Interviews of the Imagination: Anne Shirley

It being Spring, I've spent a bit of time learning from one of my best literary friends, Miss Anne Shirley, heroine of the novel Anne of Green Gables and several others. I asked her if she'd be willing to share her wisdom here in an interview comprised of quotations from the books, and she was happy to oblige. :)

Hello, Anne, and welcome! Tell us what you know about yourself.

Well, it really isn't worth telling... but if you let me tell you what I IMAGINE about myself you'd find it a lot more interesting.

Okay, well, to start with, what do wish were different about your life?
Red hair is my life long sorrow.


I can see how it would be a trial...but personally I've always thought red hair was pretty cute. Do you really think “life long sorrow” makes complete sense?
Don't you know that it is only the very foolish folk who talk sense all the time?


Hmmm, you have a point. Onto happier topics...do you have any ambitions you'd like to share?
Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.


Any crazy dreams or aspirations?
It would be lovely to sleep in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine.

What do you see as your most important aspiration?
I'd like to add some beauty to life...I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more... though I know that IS the noblest ambition... but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me... to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born.


What would be your advice to others pursuing their own ambitions?
When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does...
..I've done my best, and I begin to understand what is meant by 'the joy of strife'. Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing...
...Don't let's ever be afraid of things. It's such dreadful slavery. Let's be daring and adventurous and expectant. Let's dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid and twins!


Most of our readers are writers; some of them may not know that you are an aspiring writer yourself. What's the biggest trouble you have in your writing?
Averil is such an unmanageable heroine. She will do and say things I never meant her to. Then that spoils everything that went before and I have to write it all over again.


I think we all struggle with that, Anne! I've found that as soon as one thing in writing—or life—is settled, I find a new one to take its place. What do you think?
They keep coming up new all the time - things to perplex you, you know. You settle one question and there's another right after. There are so many things to be thought over and decided when you're beginning to grow up. It keeps me busy all the time thinking them over and deciding what's right. It's a serious thing to grow up, isn't it?

I'll let you know if I ever do grow up! Well, I think we're just about done here. Any last thoughts you want to share?
Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult."

I think we'd all like you to talk forever, Anne. But in the interest of space, perhaps we should end for now! Thank you for gracing us with your lovely, red-headed presence!
 
I hope you enjoyed this little glance into Anne's life. Look forward for more imaginary interviews sometime soon....any characters you want to meet here?