In “Anne of Green Gables,” Jonathan Crombie, who died Wednesday, gave Gilbert Blythe caring, intelligence, and dreaminess: qualities that enchant seventh-grade girls. PHOTOGRAPH BY DICK LOEK / TORONTO STAR VIA GETTY IMAGES

Many were saddened, this weekend, to learn of the death of Jonathan Crombie, the forty-eight-year-old actor who played Gilbert Blythe in the CBC’s film adaptations of the “Anne of Green Gables” books. People on the Internet were using the phrase “depths of despair,” as Anne Shirley would. Gilbert was many people’s first love.

A kindred spirit of mine—a bosom friend I’ve known since girlhood—once observed that the best kind of romantic movie involves impassioned gazing. (She told me this while recommending the 2004 BBC red-hot starefest “North & South,” which features I-see-into-your-soul staring of the Mr. Darcy variety, the kind that says, I see you—and I am too respectful to do anything but dream from afar until I deserve you.) “Anne of Green Gables” isn't a romance, exactly; it's a series about growing up. But it’s no coincidence, I realized yesterday, that this same friend first alerted me to the phenomenon of Crombie as Gilbert Blythe.

It was 1986, and she and I were in seventh grade, in an airport. We were taking a trip to Disney World with my mother during our spring vacation. We were excited, but, my friend told me, we were missing something very important on television: part something-or-other of the PBS broadcast of “Anne of Green Gables,” which had just burst on the scene from Canada, a gorgeous agrarian world allowing for both puff sleeves and female ambition. She told me about Gilbert Blythe in great detail. When we were able to watch, I admired it all for myself.

L. M. Montgomery, the author of the “Anne” series, described Gilbert as “a tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes, and a mouth twisted into a teasing smile.” Crombie was kinder—lively eyes, nothing twisted about the mouth. His affection was evident all along. Crombie gave Gilbert caring, intelligence, and dreaminess: qualities that enchant seventh-grade girls.

As in “Pride and Prejudice,” things begin badly between our heroes. Gilbert admires Anne (Megan Follows) when she arrives at their one-room schoolhouse; she registers his handsomeness but ignores him, in part because of his cockiness; he calls her Carrots; she smashes a slate over his head. The “Carrots” slate-smash is “Anne” ’s “tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me” moment, setting in motion a whole course of standoffs and shenanigans which, after many years, finally end as they should—with mutual understanding and perfect bliss. In between: oh, the staring.

Crombie was an expert gazer. Through meaningful looks and other subtleties, he showed that Gilbert wasn’t threatened when Anne could spell “chrysanthemum” and he couldn’t; he appeared deeply concerned when she fell off the ridgepole, and didn’t mock her for braving it; he was kind during the “The Lady of Shalott” escapade, while executing a dashing rescue. In this video, a young Crombie explains that the moment Anne breaks a slate over Gilbert’s head is the moment he starts growing up.

For girls my age, that was an important moment, too. The “Anne” series let us dream about adolescence while holding on to childhood. The world of Avonlea—Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, the apple blossoms and the knickers and caps, dance cards, hay rides, Gilbert’s patient and steadfast heart—was gentler than what we might have imagined about adolescence. It wasn’t “The Breakfast Club,” and that was, on some secret level, very exciting—a last moment of being able to enjoy gentler childhood ideals. “Anne of Green Gables” appealed to those impulses without condescending to us. It wasn’t exactly cool. It had no edge. You didn’t want to race into school and announce that you were obsessed with “Anne of Green Gables.” But, to your bosom friend, you could discuss its many joys to your heart’s content.

And Gilbert Blythe, because he was the romantic ideal and a feminist, in his way—always respecting Anne’s intellect and ambitions, competing with her and admiring her academically—was an encouraging example of what teenagerdom and a loving gaze might have in store. Here he is calling her “Carrots” and getting his just desserts.