Love Takes Up the Glass of Time
Anne of the Island“Love Takes Up the Glass of Time” is the heading of Chapter 41, a figurative expression that places love in relation to time and the act of looking. The chapter opens with Anne Shirley tasting the sweetness of life after a great dread has been removed; Gilbert Blythe then invites her on an old-time ramble through the September woods. The title’s image gives that movement a temporal frame, but the text does not define the phrase or present it as dialogue.
Form and Image
The expression appears as a chapter title, not as a statement spoken by a character. Its wording brings together two ideas: love and a “glass of time.” The glass suggests an image of time being viewed or held up to view, while the title’s personification gives love the action of taking it up. The available text does not specify what the glass contains or settle on a single meaning for the metaphor.
Narrative Context
The title precedes a scene in which Anne stands beneath the willows after the removal of a great dread. Morning is described as a cup filled with mist and glamor, and new-blown, dew-covered roses and birdsong accompany her changed mood. Gilbert arrives and asks her to revisit one of their old-time walks, proposing Hester Gray's garden as their destination. That invitation links the chapter’s present to a shared past through the prospect of a familiar ramble.
Interpretive Significance
The title’s reference to time resonates with the scene’s contrast between relief in the present and the return to an old custom. The chapter places the image of love beside a setting and invitation marked by recollection, without explaining the title as a literal object or repeating it within the dialogue. Its force therefore lies in the association it opens: love and time meet at a moment when Anne’s fear has lifted and a familiar path is offered again.
