I'm not a bit changed--not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real ME--back here--is just the same.

I'm not a bit changed - not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real me - back here - is just the same.

Proverbs are all very fine when there's nothing to worry you, but when you're in real trouble, they're not a bit of help.

You never know what peace is until you walk on the shores or in the fields or along the winding red roads of Prince Edward Island in a summer twilight when the dew is falling and the old stars are peeping out and the sea keeps its mighty tryst with the little land it loves. You find your soul then. You realize that youth is not a vanished thing but something that dwells forever in the heart.

There is a great solitude about such a shore. The woods are never solitary- they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can never pierce its infinite mystery- we may only wander, awed and spell-bound, on the outer fringe of it. The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only- a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. The woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels.

But have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I never make the same mistake twice. Oh don't you see, Marilla? There must be a limit to the mistakes one person can make, and when I get to the end of them, then I'll be through with them. That's a very comforting thought.