Reading Challenge: Anne of Green Gables Book 1
Welcome kindred spirits to the 1st book blog for the Anne of Green Gables reading challenge! This book is always such a joy to read, I hope you enjoyed reading it too💕
I’ve tried to put all my favorite parts and quotes here. The truth is, every part of the whole book is my favorite, so I'm sorry if this is long winded. Anne of Green Gables is one of my favorite books of all time. It is about Anne finally finding her home in the world and the family she never had. They love her so much, Matthew in his quiet adoration & bestowing of gifts, and Marilla with her caring moral lessons & tough love. There is no end to kindred spirits in this book, of course there can only be one bosom friend. The descriptions of nature throughout the book are so beautiful! Anne’s scrapes and mistakes add a touch of humor that is so needed these days. Anne’s spirit & imagination inspires me to see the beauty in the world and imagine it when it isn’t there... So, if you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend reading this delightful book Anne of Green Gables.
Every time I read chapter one, I can’t help but hear the voices of Colleen Dewhurst & Patricia Hamilton (from the 1985 miniseries) as Marilla and Rachel Lynde.
I’m afraid to say, there are times I’m just like Mrs. Lynde and I can’t have a moments peace until I know what is going on.
“It was a pretty road, running along between snug farmsteads, with now and again a bit of balsamy fir wood to drive through or a hollow where wild plums hung out their filmy bloom. The air was sweet with the breath of many apple orchards and the meadows sloped away in the distance to horizon mists of pearl and purple; while
“The little birds sang as if it were
The one day of summer in all the year.”
The way Lucy Maud Montgomery describes nature gives joy to my soul. You can see the whole picture in your head of this beautiful land called Prince Edward Island. I hope I can visit there someday…
I found this antique copy of Anne of Green Gables in this old antique store I went to a few years ago. I was just looking around and all of sudden my eyes rested on it. It isn’t in the best shape, most of the pages are tattered, but I was so happy to have found it. It only cost $12 but the nice man gave it to me for $10.
Anne of Green Gables 38th impression, May 1914
I have often wished I could take that long buggy drive to Green Gables. It sounds so beautiful!
“Not another word did she say until they had left the village and were driving down a steep little hill, the road part of which had been cut so deeply into the soft soil that the banks, fringed with blooming wild cherry-trees and slim white birches, were several feet above their heads.
The child put out her hand and broke off a branch of wild plum that brushed against the side of the buggy.
“Isn’t that beautiful? What did that tree, leaning out from the bank, all white and lacy, make you think of?” she asked.
“Well now, I dunno,” said Matthew.
“Why, a bride, of course-a bride all in white with a lovely misty veil.”
The quiet way Matthew has about him is so endearing to Anne, who is so desperate to find another kindred spirit in the world. And Matthew is so amused by all Anne’s chatter, he just listens as she chatters on about anything she thinks of. They are such perfect kindred spirits.
“But just now I feel pretty nearly perfectly happy. I can't feel exactly perfectly happy because-well, what color would you call this?"
She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and held it up before Matthew's eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints of ladies' tresses, but in this case there couldn't be much doubt.
"It's red, ain't it?" he said.
I always wanted red hair like Anne when I was younger, who wouldn’t want to look like their favorite literary heroine. I realized once that my hair sometimes looks like it has a little reddish tint in the sun. And it made me so happy when I was younger. I was also always disappointed my sister got freckles like Anne and not me. It is so funny to think about what we use to wish for when we younger.
“Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.”
I truly saw my very own White Way of Delight this last spring, it was so lovely! I felt as if I were Anne myself, it took my breath away with its beauty. Endless rows and rows of blossomy trees of milky white, pink blushing blossoms. It was like a dream…
“Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank like a white-clad girl tiptoeing to her own reflection.”
“Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say goodnight to the things I love, just as I would to people.”
“Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,” she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. What nice dreams they must have!”
I always feel so bad when she realizes she is not the orphan they sent for, Anne had such high hopes of her dreams becoming reality.
“Oh, this is the most tragical thing that ever happened to me!”
“Will you please call me Cordelia? she said eagerly.”
“Matthew is a most ridiculous man.”
“I think he’s lovely,” said Anne reproachfully. “He is so very sympathetic. He didn’t mind how much I talked- he seemed to like it. I felt that he was a kindred spirit as soon as ever I saw him.”
Anne is so romantic and dramatic in below quote; but it makes me love her all the more.
“Well, that is another hope gone. My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes. That’s a sentence I read in book once, and I say it over to comfort myself whenever I’m disappointed in anything.”
“I don’t see where the comforting comes in myself,” said Marilla.
“Why, because it sounds so nice and romantic, just as if I were a heroine in a book, you know.”
“Well,” said Marilla, unable to find any excuse for deferring her explanations longer, "I suppose I might as well tell you. Matthew and I have decided to keep you-that is, if you will try to be a good little girl and show yourself grateful. Why, child, whatever is the matter?"
