Confessions at Four Winds

Anne's House of Dreams; Chapters 21-30

Hello once again, Kindred Spirits!

This week of reading is filled with confessions!

Anne had been long sensing Leslie’s guard up and the challenges to connect with her. At the beginning of this section, Leslie actually confesses her resentment- and even hatred- towards Anne. Rather than being hurt, Anne gains an understanding, and a validation for she had already suspected this. Rather than keeping their separation, this confession allows the two women to be closer.

Leslie finally breaks the barrier between her and Anne by telling her story aloud. Anne of course already knows the story of Leslie’s tragic life from Miss. Cornelia, but there is such power in speaking your own truth aloud. I hope it allows for some of the pain to dissipate for Leslie and for her walls to come down.

One of the big plot points of this section is that Leslie takes in a boarder, a writer named Owen Ford, whose own grandfather, John Selwyn (a boyhood friend of Captain Jim), had lived in Anne’s very own house of dreams years ago. Owen is at Four Winds in hopes to connect with the land and house in which his ancestry is attached and to find the inspiration for his novel. 

Anne knows just the place to inspire Owen, and introduces him to Captain Jim, where the idea is born for Owen to write Captain Jim’s life story! This seed of an idea blooms into a perfect summer for not only Owen, but Anne, Gilbert and Leslie. 

Does anyone else feel disappointed that Anne does not seem to be pursuing her own writing? I hope she picks it back up and stops diminishing it as just children’s stories! Just as I had found myself missing the childhood whims of Anne in her college years, now I miss the creativity and ambition of the young professional Anne. I know all of these parts of her can coexist, but her world is very focused on domestic life and other people’s lives at the moment. What does she envision for her future now?

How do you hold the many different and often changing realities and priorities within your own life?

Sweet William; beautiful flowers that are currently blooming in the garden made by the previous folks who lived here

The night before Owen leaves Four Winds, he confesses to Anne that he has fallen in love with Leslie. Gone is the hopeless romantic Anne we once knew, for she tells him he must never let Leslie know and that he can never return. Twelve year old Anne would never have believed such a thing!

Several days later, Leslie makes the same confession to Anne and she feels heartbroken and lonely now that Owen has left. Once again, Anne ushers her to move past the feelings and to face the reality of her obligation and duty.

Anne returns to Avonlea for Christmas and has a merry visit, though we scurry past it.

Once she returns in the New Year, Gilbert informs her that he believes there is a cure for Dick Moore and he feels that it is his duty to inform Leslie of this possibility. He and Anne get into quite a fight over this decision, as Anne sees it as yet another pain to weigh on poor Leslie Moore.

Gilbert informs Leslie of this information, and after several days of thinking it over, she determines to bring Dick to Montreal for the operation.

What will happen next? Until next week. . . 

Thank you for reading

Thank you for reading and joining me on this read-along of Anne of Green Gables! 

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Your bosom friend,

Bri