Who says we haven't any poetical talent on the Island!
Have you ever noticed what heaps of good people die,
Anne, dearie? It's kind of pitiful. Here's ten
obituaries, and every one of them saints and models,
even the men. Here's old Peter Stimson, who has `left
a large circle of friends to mourn his untimely loss.'
Lord, Anne, dearie, that man was eighty, and everybody
who knew him had been wishing him dead these thirty
years. Read obituaries when you're blue, Anne,
dearie--especially the ones of folks you know. If
you've any sense of humor at all they'll cheer you up,
believe ME. I just wish _I_ had the writing of the
obituaries of some people. Isn't `obituary' an awful
ugly word? This very Peter I've been speaking of had a
face exactly like one. I never saw it but I thought of
the word OBITUARY then and there. There's only one
uglier word that I know of, and that's RELICT. Lord,
Anne, dearie, I may be an old maid, but there's this
comfort in it--I'll never be any man's `relict.'"
"It IS an ugly word," said Anne, laughing. "Avonlea
graveyard was full of old tombstones `sacred to the
memory of So-and-So, RELICT of the late So-and-So.
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