Poetry and prose

"You know time always does stand still in an enchanted palace," Anne said seriously. "It is only when the prince comes that things begin to happen."

Mr Irving smiled a little sadly into her up lifted face, all astar with its youth and promise.

"Sometimes, the prince comes too late," he said. He did not ask Anne to translate her remark into prose. Like all kindred spirit, he "understood".

"Oh no, not if he is the real prince coming to the true princess," said Anne, shaking her red head decidedly, as she opened the parlour door.

....

"No, I can't understand that," said Charlotta. A wedding ain't poetry. Why, Miss Shirley, ma'am, you're crying! What for?"

"Oh, because it's all so beautiful ... and story-bookish ...and romantic ... and sad," said Anne, winking the tears out of her eyes. "It's all perfectly lovely ... but there's a little sadness mixed up in it too, somehow."

"Ah, of course there's a resk in marrying anybody," conceded Charlotta the Fourth, "but, when all's said and done, Miss Shirley, ma'am, there's many a worse thing than a husband."

- Excerpt from Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maude Montgomery.

I've watched the 1985 movie Anne of Green Gables and the sequel but never really read the book besides the first one. I've just finished Anne of Avonlea, which is the second book in the series. There's a great many elements that are not in the movie, including the touching reunion between Miss Lavendar and her old beau, Mr Irving. Which is great, of course. There's no point in reading the book if everything is the same as it was in the movie. Now I need to find the other books in the series.