No. 1. What is your favorite flower?
Well, I love all flowers so much it is hard to choose. But of wild flowers I love best the shy sweet wild “June Bell–the Linnea Borealis-of Prince Edward Island spruce woods; and of garden flowers the white narcissus-the old “June lilies” of girlhood days. We did not have them but they grew in the grassy nooks of many old Cavendish gardens.

No. 2. “Your favorite tree?”
Most certainly the pine-though the fir runs it hard. There were few pines in Cavendish-an odd one or two back in the woods. Indeed, there are not many anywhere on the Island. It is the habitat of spruce and fir. I first got well acquainted with pines in Halifax Park.

We have a good many pines in Scott township but none very near the manse. Spruces are scarce. There is an abundance of scrubby cedar — a tree I despise. They seem like a wretched imitation of spruce when seen in the twilight. And they are generally so shabby and faded and draggled. There are many lovely clans which are great favorites of mine, and some nice maples. White birch, which comes next to pine and fir in my affection, is rather scarce.

No. 3. “Your favorite object in Nature?”
Rather an obscure question. Many of the noted people aforesaid answered “the sea” and I am half inclined to also But it seems incongruous to call that blue lone entity an “object in nature”. After all, I think my answer to that must be “A Prince Edward Island of fir and maple, where the ground is carpeted thick with ferns”. specifically my favorite object in Nature is Lover’s Lane.

4. “Your favorite hour of the day?”
-day presumably meaning the twenty-four hours. Sunset and the hour following for me. That time used to be happiest at home-I hovered then between two worlds, forgetting all the and care of this one. Nowadays I have seldom a chance to enjoy the twilight; the sunset is generally swallowed up by Mr. Leask’s woods. Once in  though, I can enjoy the afterglow, sitting out on the lawn in the dusk.

5. “Your favorite season of the year?”
Spring -spring -spring! The last weeks of May in Ontario, the first two of June in P.E. Island. Who could love any season better than spring? And yet several in the aforesaid article answered “Autumn”. Well, autumn is love-deserving, too. But it advances to decay while spring flies on to abundance of life.

No. 6 “Your favorite perfume?”
The fragrance of freesias.

No. 7 “Your favorite gem?”
The diamond, when all is said and done. But I love gems of all descriptions - all except turquoises. Them I loathe-the shallow, soulless, insipid things. The gloss of pearl, the frosty glitter of diamond, the glow of ruby, the tenderness of sapphire, the melting violet of amethyst, the moonlit glimmer of aquamarines -I love them all.

No. 8. “Your favorite poets?”
Byron and Scott.

No. 9. “Your favorite poetess? “
Jean Ingelow.

No. 10. “Your favorite prose authors?”
Nay, nay, there are too many of them-Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Collins, Trollope and fifty others. I love them equally well, one for one mood, one for another. When I was fifteen I should have answered unhesitatingly, “Lytton, first and last, and the rest nowhere.” Now he would not be on my list at all. Sic transit gloria mundi.

No. 11. “Where would you like to live?”
Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.

No. 12. “Your favorite amusement?”
Reading and walking in the woods are ties.

No. 13. ” What trait of character do you most admire in a man?”
Justice.

No. 14. “In a woman?”
A sense of humor. I would also admire justice in a woman if I ever saw it.

No. 15. “What do you most detest in each?”
Deceit and love of meddling.

No. 16 “If not yourself, who would you rather be?”
Humph! When all is said and done I don’t know. I can’t just now recall one person I would really like to be-though there are some in whose place I would like to be.

No. 17 “Your idea of happiness?”
A good novel and a plate of russet applesl Well, that is a flippant definition. But to give a faithful account would require pages. And yet-and yet-no! Holding my little son in my arms or feeling his chubby arms around my neck is happiness. Once I might have answered “To be in Herman Leard’s arms”. I would not so answer now. But to be in the arms of a man whom I loved with all my heart and to whom I could willingly look up as my master is, after all, every woman’s real idea of happiness, if she would be honest enough to admit it. There are dear and sweet minor happlnesses. But that is the only perfect one.

No. 18. “Your favorite dream?”
To write a book that will live. I can never do it-but dreams don’t have to come true.

No. 19. “What do you most dread?”
Dying of cancer.

No. 20. “What is your motto?”
What is worth doing is worth doing well. It doesn’t make for an easy life, though. The ability to shirk is really a desirable one, I believe-at least I think so when I am all tired out.

from The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery v.ii