Anne's House of Dreams

November Book Talk

Welcome to our November Book Talk for Anne’s House of Dreams! I felt the sadness in the book more this time around, but I love that the book opens with a scene between Anne and Diana in Anne’s garret room at Green Gables.

Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown somewhat matronly in the intervening time. But her eyes were as black and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope. In her arms she held a small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had been known to the world of Avonlea as “Small Anne Cordelia.”

I love the juxtaposition of these two passages from the chapter November Days.

The splendour of colour which had glowed for weeks along the shores of Four Winds Harbour had faded out into the soft gray-blue of late autumnal hills.

…even in November and December there came gracious days of sunshine and purple hazes, when the harbour danced and sparkled as blithely as in midsummer…

I also love the way in which Maud describes the birth of Jem, Anne’s first son, in the chapter The Ship o’ Dreams Comes to Harbour.

One morning, when a windy golden sunrise was billowing over the gulf in waves of light, a certain weary stork flew over the bar of Four Winds Harbour on his way from the Land of Evening Stars. Under his wing was tucked a sleepy, starry-eyed, little creature.

Captain Jim lay on the sofa, with his hands clasped over the life-book, open at the last page, lying on his breast. His eyes were closed and on his face was a look of the most perfect peace and happiness—the look of one who has long sought and found at last.

They could not know precisely at what hour he had died, but Anne always believed that he had had his wish, and went out when the morning came across the gulf. Out on that shining tide his spirit drifted, over the sunrise sea of pearl and silver, to the haven where lost Margaret waited, beyond the storms and calms.

As Anne prepares to leave her house of dreams at the end of the book, I can feel all of her emotion. In 2008, we left our little house of dreams to move 1700 miles away. I still get choked up just thinking about it. We are now living about 5 minutes away from our little house of dreams, and I like to drive by occasionally to see how it’s doing. I believe the family that we sold it to is still living there, and I wonder how they have changed it and what memories they have made within its walls.

She was going away; but the old house would still be there, looking seaward through its quaint windows. The autumn winds would blow around it mournfully, and the gray rain would beat upon it and the white mists would come in from the sea to enfold it; and the moonlight would fall over it and light up the old paths where the schoolmaster and his bride had walked.

Please share your favorite quotes, scenes, or characters with me. I would love to hear your thoughts.

I’m delighted that you’re here, kindred spirits!

~Stephanie