Anne’s homesickness wore off, greatly helped in the wearing by her weekend visits home. As long as the open weather lasted the Avonlea students went out to Carmody on the new branch railway every Friday night. Diana and several other Avonlea young folks were generally on hand to meet them and they all walked over to Avonlea in a merry party. Anne thought those Friday evening gypsyings over the autumnal hills in the crisp golden air, with the homelights of Avonlea twinkling beyond, were the best and dearest hours in the whole week.
Gilbert Blythe nearly always walked with Ruby Gillis and carried her satchel for her. Ruby was a very handsome young lady, now thinking herself quite as grown up as she really was; she wore her skirts as long as her mother would let her and did her hair up in town, though she had to take it down when she went home. She had large, bright-blue eyes, a brilliant complexion, and a plump showy figure. She laughed a great deal, was cheerful and good-tempered, and enjoyed the pleasant things of life frankly.
“But I shouldn’t think she was the sort of girl Gilbert would like,” whispered Jane to Anne. Anne did not think so either, but she would not have said so for the Avery scholarship. She could not help thinking, too, that it would be very pleasant to have such a friend as Gilbert to jest and chatter with and exchange ideas about books and studies and ambitions. Gilbert had ambitions, she knew, and Ruby Gillis did not seem the sort of person with whom such could be profitably discussed.
There was no silly sentiment in Anne’s ideas concerning Gilbert. Boys were to her, when she thought about them at all, merely possible good comrades. If she and Gilbert had been friends she would not have cared how many other friends he had nor with whom he walked. She had a genius for friendship; girl friends she had in plenty; but she had a vague consciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thing to round out one’s conceptions of companionship and furnish broader standpoints of judgment and comparison. Not that Anne could have put her feelings on the matter into just such clear definition. But she thought that if Gilbert had ever walked home with her from the train, over the crisp fields and along the ferny byways, they might have had many and merry and interesting conversations about the new world that was opening around them and their hopes and ambitions therein. Gilbert was a clever young fellow, with his own thoughts about things and a determination to get the best out of life and put the best into it. Ruby Gillis told Jane Andrews that she didn’t understand half the things Gilbert Blythe said; he talked just like Anne Shirley did when she had a thoughtful fit on and for her part she didn’t think it any fun to be bothering about books and that sort of thing when you didn’t have to. Frank Stockley had lots more dash and go, but then he wasn’t half as good-looking as Gilbert and she really couldn’t decide which she liked best!
In the Academy Anne gradually drew a little circle of friends about her, thoughtful, imaginative, ambitious students like herself. With the “rose-red” girl, Stella Maynard, and the “dream girl,” Priscilla Grant, she soon became intimate, finding the latter pale spiritual-looking maiden to be full to the brim of mischief and pranks and fun, while the vivid, black-eyed Stella had a heartful of wistful dreams and fancies, as aerial and rainbow-like as Anne’s own.
After the Christmas holidays the Avonlea students gave up going home on Fridays and settled down to hard work. By this time all the Queen’s scholars had gravitated into their own places in the ranks and the various classes had assumed distinct and settled shadings of individuality. Certain facts had become generally accepted. It was admitted that the medal contestants had practically narrowed down to three—Gilbert Blythe, Anne Shirley, and Lewis Wilson; the Avery scholarship was more doubtful, any one of a certain six being a possible winner. The bronze medal for mathematics was considered as good as won by a fat, funny little up-country boy with a bumpy forehead and a patched coat.
Ruby Gillis was the handsomest girl of the year at the Academy; in the Second Year classes Stella Maynard carried off the palm for beauty, with small but critical minority in favor of Anne Shirley. Ethel Marr was admitted by all competent judges to have the most stylish modes of hair-dressing, and Jane Andrews—plain, plodding, conscientious Jane—carried off the honors in the domestic science course. Even Josie Pye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-tongued young lady in attendance at Queen’s. So it may be fairly stated that Miss Stacy’s old pupil’s held their own in the wider arena of the academical course.
Anne worked hard and steadily. Her rivalry with Gilbert was as intense as it had ever been in Avonlea school, although it was not known in the class at large, but somehow the bitterness had gone out of it. Anne no longer wished to win for the sake of defeating Gilbert; rather, for the proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It would be worth while to win, but she no longer thought life would be insupportable if she did not.
In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant times. Anne spent many of her spare hours at Beechwood and generally ate her Sunday dinners there and went to church with Miss Barry. The latter was, as she admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor the vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never sharpened the latter on Anne, who continued to be a prime favorite with the critical old lady.
“That Anne-girl improves all the time,” she said. “I get tired of other girls—there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne has as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts. I don’t know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them.”
Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come; out in Avonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out on the sere barrens where snow-wreaths lingered; and the “mist of green” was on the woods and in the valleys. But in Charlottetown harassed Queen’s students thought and talked only of examinations.
“It doesn’t seem possible that the term is nearly over,” said Anne. “Why, last fall it seemed so long to look forward to—a whole winter of studies and classes. And here we are, with the exams looming up next week. Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don’t seem half so important.”
Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not take this view of it. To them the coming examinations were constantly very important indeed—far more important than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes. It was all very well for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have her moments of belittling them, but when your whole future depended on them—as the girls truly thought theirs did—you could not regard them philosophically.
“I’ve lost seven pounds in the last two weeks,” sighed Jane. “It’s no use to say don’t worry. I WILL worry. Worrying helps you some—it seems as if you were doing something when you’re worrying. It would be dreadful if I failed to get my license after going to Queen’s all winter and spending so much money.”
