Anne of Green Gables

by L.M. Montgomery

Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive – it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there?

Good-night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good-night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me.’

she said might just as well have been about most of those other places. I hadn’t any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home.

‘You don’t want me!’ she cried. ‘You don’t want me because I’m not a boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I’m going to burst into tears!’

She’s so precious, I’m crying.

‘I can’t. I’m in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?’

I’m not in the depths of despair this morning. I never can be in the morning. Isn’t it a splendid thing that there are mornings? But I feel very sad. I’ve just been imagining that it was really me you wanted after all and that I was to stay here for ever and ever. It was a great comfort while it lasted. But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop, and that hurts.’

‘I’ve made up my mind to enjoy this drive. It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.

“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”

I have never tasted ice-cream. Diana tried to explain what it was like, but I guess ice-cream is one of those things that are beyond imagination.’

‘You set your heart too much on things, Anne,’ said Marilla with a sigh. ‘I’m afraid there’ll be a great many disappointments in store for you through life.’

‘Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,’ exclaimed Anne. ‘You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them.

She did not cry or hang her head. Anger was still too hot in her heart for that and it sustained her amid all her agony of humiliation.

Bedrooms were made to sleep in.’ ‘Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things.

There is nothing more to do except to pray and I haven’t much hope that that’ll do much good because, Marilla, I do not believe that God Himself can do very much with such an obstinate person as Mrs Barry.’

‘Ten minutes isn’t very long to say an eternal farewell in,’ said Anne tearfully. ‘Oh, Diana, will you promise faithfully never to forget me, the friend of your youth, no matter what dearer friends may caress thee?’ ‘Indeed I will,’ sobbed Diana, ‘and I’ll never have another bosom friend – I don’t want to have. I couldn’t love anybody as I love you.’

‘I thought you liked me of course, but I never hoped you loved me. Why, Diana, I didn’t think anybody could love me. Nobody ever has loved me since I can remember. Oh, this is wonderful! It’s a ray of light which will forever shine on the darkness of a path severed from thee, Diana. Oh, just say it once again.’

‘Fare thee well, my beloved friend. Henceforth we must be as strangers though living side by side. But my heart will ever be faithful to thee.’

Diana gave me a lock of her hair and I’m going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck all my life. Please see that it is buried with me, for I don’t believe I’ll live very long. Perhaps when she sees me lying cold and dead before her, Mrs Barry may feel remorse for what she has done and will let Diana come to my funeral.’

When twilight drops her curtain down And pins it with a star Remember that you have a friend Though she may wander far.

Even although we meet as strangers now. I still love her with an inextinguishable love. It makes me very sad at times to think about her. But really, Marilla, one can’t stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?’

The tinkles of sleigh-bells among the snowy hills came like elfin chimes through the frosty air, but their music was not sweeter than the song in Anne’s heart and on her lips.

Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.’

there couldn’t be anything better than mayflowers, could there, Marilla? And Diana says if they don’t know what they are like they don’t miss them. But I think that is the saddest thing of all. I think it would be tragic, Marilla, not to know what mayflowers are like and not to miss them.

‘Oh, don’t you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I’ll be through with them. That’s a very comforting thought.’

MARILLA, WALKING HOME one late April evening from an Aid meeting, realised that the winter was over and gone with the thrill of delight that spring never fails to bring to the oldest and saddest as well as to the youngest and merriest.

working hard to make enough money to bring his wife and children out from Germany. He spoke so feelingly about them that it touched my heart. I wanted to buy something from him to help him in such a worthy object.

It was an elegant room, Marilla, but somehow sleeping in a spare room isn’t what I used to think it was. That’s the worst of growing up, and I’m beginning to realise it. The things you wanted so much when you were a child don’t seem half so wonderful to you when you get them.’

And I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn’t born for city life and that I was glad of it. It’s nice to be eating ice-cream at brilliant restaurants at eleven o’clock at night once in a while; but as a regular thing I’d rather be in the east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and that the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook. I told Miss Barry so at breakfast the next morning and she laughed. Miss Barry generally laughed at anything I said, even when I said the most solemn things. I don’t think I liked it, Marilla, because I wasn’t trying to be funny. But she is a most hospitable lady and treated us royally.’

‘Oh, but it’s good to be alive and to be going home,’

‘I’ve had a splendid time,’ she concluded happily, ‘and I feel that it marks an epoch in my life. But the best of it all was the coming home.’

Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling were happening to her in cloud-land – adventures that always turned out triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual life.

Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn’t do to drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids and live together forever.

I just feel tired of everything sensible and I’m going to let my imagination run riot for the summer.

I don’t want to talk as much,’ she said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. ‘It’s nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures.

But she did hope fervently that she would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew’s kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement.

One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown

It won’t make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life.’

Oh, it’s delightful to have ambitions. I’m so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them – that’s the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.’

Anne thought those Friday evening gypsyings over the autumnal hills in the crisp golden air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond, were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.

Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and the misty blue air at the end of the streets, they don’t seem half so important.’

I’ve done my best and I begin to understand what is meant by the “joy of the strife”. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing.

For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement.

‘Just mind you that – rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn’t a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl – my girl – my girl that I’m proud of.’

It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it.

Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can’t be dead; and the other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time and I’ve had this horrible dull ache ever since.’

‘We’ve got each other, Anne. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here – if you’d never come. Oh, Anne, I know I’ve been kind of strict and harsh with you maybe – but you mustn’t think I didn’t love you as well as Matthew did, for all that. I want to tell you now when I can. It’s never been easy for me to say things out of my heart, but at times like this it’s easier. I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood and you’ve been my joy and comfort ever since you came to Green Gables.’

that, in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her heart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices.

Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend – as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.

‘Nonsense!’ Anne laughed merrily. ‘There is no sacrifice. Nothing could be worse than giving up Green Gables – nothing could hurt me more. We must keep the dear old place. My mind is quite made up, Marilla. I’m not going to Redmond; and I am going to stay here and teach. Don’t you worry about me a bit.’

I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return.