Love is a topic that has occupied every mind since the beginning of time. L.M. Montgomery, in her short story “Miriam’s Lover,” contemplates love and its marvelous power by examining the bond between a young man and a woman that defies the bounds of space and time.
A Ghost Story
Mrs. Mary Sefton listens as her friend reads a ghost story. Having finished it, the friend flings the book down in disgust and proclaims that ghost stories are ridiculous. Though Mary admits that this particular ghost story is ridiculous, she confesses that she does not doubt all ghost, or spirit, stories.
To prove this statement, Mary tells her friend about Miriam Gordon, Mr. Sefton’s niece, who came to live with the Seftons when her mother and stepfather were in Europe.
Miriam was a unique person with an ethereal aspect, about her.
She was engaged to Sidney Claxton, a young Harvard man who lived apart from her. He and Miriam were very much in love, yet, Mary discovered, they never wrote to each other. Mary was astonished to learn that Miriam never heard from Sidney.
“No, I did not say that,” Miriam responded. “I hear from him every day—every hour. We do not need to write letters. There are better means of communication between two souls that are in perfect accord with each other.”
To Hear With the Soul
As time passed, Mary discovered that Miriam would stare off into space, as if she were somewhere completely different. Even if she were at a party, surrounded by a jolly crowd, Miriam would slip into these odd trances.
One day, Mary asked Miriam about the trance she had fallen into. At first, Miriam laughed and gave a simple answer. But, after a couple minutes, she told Mary that she interrupted the message she was receiving from Sidney.
Though Mary initially doubted what Miriam said and experienced, she began to question her doubts when Miriam appeared one day looking very worried. When asked why, Miriam confessed that Sidney had had an accident and was injured. Mary continued to doubt the news until Sidney sent Miriam a note saying that he had broken his arm falling from his horse. This note’s details matched the exact date and time that Miriam had grown anxious.
After this episode, Mary gave more credibility to Miriam’s trances and “messages.” The episode proved to be just the beginning of other serious events in Sidney’s life.
Through this story, Montgomery presents the reader with a gripping tale that reveals love’s marvelous power. She explores a love that cannot be bound by space or time and that connects two separated people.
She seems to urge readers, much like William Shakespeare in his “Sonnet 23,” to “learn to read what silent love hath writ. To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.” Yet though she agrees that love has a silent quality, Montgomery goes further, asserting that one can hear love with the soul just as well as with eyes or ears.
Thus, love proves to be a mysterious subject, that transcends boundaries and binds people in beautiful relationships that do not require physical proximity.
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