“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think.”
— L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
There are certain lines in literature that stay with us long after we’ve closed the book. Sometimes they’re grand declarations about love or courage. Other times, they’re simple observations that capture something we’ve felt but never quite managed to put into words.
This little thought from Anne Shirley is one of my favorites.
Anyone familiar with Anne of Green Gables knows that Anne has a remarkable imagination and an equally remarkable capacity for friendship. She sees possibilities where others see ordinary things, finds beauty in unexpected places, and longs for people who understand her particular way of looking at the world.
She calls those people kindred spirits.
I think there’s something especially lovely about the realization that kindred spirits aren’t necessarily as rare as we imagine.
Friendship doesn’t always arrive in the form we expect. Sometimes it begins with a shared love of books, an unexpected conversation, or the discovery that someone else finds the same peculiar things delightful.
And sometimes, of course, we find our kindred spirits in the pages of a book.
One of the quiet pleasures of reading is encountering a character who seems to understand us, even across centuries or worlds that bear little resemblance to our own. A fictional person can make us feel a little less alone. An author we’ve never met can put words to something we’ve carried for years.
Perhaps that’s part of the magic of literature. Books remind us that the world is full of minds and imaginations beyond our own, and that connection can appear in surprising places.
Anne Shirley certainly understood that.
And I like to think she was right.
Kindred spirits may not be so scarce after all.
Do you have a favorite literary friendship, or a fictional character you’ve always considered a kindred spirit? I’d love to hear about it.
-Colorful Swans Press