“I don’t care,” said Josie Pye. “If I don’t pass this year I’m coming back next. My father can afford to send me. Anne, Frank Stockley says that Professor Tremaine said Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medal and that Emily Clay would likely win the Avery scholarship.”
“That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie,” laughed Anne, “but just now I honestly feel that as long as I know the violets are coming out all purple down in the hollow below Green Gables and that little ferns are poking their heads up in Lovers’ Lane, it’s not a great deal of difference whether I win the Avery or not. I’ve done my best and I begin to understand what is meant by the ‘joy of the strife.’ Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing. Girls, don’t talk about exams! Look at that arch of pale green sky over those houses and picture to yourself what it must look like over the purply-dark beech-woods back of Avonlea.”
“What are you going to wear for commencement, Jane?” asked Ruby practically.
Jane and Josie both answered at once and the chatter drifted into a side eddy of fashions. But Anne, with her elbows on the window sill, her soft cheek laid against her clasped hands, and her eyes filled with visions, looked out unheedingly across city roof and spire to that glorious dome of sunset sky and wove her dreams of a possible future from the golden tissue of youth’s own optimism. All the Beyond was hers with its possibilities lurking rosily in the oncoming years—each year a rose of promise to be woven into an immortal chaplet.
背景介紹與作者介紹
這段摘錄自《綠山牆的安妮》，這是一部深受喜愛的經典小說，由加拿大作家露西·莫德·蒙哥馬利所著。該小說於1908年首次出版，講述了安妮·雪莉的故事，她是一位富有想像力和活力的孤兒女孩，被誤送到瑪麗拉和馬修·卡斯伯特那裡，他們是一對兄妹，原本打算收養一個男孩來幫助他們在愛德華王子島艾凡里鎮的農場工作。這部小說的背景設定在20世紀初期，生動地描繪了加拿大的鄉村生活、大自然的美麗，以及成長的挑戰和喜悅。
露西·莫德·蒙哥馬利本人於1874年出生於愛德華王子島，她對該島的風景和文化的深刻了解深深地影響了她的寫作。她的作品引起了全球一代又一代讀者的共鳴，以其溫暖、幽默和對人性的洞察力而聞名。
詳細闡釋與意義
這段描述了安妮從思鄉之情轉變為在學校中更安定的生活，她在那里結交了朋友並面臨學業上的挑戰。敘事探討了友誼、抱負、競爭和成長的苦樂參半的本質等主題。安妮對友誼的思考，尤其是她對吉爾伯特·布萊斯的想法，揭示了她對人際關係的成熟和深思熟慮的方法——重視陪伴、智力交流和相互尊重，而不是膚淺的吸引力或嫉妒。
故事也觸及了年輕學生面臨的壓力，例如考試和社會期望，但安妮樂觀的態度和對自然世界的欣賞提醒讀者平衡和觀點的重要性。她能夠在“綠色的薄霧”和即將到來的春天中找到快樂，象徵著希望和更新，鼓勵讀者以勇氣和優雅擁抱生活的挑戰。
給學生的教訓和見解
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友誼的價值： 安妮對友誼的細緻理解教導學生欣賞多樣的關係，包括那些拓寬視野並鼓勵個人成長的關係。建立在共同興趣和相互尊重基礎上的友誼可以豐富生活和學習。
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健康的競爭： 安妮與吉爾伯特的競爭被描繪成具有激勵作用而非破壞性。學生可以了解到，當以公平和尊重的態度對待競爭時，它可以激發卓越和自我完善，而不是怨恨。
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平衡抱負與幸福： 這段描述了考試可能造成的壓力，但安妮的觀點提醒學生將抱負與心理健康保持平衡，並在學業成就之外找到快樂。
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樂觀和韌性： 安妮對未來的樂觀展望以及她對成功和失敗的接受，鼓勵了韌性。學生可以學會將挫折視為成長的一部分，並對挑戰保持積極的態度。
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對自然的欣賞： 對艾凡里風景的生動描述邀請學生與大自然聯繫，大自然可以成為安慰、啟發和正念的源泉。
在日常生活中應用這些教訓
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在學習中： 效仿安妮在學習中的奉獻和穩定的努力，並將挑戰視為成長的機會而不是障礙。培養支持你的學業和個人抱負的友誼。
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在社交互動中： 重視鼓勵開放對話和相互尊重的友誼。避免可能損害關係的嫉妒或競爭；相反，培養友誼和支持。
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在管理壓力中： 面對考試或其他壓力時，請記住安妮的榜樣，即平衡工作與反思和欣賞周圍世界的時刻。練習正念並保持觀點。
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在個人成長中： 將失敗視為學習經驗。牢記你的目標，但對未來保持靈活和樂觀。
從故事中培養積極的特質
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想像力和創造力： 安妮生動的想像力豐富了她的生活和人際關係。學生應該培養他們的創造力，以此作為解決問題和自我表達的手段。
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同情心和善良： 安妮愛和接受他人的能力，甚至是那些與自己不同的人，是同情心的一個強有力的教訓。
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勇氣和決心： 儘管面臨困境，安妮仍然勇敢地面對生活，意志堅定，激勵學生堅持不懈。
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在簡單事物中找到快樂： 在大自然、友誼和小的樂趣中找到幸福可以大大增進幸福感。
通過反思安妮的經歷和態度，學生可以培養一種平衡、充滿希望和韌性的方法來應對自己的生活，從而促進學業成功和個人成就。
