We make our own lives wherever we are
Anne of Avonlea“We make our own lives wherever we are” is the central claim in Mrs. Allan’s reassurance to Anne Shirley about college. It shifts the emphasis from a desired opportunity that may not arrive to the life Anne can shape in the place and circumstances she already inhabits.
Context and Formulation
Anne is unsure whether she will ever go to college. Marilla Cuthbert’s eyesight is unlikely to improve, and Anne doubts that the twins’ uncle will ever send for them; as a result, she does not want to dwell on college and become discontented. Mrs. Allan answers by acknowledging that she would like to see Anne attend, while making clear that a college education is not the measure of a worthwhile life.
The sentence’s decisive turn comes in its distinction between making a life and receiving an education. College, Mrs. Allan says, can help people make their lives “more easily,” but it does not determine whether those lives are “broad or narrow.” That depends instead on what people put into them. Education remains valuable, but it is presented as assistance, not as the source or sole guarantee of fulfillment.
A Life Shaped Where One Is
Mrs. Allan’s argument broadens the conversation beyond Anne’s particular uncertainty. Life is “rich and full here. . .everywhere,” she says, if people can learn to open their hearts to its richness. The repetition of “everywhere” gives the principle its expansive force: opportunity may be limited by circumstance, but the possibility of attending to life is not confined to a college or a future elsewhere.
The idea also answers Anne’s image of college as a bend in the road she has not yet reached. Rather than promise that the road will lead to college, Mrs. Allan redirects attention to what can be made before that point—or without reaching it. The counsel is not that Anne should abandon ambition, but that she need not postpone contentment until a particular future becomes possible.
Friendship and the Measure of Richness
Anne responds by naming what already gives her life meaning: her work, Paul Irving, the twins, and her friends. She says that friendship beautifies life, turning Mrs. Allan’s general principle into a concrete account of what Anne values in her present circumstances. Her answer shows that a full life, in this exchange, is measured not only by advancement but also by work and sustaining relationships.
Mrs. Allan then qualifies that praise of friendship with an ethical standard. True friendship requires truth and sincerity, she warns; mere intimacy can degrade the name. The exchange thus connects making a life wherever one is with how one lives among others. Its final emphasis is not simply on finding richness in existing circumstances, but on recognizing it through sincere relationships.
