Chapter 4
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to talk to the child Anne the child, and her uncomfortable ignorance made her crisp and curt when she did not mean to be.
Anne stood up and drew a long breath.
“Oh, isn’t it wonderful,” she said, waving her hand comprehensively at the good world outside.
“It’s a big tree,” said Marilla, “and it blooms blooms great but the fruit don’t amount to much never—small and wormy.”
“Oh, I don’t mean just the tree. Of course it’s lovely (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)yes, it’s radiantly lovely—it blooms as if it meant it(end superscript)—but I meant everything, the garden and the orchard and the brook (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)and the woods,(end superscript) the whole big dear world. Don’t you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this? And I can hear the brook laughing all the way up here. I’m so glad Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They’re always laughing. Even in winter time I’ve heard them, under the ice. I’m so glad there’s a brook near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn’t make any difference to me when you’re not going to keep me but it does. If there I shall always
TEXT ANNOTATION
"blooms as if it meant it": Montgomery borrowed this phrase in the first entry in her journals, September 21, 1889. She mentions her own "matronly old geranium" she named "Bonny:" "And it blooms as if it meant it. I believe that old geranium has a soul!" Later, Anne uses the same name for the geranium in the Green Gables kitchen.