Emily Climbs (Emily, #2)

by L.M. Montgomery

any words—all words—something that always escapes you when you try to grasp it—and yet leaves something in your hand which you wouldn't have had if you hadn't reached for it. "I remember one day last fall when Dean and I walked over the Delectable Mountain to the woods beyond it—fir woods mostly, but with one corner of splendid old pines. We sat under them and Dean read Peveril of the Peak and some of Scott's poems to me; and then he looked up into the big, plumy boughs and said, "'The gods are talking in the pines—gods of the old northland—of the viking sagas. Star, do you know Emerson's lines?' "And then he quoted them—I've remembered and loved them ever since. "The gods talk in the breath of the wold, They talk in the shaken pine, And they fill the reach of the old seashore With dialogue divine; And

poet who overhears One random word they say Is the fated man of men Whom the ages must obey.

fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world. "'Cast it out, Jade,' he says—'cast it out of your heart. Fear is a confession of weakness. What you fear is stronger than you, or you think it is, else you wouldn't be afraid of it. Remember your Emerson—"always do what you are afraid to do."'

Be

merciful to the failures, Emily. Satirize wickedness if you must—but pity weakness.'

"Well,

all comes to this, there's no use trying to live in other people's opinions. The only thing to do is to live in your own.

"The discovery of beautiful and interesting words always gives me joy. When I find a new, charming word I exult as a jewel-seeker and am unhappy until I've set it in a sentence. ********