A Moment of Beauty (and Apple Trees)

Anne of Windy Poplars: Week 3

Apple Trees in October, Gustave Loiseau, 1898

Welcome to Week 3 of Anne of Windy Poplars!

Maud, through Anne, was the first person to teach me to see the beauty of the world. As Anne is canvassing the Dawlish Road with Lewis, one of her students, asking for subscriptions for the benefit of the Dramatic Club, she just can’t help but notice the beauty around her.

From The Second Year, Chapter 2, of Anne of Windy Poplars

“Look at those cloud shadows…and that tranquility of green valleys…and that house with an apple tree at each of its corners. Imagine it in spring. This is one of the days people feel alive and every wind of the world is a sister. I’m glad there are so many clumps of spice ferns along this road…spice ferns with gossamer webs on them. It brings back the days when I pretended…or believed…I think I really did believe…that gossamer webs were fairies’ table-cloths.”

The Old Apple Tree on the Macneil Homestead (the home where Maud lived with her grandparents)

Apple Blossoms
by Lucy Maud Montgomery

White as the snows on sunless peaks,
Pink as the earliest blush of morn,
Pure as the thought of a stainless soul,
Perfect and sweet as a joy new-born:
Always they bloom in these long rare days,
When Maytime drifts into balmy June,
When the winds purr lightly among the leaves,
And meadow and woodland are all atune;
Ever and always there they blow--
Apple-blossoms of rose and snow!

Purple twilights and rose-red dawns,
Dimmest of hazes on far green hills,
Wonderful midnights and clear blue days,
Rapturous music of wild-bird trills:
Lightness of heart and dreams of joy,
Subtlest visions and fancies fair,
Tenderest hopes for the hours to come,
Freedom from worry and grief and care:
Come where the apple-blossoms blow--
Perfumed driftings of rose and snow.

Are you enjoying the fourth novel in the Anne series?

Have you had a chance to enjoy fresh apples or apples baked into a dessert this autumn?

I’m delighted you’re here!

~Stephanie