At the Beginning Again

Hello fellow Emily enthusiasts! As the youngest member of this small "club", it is imperative that I express my eagerness and absolute joy at participating in this project.

Now that's done, I'm going to have to admit right off that I do not find Douglas Starr's behavior with regard to Ellen Greene to be in any way detestable, contemptuous, or even mean. Surely, it isn't quite right that he should be so candid in expressing his opinions to small, impressionable Emily, but I cannot find fault in his opinion. As one who is just leaving childhood behind, I think I am more inclined to see things as Emily does and it can be argued that Douglas Starr perhaps regresses in his proximity to death (causing him to retain a childish mindset). From the eyes of a child, Ellen Greene is contemptible herself and exactly what she is said to be: "a fat, lazy old thing of no importance." She is indelicate.

Not so crude as Ellen, though undeniably as lacking in the qualities Emily looks for in her surroundings, are the stately Murrays. I like them, even for all their standoffish and prideful ways. They have character. L.M. Montgomery has as much of the gift for description of people as her favorite heroine (Emily) does. The Murray clan seems more alive on the page than Ellen Greene and Douglas Starr, no pun intended.

Now, the people I feel are wronged by Douglas Starr's adamant opinions are the Murrays. He, of course, was wronged by them when Emily's mother Juliet eloped with him and disgraced her family, but he lets this cloud his judgment of otherwise respectable, if not likable persons. The Murrays aren't all bad, after all. Cousin Jimmy is nice, Aunt Laura is sweet, Uncle Oliver and his wife Addie are at the very least jolly. Even Aunt Elizabeth wishes to some degree to be liked by Emily, though she stands by her own outdated and firm beliefs. Only Aunt Ruth and Uncle Wallace can be described as dour or unpleasant.

In all this relative negativity is Emily herself, an imaginative and bright Starr among dark Ellen Greenes and Uncle Wallaces. Her mind, though childlike and naive, is also developed and very sensitive. She has a wonderful instinctive sense of things just as they are. She is fanciful, but not in any detrimental way to her happiness with reality. She copes with the issue of her father's illness and death remarkably well which does, as Sarah says, evoke a sense of how accepted death was at that time as opposed to now, when death is never even addressed to most children.

Emily possesses an ability to appreciate natural beauty and the beauty of words, just beauty. This is a rare trait to discover in anyone, let alone a young girl. In my mind, Emily's "flashes" are her own special realizations of beauty in all its forms. Montgomery creates beauty herself just in being able to translate this idea and Emily's personality in written words. I am beginning to regret not having read the Emily books in my childhood, as I identify so strongly with many of her characteristics. Since I find Emily Byrd Starr to be a "kindred spirit", I will presume to sign off as

Emily-in-the-glass