Some sections from Anne of the Island

This is Gilbert's proposal (end of sophmore year at college):

Gilbert sat down beside her on the boulder and held out the mayflowers.
"Dont't these remind you of home and our old schoolday picnics, Anne?"

Anne took them and buried her face in them.
"I'm in Mr Silas Sloanne's barrens this very minute," she said rapturously

"I suppose you will be there in reality in a few days?"

"No, not for a fortnight. I am going to visit with Phil in Bolingbroke before I go home. You'll be in Avonlea before I will."

"No, I shall not be in Avonlea at all ths summer, Anne.  I've been offereed a job in the Daily News office and I'm going to take it."

"Oh," Anne said vaguely. She wondered what a whole Avonlea summer would be like without Gilbert. Somehow she did not like the prospect. "Well," she concluded flatly, "it is a good thing for you, of course.:

"Yes, I have been hoping I would get it.  It will help with next year."

"You mustn't work too hard," said Anne, without any very clear idea of what she was saying. She wished desperatedly that Phil would come out. "You've studied very constantly this winter. Isn't this a delightful evening? Do you know, I found a cluster of white violets under that old twisted tree over there today? I felt if I had discovered a gold mine."

"You are always discovering gold mines," Gilbert said -- also absently.

"Let us go and see if we can find some more," suggested Anne eagerly, "I'll call Phil and -"

"Nevermind Phil and the violets just now, Anne" said Gilbert quickly taking her hand in a clasp from which she could not free it. "There is something I want to say to you."

"Oh, don't say it," cried Anne, pleadingly. "Don't -- please, Gilbert."

"I must. Things can't go on like this any longer. Anne, I love you. You know I do.  I - I can't tell you how much. Will you promise me that some day you'll be my wife?"

"I - I can't," said Anne miserably. "Oh Gilbert - you - you've spoiled everything."

"Don't you care for me at all?" Gilbert asked after a very dreadful pause, during which Anne had not dared to look up.

"Not - not in that way.  I do care a great deal for you, as a friend. But I don't love you, Gilbert."

"But can't you give me some hope that you will - yet?"

"No, I can't," exclaimed Anne desperately. "I never, never can lover you - in that way - Gilbert. You must never speak of this to me again."

There was another pause - so long and so dreadful that Anne was driven to at last look up.  Gilbert's face was white to the lips.  And his eyes - but Anne shuddered and looked away.  There was nothing romantic about this.  Must proposals be either grotesque or - horrible? Could she ever forget Gilbert's face?

"Is there anyone else?" he asked at last in a low voice.

"No - no," said Anne eagerly. "I don't care for any one like  that - and I like you better than anybody else in the world, Gilbert. And we must - we must go on being friends, Gilbert."

Gilbert gave a bitter little laugh. "Friends! Your friendship can't satisfy me, Anne. I want your love - and you tell me I can never have that."

"I am sorry. Forgive me, Gilbert," was all Anne could say.  Where, oh, where were all the gracious and graceful speeches wherewith in imagination, she had been wont to dismiss rejected suitors?

Gilbert gently released her hand.

"There is nothing to forgive.  There have been times that I thought you did care. I've deceived myself, that's all.  Goodbye, Anne."


Anne got herself to her room, sat down on her window seat behind the pines, and cried bitterly. She felt as if something incalculably precious had gone out of her life.  It was Gilbert's friendship, oh course. Oh, why must she list it after this fashion?

"What is the matter, honey?" asked Phil, coming through the moonlit gloom.

Anne did not answer. At that moment she wished Phil were a thousand miles away.

"I suppose you've gone and refused Gilbert Blythe.  You are an idiot, Anne Shirley!"

"Do you call it idiotic to refuse to marry a man I don't love?" said Anne coldly, goaded to reply.

"You don't know love when you see it.  You've tricked something out of your imagination that you think love, and you expect the real thing to look like that."