In Chapter 20 of Anne of Green Gables, it is spring in Avonlea, and Anne is delighted with the flowers that come to bloom.

“Mr. Phillips gave all the Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews and I heard him to say `sweets to the sweet.’ He got that out of a book, I know; but it shows he has some imagination. I was offered some Mayflowers too, but I rejected them with scorn. I can’t tell you the person’s name because I have vowed never to let it cross my lips.”

“Sweets to the Sweet” is a quotation from Hamlet, said by Queen Gertrude as she scatters flowers on Ophelia’s grave.

In Chapter 26 of Anne of Green Gables, Anne tries to settle down after the excitement of the School Christmas Concert:.

Junior Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really think she could.

“Flat, stale and unprofitable” is another quotation from Hamlet, expressing the languor Hamlet feels when his father dies and his mother remarries.

In Chapter 15 of Anne of Avonlea, Anne goes to the Avonlea graveyard with her favourite pupil, Paul Irving:

Anne and Paul both knew

“How fair the realm
Imagination opens to the view,”

and both knew the way to that happy land. There the rose of joy bloomed immortal by dale and stream; clouds never darkened the sunny sky; sweet bells never jangled out of tune; and kindred spirits abounded. The knowledge of that land’s geography. . . “east o’ the sun, west o’ the moon”. . .is priceless lore, not to be bought in any market place. It must be the gift of the good fairies at birth and the years can never deface it or take it away. It is better to possess it, living in a garret, than to be the inhabitant of palaces without it.

“Sweet bells never jangled out of tune” is also from Hamlet. When Hamlet pretends to be mad, his sweetheart Ophelia mourns how Hamlet is like “sweet bells jangled out of tune”, once so fair, now so deranged.

In Chapter 3 of Anne’s House of Dreams, Anne discusses her wedding plans with Mrs. Rachel Lynde:

“Do you know when and where I’d like to be married, if I could? It would be at dawn–a June dawn, with a glorious sunrise, and roses blooming in the gardens; and I would slip down and meet Gilbert and we would go together to the heart of the beech woods,–and there, under the green arches that would be like a splendid cathedral, we would be married.”

Marilla sniffed scornfully and Mrs. Lynde looked shocked.

“But that would be terrible queer, Anne. Why, it wouldn’t really seem legal. And what would Mrs. Harmon Andrews say?”

“Ah, there’s the rub,” sighed Anne. “There are so many things in life we cannot do because of the fear of
what Mrs. Harmon Andrews would say. ` ‘Tis true, ’tis pity, and pity ’tis, ’tis true.’ What delightful
things we might do were it not for Mrs. Harmon Andrews!”

“‘Tis true, ’tis pity and pity ’tis, ’tis true.” comes from Hamlet. Lord Polonius breaks the news of Hamlet’s madness to his parents King Claudius and Queen Gertrude, bemoaning that “‘Tis true, ’tis pity.”

In Chaptee 29 of The Golden Road, the Story Girl’s cat Paddy dies.

The Story Girl said nothing. She passed and repassed her long brown hand gently over her pet’s glossy fur. Pat lifted his head and essayed to creep a little nearer to his beloved mistress. The Story Girl drew his limp body close in her arms. There was a plaintive little mew–a long quiver–and Paddy’s friendly soul had fared forth to wherever it is that good cats go.

“Well, he’s gone,” said Dan, turning his back abruptly to us.

“It doesn’t seem as if it can be true,” sobbed Cecily. “This time yesterday morning he was full of life.”

“He drank two full saucers of cream,” moaned Felicity, “and I saw him catch a mouse in the evening. Maybe it was the last one he ever caught.”

“He did for many a mouse in his day,” said Peter, anxious to pay his tribute to the departed.

“‘He was a cat–take him for all in all. We shall not look upon his like again,’” quoted Uncle Blair.

Uncle Blair quotes sympathetically from Hamlet.

Hamlet
William Shakespeare

(Ophelia’s Funeral) ACT V scene i.

Laertes: What ceremony else?

Hamlet: That is Laertes,
A very noble youth: mark.

Laertes: What ceremony else?

Priest.
Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d
As we have warranties: her death was doubtful;
And, but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d
Till the last trumpet; for charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her,
Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

Laertes: Must there no more be done?

Priest.
No more be done;
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing a requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

Laertes: Lay her i’ the earth;-
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!-I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.

Hamlet: What, the fair Ophelia?

Queen: Sweets to the sweet: farewell.
[Scattering flowers.]
I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,
And not have strew’d thy grave.

Laertes: O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv’d thee of!-Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:
[Leaps into the grave.]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.

(Hamlet’s first soliloquy)
ACT I scene iiO that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!-nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on’t,-Frailty, thy name is woman!-
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father’s body
Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,-
O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn’d longer,-married with mine uncle,
My father’s brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married:-O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good;
But break my heart,-for I must hold my tongue!

ACT III scene iiOPHELIA: O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck’d the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

ACT II sc.iiiLORD POLONIUS
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity;
And pity ’tis ’tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.
I have a daughter–have while she is mine–
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise…

ACT 1, sc.ii
HAMLET
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.