"I'm crying,'' said Anne in a tone of bewilderment. "I can't think why. I'm glad as glad can be. Oh, glad doesn't see the right word at all. I was glad about the White Way and the cherry blossoms-but this! Oh, it's something more than glad. I'm so happy, I'll try to be so good.
It is so nice to see Anne find her home in the world.
“Yesterday you wanted to be a seagull,” sniffed Marilla. “I think you are very fickle minded. I told you to learn that prayer and not talk. But it seems impossible for you to stop talking if you’ve got anybody that will listen to you. So go up to your room and learn it.”
“But it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?”
“Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of her orchard rovings...”
"She's terribly skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say."
Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling from head to foot.
"I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. "I hate you- I hate you- I hate you-" a lounder stamp with each assertion of hatred. "How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare you say I'm freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!"
“That’s right-that’s right, Anne. But don’t tell Marilla I said anything about it. She might think I was putting my oar in and I promised not to do that.”
“Wild horses won’t drag the secret from me,” promised Anne solemnly.”
I love Matthew and Anne’s connection, their quiet friendship is one favorite parts of this book. Also, his gifts for Anne are always so special and don’t seem to spoil her one bit, Marilla.
Marilla needed Anne even with all her ways and mistakes. She brought such life to Green Gables that had been missing for so long. I love the quote above because it shows Marilla opening up for even just a moment to maternal love that is welling in her heart for Anne.
“Oh, I am grateful,” protested Anne. “But I’d be ever so gratefuller if-if you’d made just one of them with puffed sleeves. Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now. It would give me such a thrill, Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves.”
“Well, you’ll have to do without your thrill. I hadn’t any material to waste on puffed sleeves. I think they are ridiculous-looking things anyhow. I prefer plain, sensible ones.”
I would rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible all by myself,” persisted Anne mournfully
Trust you for that!”
“We must join hands-so,” said Anne gravely. “It ought to be over running water. We'll just imagine this path is running water. I'll repeat the oath first. I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my name in.”
Diana repeated the “oath” with a laugh fore and aft.
“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.”
Truer words have never been spoken then the quote above. The real thing sometimes falls flat due to our own imaginings. Or our imaginings add pleasure, after all I think I would rather look forward to things with an added rosy hue. What do you think?
Going around by the main road would have been so unromantic; but to go by Lover's Lane, and Willowmere and Violet Vale and the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was.
These places sound utterly delightful.
"And we had the ice cream. Words fail me to describe that ice cream. Marilla, I assure you it was sublime."
Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne's long red braid, held it out at arm's length and said in a piercing whisper, "Carrots! Carrots!"
Then Anne looked at him with vengeance! She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears. "You mean, hateful boy!" she exclaimed passionately. "How dare you!" And then-Thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert's head and cracked it-slate, not head-clear across.
Who could resist this unromantic iconic first meeting?
Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright red hue admiringly, and then sipped it daintily.
"That's awfully nice raspberry cordial, Anne," she said." I didn't know raspberry cordial was so nice."
"I'm real glad you like it. Take as much as you want. I'm going to run out and stir the fire up. There are so many responsibilities on a person's mind when they're keeping house, isn't there?"
“There’s so little scope for the imagination in cookery. You just have to go by the rules. ”
"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."
"Are you ready for bed? Let's run a race and see who'll get to the bed first."
The suggestion appealed to Diana. The two little white-clad figures flew down the long room, through the spare room door, and bounded on the bed at the same moment. And then-something-moved beneath them, there was a gasp and a cry-and somebody said in muffled accents: "Merciful goodness!"
I know it was always of immense importance and excitement for me to sleep in the little spare room at my Grandma's house when I was younger. So I can understand how dreadful Anne felt, not to get to sleep in the spare room.
“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I use think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
“Oh, Marilla, I wouldn’t go through the haunted wood after dark now for anything, I’d be sure that white things would reach out from behind the trees and grab me.”
“Did ever anyone hear the like!” ejaculated Marilla, who had listened in dumb amazement.
In the matter of the haunted woods poor Anne scared herself half to death over her own imaginings. I’m thankful my imagination has never gone that far. Never mind I just remembered something from my childhood when my imagination went wild. We were visiting my Mom’s friends, my little sister and I went out into the acres and acres of woods around the house to explore. We didn’t stray far, but I got turned around and couldn’t figure out how to get back. We started getting scared and my overactive history loving imagination started to make me think I saw injured revolutionary war soldiers everywhere lol. I can laugh about it now, but it felt very real then and of course I shared what I imagined with my sister. We were both crying by the time we were found. I guess I am more like Anne than I thought, but not in a good way.
“After the Mayflowers came the violets, and Violet Vale was empurpled with them. Anne walked through it on her way to school with reverent steps and worshipping eyes, as if she trod on holy ground.”
“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
“I must do it. My honor is at stake,” said Anne solemnly. “I shall walk that ridgepole, Diana, or perish in the attempt. If I am killed you are to have my pearl bead ring.”
"My dear little girl, you mustn't cry like this," she said, genuinely disturbed by Anne's tragic face. Why, it's all just a funny mistake that anybody might make."
