The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy mortals. It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.
Oh, it was almost too much to bear! And everything was going on as before – the dancers were spinning around, the boys who couldn’t get partners were hanging about the pavilion, canoodling couples were sitting out on the rocks – nobody seemed to realize what a stupendous thing had happened.
You can never tell about those Yankees!
A woman who has a sense of humor possesses no refuge from the merciless truth about herself. She cannot think herself misunderstood. She cannot revel in self-pity. She cannot comfortably damn any one who differs from her.
Lovely thoughts came flying to meet me like birds. They weren’t my thoughts. I couldn’t think anything half so exquisite. They came from somewhere.
Oh, I know I’m a great trial to you, Marilla,” said Anne repentantly. “I make so many mistakes. But then just think of all the mistakes I don’t make, although I might.
I don’t want her to be like other people. There are too many other people around as it is.
If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep, woods, and I’d look up into the sky – up – up – up – into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just FEEL a prayer.
Gods in his heaven, all’s right with the world.
When he said good evening you felt that it was a good evening and that it was partly his doing that it was.
Even eighty-odd is sometimes vulnerable to vanity.
Cousin Jimmy thinks I did perfectly right. Cousin Jimmy would think I had done perfectly right if I had murdered Andrew and buried him in the Land of Uprightness. It’s very nice to have one friend like that, though too many wouldn’t be good for you.
You will go far beyond what I have done – you can create – I can only build with the materials others have made. But we builders have our place – we can make temples for our gods and goddesses if nothing else.
Some sounds are so exquisite – far more exquisite than anything seen. Daff’s purr there on my rug, for instance – and the snap and crackle of the fire – and the squeaks and scrambles of mice that are having a jamboree behind the wainscot.
I don’t like places or people either that haven’t any faults. I think a truly perfect person would be very uninteresting.
Cousin Jimmy says that a man in Priest Pond says the end of the world is coming soon. I hope it won’t come till I’ve seen everything in it.
A suffering or tortured animal always filled her with such a surge of sympathy that it lifted her clean out of herself.
A seafaring uncle had given it to her mother who in turn had bequeathed it to Marilla. It was an old-fashioned oval, containing a braid of her mother’s hair, surrounded by a border of very fine amethysts.
I like teaching, too,” said Gilbert. “It’s good training, for one thing. Why, Anne, I’ve learned more in the weeks I’ve been teaching the young ideas of White Sands than I learned in all the years I went to school myself.
It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.