“Diana and I are thinking seriously of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids and live together forever.” - Anne
I’ve been thinking of Anne of Green Gables a lot lately. I feel like my path is in the thick of another tectonic shift, and for every season I’ve lived through, I’ve found solace in this fictional character whose life was so relatable to my own. Anne’s experiences accompanied me through my school days, my graduations, weddings, even the loss of my first child. And now that I’m coming up on 40 in a little over a month, I finally feel grounded enough to admit that while I loved her with Gilbert eventually, I loved her with Diana first. Little 12 year-old me, who shipped Anne and Diana in secret, would have found comfort and validation in a picture like this.
(This was rendered in watercolor on 7x10 hot pressed cotton paper.)
This art is now on sale in my Etsy shop! It has been printed on watercolor stock and the effect is so lovely! Each one is hand signed by me.
In Anne of the Island, Anne writes, and attempts to get published, a short story titled Averil’s Atonement. But when the story is rejected by two magazines, she gets discouraged, forgets the idea and locks the story away, giving Diana a copy. Later that summer, Diana sees a baking powder competition for the best short story featuring their product, so she adds a couple of references to that particular baking powder, Rollings, into Anne’s story and sends it, telling Anne nothing. Averil’s Atonement wins the competition and that’s when Diana comes clean about it, but Anne, for some reason or other, is not happy about the fact, despite the success.
Gilbert stops by Green Gables to congratulate her and this is the scene:
Gilbert arrived at dusk, brimming over with congratulations, for he had called at Orchard Slope and heard the news. But his congratulations died on his lips at sight of Anne’s face.
“Why, Anne, what is the matter? I expected to find you radiant over winning Rollings Reliable prize. Good for you!”
“Oh, Gilbert, not you,” implored Anne, in an ET-TU BRUTE tone. “I thought YOU would understand. Can’t you see how awful it is?”
“I must confess I can’t. WHAT is wrong?”
“Everything,” moaned Anne. “I feel as if I were disgraced forever. What do you think a mother would feel like if she found her child tattooed over with a baking powder advertisement? I feel just the same. I loved my poor little story, and I wrote it out of the best that was in me. And it is SACRILEGE to have it degraded to the level of a baking powder advertisement. Don’t you remember what Professor Hamilton used to tell us in the literature class at Queen’s? He said we were never to write a word for a low or unworthy motive, but always to cling to the very highest ideals. What will he think when he hears I’ve written a story to advertise Rollings Reliable? And, oh, when it gets out at Redmond! Think how I’ll be teased and laughed at!”
“That you won’t,” said Gilbert, wondering uneasily if it were that confounded Junior’s opinion in particular over which Anne was worried. “The Reds will think just as I thought—that you, being like nine out of ten of us, not overburdened with worldly wealth, had taken this way of earning an honest penny to help yourself through the year. I don’t see that there’s anything low or unworthy about that, or anything ridiculous either. One would rather write masterpieces of literature no doubt—but meanwhile board and tuition fees have to be paid.”
This commonsense, matter-of-fact view of the case cheered Anne a little. At least it removed her dread of being laughed at, though the deeper hurt of an outraged ideal remained.
I love this scene, I love how he comforted her and his, as the author describes it, so common sense and matter-of-fact. Of course we would all like to write high literature but not while we’re struggling students. Professor Hamilton needs to chill (that is, if he would have really judged Anne for this, he might not have, not while she was still at college). Also it’s interesting how Anne says “oh please, Gilbert, not YOU!”–like she considers him on another level than Diana. Diana is her BFF but Anne realises in some ways Diana doesn’t get her. But Gilbert GETS her. I don’t understand why Anne didn’t confide in him about the story in the first place, instead of Mr Harrison. Idk what LMM was thinking, he’s the last person you’d go to with your literary ambitions. Like, why not some writers’ club at Redmond, they must have had those! Anne of the Island has always been my favourite but at the same time, I wish the author made different choices with some parts. It’s still good, though.
