This quote made me laugh out loud. Turns out the dashing Charles was NOT a perfect husband. During her pregnancy with their fourth child, he turns critical of the "slowness" of her poetry output. According to Anne: "He goes over the record-nine years and only two books and wonders why it is. Has he not given me the right kind of environment?"
Anne replies in her diary:
"But you ask for too much, I want to cry out. I cannot be having a baby and be a good housekeeper and keep thinking and writing on the present times (in my diary) and be always free to discuss anything with you and give to the children and keep an atmosphere of peace in the family (the bigger family which is so scattered and distraught now, all of us disagreeing) and keep my mind clear and open on present day things and write a book at the same time. I cannot be an efficient woman and housemanager and an artist at the same time.
Yeah, Chuck. You want to much!
Interestingly, Anne admits to herself that having children is a mark of improvement as a writer. She also states:
"the richest writing comes not from the people who dedicate themselves to writing alone... For instance, in spite of my admiration for their beautiful writing, I think there is a kind of fungus quality to the books of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. I know they are marred. V.S.W. has children, but it is a question of attitude. They think of themselves as writers, not as mothers or wives ever (what a statement!), so their point of view, it seems clear, is always the same.
(Herrmann, Dorothy, "Anne Morrow Lindbergh: A Gift for Life", pg. 237)
Here's to all of us writers who dedicate themselves "not to writing alone," but to primarily following the bigger adventure which is the Christian Life itself!
