, a dog named Pilot, an abandoned little French girl, and so much more...
I suppose I am raving excessively, but I truly wish that everyone would read this splendid novel! I am posting a few of my favorite excerpts from the book. It was oh, so difficult to narrow it down to only a few!

(Jane has just, through a strange series of events, saved Mr. Rochester's life by waking him up in the night when a fire blazed in his room.)
"'Good-night then, sir,' said I, departing.
He seemed surprised--very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to go.
'What!' he exclaimed, 'are you quitting me already, and in that way?'
'You said I might go, sir.'
'But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgement and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my life!--snatched me from a horrible and excrutiating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers! At least shake hands.'
He held out his hand; I gave him mine; he took it first in one, then in both his own.
'You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but you: it is different--I feel your benefit no burden, Jane.'"

"I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye."

"'Return to the drawing room: you are deserting too early.'
'I am tired, sir.'
He looked at me for a minute.
'And a little depressed,' he said, 'What about? Tell me.'
'Nothing--nothing, sir. I am not depressed.'
'But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes--indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, tonight I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele. Good night, my--' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me."
(*I love that Charlotte Bronte left to the reader's imagination what Mr. Rochester was about to call Jane; was it my Jane? my dear? my love?...)

(Jane watched over Mason all through the night; he was badly wounded and unconscious most of the night.)
"'You have passed a strange night, Jane.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And it has made you look pale--were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?'
'I was afraid of someone coming out of the inner room.'
(Rochester) 'But I had fastened the door--I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb--my pet lamb--so near a wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe.'"

(Just before Mr. Rochester's romantic proposal...*I will not share the proposal, as I do not wish to spoil it for you, but it is a wonderful scene.)
"'Do you doubt me, Jane?'
'Entirely.'
'You have no faith in me?'
'Not a whit.'
'Am I a liar in your eyes?' he asked passionately. 'Little sceptic, you shall be convinced...'

(Spoken by an unusual character named St. John...I quite liked the way he described a missionary's work.) "'...God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of a soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.'"

(Poor, beloved Mr. Rochester has become blind and lost his right hand after risking his life for someone else's in a fire; he is speaking to Jane. *I found the last sentence extremely touching.)
"'...Can you tell when there is a good fire?'
'Yes, with the right eye I see a glow--a ruddy haze.'
'And you see the candles?'
'Very dimly--each is a luminous cloud.'
'Can you see me?'
'No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.'"

"Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union: perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near--that knit us so very close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I  was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw nature--he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words, the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam--of the landscape before us; of the weather round us--and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to be done...
One morning at the end of two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me, and said--'Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your neck?'
I had a gold watch-chain: I answered, 'Yes.'
'And have you a pale blue dress on?'
I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was sure of it.
He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him--the earth no longer a void. When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were--large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy."

Pour yourself a cup of tea, settle into a comfortable chair by the fire, and lose yourself in a thrilling world of secrets, passion, tragedy, true love, and delightful old-fashionedness...Read Jane Eyre.