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The Country of the Pointed Firs
THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS
By Sarah Orne Jewett
Note:
SARAH ORNE JEWETT (1849-1909) was born and died in South Berwick,
Maine. Her father was the region's most distinguished doctor and, as a
child, Jewett often accompanied him on his round of patient visits.
She began writing poetry at an early age and when she was only 19 her
short story "Mr. Bruce" was accepted by the Atlantic Monthly. Her
association with that magazine continued, and William Dean Howells,
who was editor at that time, encouraged her to publish her first book,
Deephaven (1877), a collection of sketches published earlier in the
Atlantic Monthly. Through her friendship with Howells, Jewett became
acquainted with Boston's literary elite, including Annie Fields, with
whom she developed one of the most intimate and lasting relationships
of her life.
The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) is considered Jewett's finest
work, described by Henry James as her "beautiful little quantum of
achievement." Despite James's diminutives, the novel remains a
classic. Because it is loosely structured, many critics view the book
not as a novel, but a series of sketches; however, its structure is
unified through both setting and theme. Jewett herself felt that her
strengths as a writer lay not in plot development or dramatic tension,
but in character development. Indeed, she determined early in her
career to preserve a disappearing way of life, and her novel can be
read as a study of the effects of isolation and hardship on the
inhabitants who lived in the decaying fishing villages along the Maine
coast.
Jewett died in 1909, eight years after an accident that effectively
ended her writing career. Her reputation had grown during her
lifetime, extending far beyond the bounds of the New England she
loved.
Contents
I The Return II Mrs. Todd III The Schoolhouse IV At the
Schoolhouse Window V Captain Littlepage VI The Waiting Place VII
The Outer Island VIII Green Island IX William X Where Pennyroyal
Grew XI The Old Singers XII A Strange Sail XIII Poor Joanna XIV
The Hermitage XV On Shell-heap Island XVI The Great Expedition XVII
A Country Road XVIII The Bowden Reunion XIX The Feast's End XX
Along Shore XXI The Backward View
I. The Return
THERE WAS SOMETHING about the coast town of Dunnet which made it seem
more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine. Perhaps
it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which
made it so attaching, and gave such interest to the rocky shore and
dark woods, and the few houses which seemed to be securely wedged and
tree-nailed in among the ledges by the Landing. These houses made the
most of their seaward view, and there was a gayety and determined
floweriness in their bits of garden ground; the small-paned high
windows in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes that
watched the harbor and the far sea-line beyond, or looked northward
all along the shore and its background of spruces and balsam firs.
When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is
like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling
in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but
the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.
After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in the
course of a yachting cruise, a lover of Dunnet Landing returned to
find the unchanged shores of the pointed firs, the same quaintness of
the village with its elaborate conventionalities; all that mixture of
remoteness, and childish certainty of being the centre of civilization
of which her affectionate dreams had told. One evening in June, a
single passenger landed upon the steamboat wharf. The tide was high,
there was a fine crowd of spectators, and the younger portion of the
company followed her with subdued excitement up the narrow street of
the salt-aired, white-clapboarded little town.