Tuesday, January 15

Feminine Inspiration from Anne...

"You have such lovely hair, Katherine. Do you mind if I try a new way of doing it?"

Katherine shrugged.

"Oh, go ahead. I suppose my hair does look dreadful.. but I've no time to be always primping. I haven't a party dress. Will my green taffeta do?"

"It will have to do... though green is the one color above all others you should never wear. my Katherine. But you are going to wear a red, pin-tucked chiffon collar I've made for you. Yes, you are. You ought to have a red dress, Katherine."

"I've always hated red. When I went to live with Uncle Henry, Aunt Gertrude always made me wear aprons of bright turkey red. The other children in school used to call out 'Fire,' when I came in with one of those aprons on. Anyway, I can't be bothered with clothes."

"Heaven grant me patience! Clothes are very important," said Anne severely, as she braided and coiled. Then she looked at her work and saw that it was good. She put her arm around Katherine's shoulders and turned her to the mirror.

"Don't you truly think we are a pair of quite good looking girls?" she laughed. "And isn't it really nice to think people will find some pleasure in looking at us? There are so many homely people who would actually look quite attractive if they took a little pains with themselves... I passed the time making people around me beautiful. I gave Mrs. Brent a new nose, I waved Mary Addison's hair and gave Jane Marden's a lemon rinse... I dressed Emma Dill in blue instead of brown... I dressed Charlotte Blair in stripes instead of checks... I removed several moles... and I shaved off Thomas Anderson's long, sandy Piccadilly weepers. You couldn't have known them when I got through with them. And, except perhaps for Mrs. Brent's nose, they could have done everything I did, themselves. Why Katherine your eye's are the color of tea... amber tea. Now, live up to your name this evening... a brook should be sparkling... limpid... merry."

"Katherine gazed at her reflection in the mirror as if rather doubting her identity.

"I do look years younger," she admitted. "You were right... clothes do do things to you. Oh, I know I've been looking older than my age. I didn't care. Why should I? Nobody else cared. And I'm not like you, Anne. Apparently you were born knowing how to live. And I don't know anything about it... not even the ABC. I wonder if it is too late to learn. I've been sarcastic so loing. I don't know if I can be anything else. Sarcasm seemed to me to be the only way I could make any impression on people...

..."Katherine Brooke, look at yourself in that mirror; carry that picture of yourself with you... magnificent hair framing your face instead of trying to pull it backward... eyes sparkling like dark stars... a little flush of excitement on your cheeks.. and you won't feel afraid."

-Lucy Maude Montgomery
Anne of Windy Poplars

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's true, too, that one forgets that Katherine is really only just a bit older than Anne. LMM wrote her so very accurately.

Anonymous said...

I love Anne!

I'm not a girly, girl by any stretch of the imagination, but after reading that series again this past year, I really have tried to make a point to look attractive when I leave the house in the morning.

She Rose Up said...

You know, these books were a HUGE part of my young life, and I so hoped to pass them on to my daughters, then my nieces, well, I am 42, didn't get daughters, didn't work out with the nieces (yet) but, I have now decided to get these books, read them again & hope for some of the little girls in the class I am preparing to teach at church to be inclined to borrow the books and enjoy them! Wouldn't that be cool!

ThatDeborahGirl said...

This morning I was looking over clothes online for a fall tops. For a moment, I felt a little silly spending time and effort looking for clothes that I should spending on saving the world or at least making breakfast and then I heard Anne's voice, "Heaven grant me patience, clothes are very important." I decided to read a little Anne this morning at Project Guttenburg - something I always do when I'm feeling a little "azure" - don't know why - I practically have them all memorized from Gables to Rilla. Decided to google that phrase and instead of Windy Poplars your blog turned up.

It's nice to know someone else recognizes that Anne has some lessons for us grown up girls too. Just for today, I'm going to spend the entire afternoon after church looking at pretty clothes and nothing else.

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