"Oh, no, it takes me to make such a mistake," said Anne forlornly. And I wanted to have that cake so nice for you, Mrs. Allan."
I find Anne's small scrapes as humorous as her bigger ones, like emptying a pan of skim milk into a basket of yarn or walking straight over the edge of a bridge into the brook. And of course, the drowned mouse in the pudding sauce.
“At that moment Marilla had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that pierced to her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her. She would have admitted that she liked Anne-nay, that she was very fond of Anne. But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that Anne was dearer to her than anything on earth.”
This one my favorite parts!
"Well now-if it isn't too much trouble-I might as well-that is-I'd like to look at-at some sugar."
"White or brown?" queried Miss Harris patiently.
"Oh-well now-brown," said Matthew feebly.
"There's a barrel of it over there," said Miss Harris, shaking her bangles at it. "It's the only kind we have."
"I'll-I'll take twenty pounds of it," said Matthew, with beads of perspiration standing on his forehead.
"Like it! Oh, Matthew!" Anne laid the dress over a chair and clasped her hands. "Matthew, it's perfectly exquisite. Oh, I can never thank you enough. Look at those sleeves! Oh, it seems to me this must be a happy dream."
"Anne Shirley, what have you done to your hair? Why, it is green!"...
…"Yes, it's green," moaned Anne. "I thought nothing could be as bad as red hair. But now I know it's ten times worse to have green hair. Oh, Marilla, you little know how utterly wretched I am."
The Lily Maid is one of my favorite parts. My sister and I use to reenact the scene in our pool when we were younger. One of us would be Anne and the other Diana. We would push the float out into the water, then pretend we sprang a leak, franticly row to the ladder and stay clinging there until Gilbert (the person who also was Diana) came to the rescue. We knew all the 1985 miniseries lines by heart and would recite the whole thing.
"What has happened, Anne?" asked Gilbert, taking up his oars.
"We were playing Elaine," explained Anne frigidly, without even looking at her rescuer, "and I had to drift down to Camelot in the barge-I mean the flat. The flat began to leak and I climbed out on the pile. The girls went for help. Will you be kind enough to row me to the landing?"
“There are so many things in this room and all so splendid that there is no scope for imagination. That is one consolation when you are poor- there are so many more things you can imagine about.”
There was open rivalry between Gilbert and Anne now. Previously the rivalry had been rather one-sided, but there was no longer any doubt that Gilbert was as determined to be first in class as Anne was. He was a foeman worthy of her steel.
“Oh, how good it is to be back! Green Gables is the dearest, loveliest spot in the world.”
But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending forward with a smile on his face-a smile which seemed to Anne at once triumphant and taunting. In reality it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert was merely smiling with appreciation of the whole affair in general and of the effect produced by Anne 's slender white form and spiritual face against a background of palms in particular...
...She drew a long breath and flung her head up proudly, courage and determination tingling over her like an electric shock. She would not fail before Gilbert Blythe-he should never be able to laugh at her, never, never! Her fright and nervousness vanished; and she began her recitation, her clear, sweet voice reaching to the farthest corner of the room without a tremor or break.
“Oh, it was good to be out again in the purity and silence of the night! How great and still and wonderful everything was, with the murmur of the sea sounding through it and the darkling cliffs beyond like grim giants guarding enchanted coasts.”
“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. ”
“She had not been home since April and she felt that she could not wait another day. The apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young.”
I love when the apple blossoms are out and I look forward to their arrival every year!
“I’m just going to take this one day off to visit all the dear old spots and hunt up my old dreams, and then it will be your turn to be lazy while I do the work. ”
I have read Anne of Green Gables tons of times and watched the 1985 miniseries more times than I could count. Even though I knew Matthew was going to die I was surprised to find myself tearing up a little during this chapter.
“Anne gathered some sprays of pale yellow honeysuckle and put them in her hair. She liked the delicious hint of fragrance, as of some aerial benediction, above her every time she moved. ”
“I shall be all right. Diana will come over for company for me. I shall attend to the ironing and baking beautifully-you needn’t fear that I’ll starch the handkerchiefs or flavor the cake with liniment.”
Marilla laughed.
“What a girl you were for making mistakes in them days, Anne. You were always getting into scrapes. I did use to think you were possessed. Do you mind the time you dyed your hair?”
“When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight-“a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it. “Dear old world,” she murmured, you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”
“We are going to be the best of friends,” said Gilbert, jubilantly. “We were born to be good friends, Anne. You’ve thwarted destiny long enough. ”
Thank God Anne finally came to her senses and forgave Gilbert! I'm sure that when Marilla shared that John Blythe had been an old beau of hers and that she had never forgiven him when they quarreled, helped Anne to forgive an old grievance.
I’m sad to see more creases on the cover and bookend with each read, but it is a sign of a well-loved book. I have definitely read the first book the most.
“The joys of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road! “ ‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,’” whispered Anne softly.”
I find the last lines the most beautiful perfect ending to this wonderful book.
Please share your favorite quotes and parts below📚💕
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