Whatever comes, she said, cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.
The greater number of her evenings she
was supposed to spend at study, and at various indefinite intervals she
was examined and knew she would have been severely admonished if she
had not advanced as was expected of her. The truth, indeed, was that
Miss Minchin knew that she was too anxious to learn to require
teachers. Give her books, and she would devour them and end by knowing
them by heart. She might be trusted to be equal to teaching a good
deal in the course of a few years. This was what would happen: when
she was older she would be expected to drudge in the schoolroom as she
drudged now in various parts of the house; they would be obliged to
give her more respectable clothes, but they would be sure to be plain
and ugly and to make her look somehow like a servant. That was all
there seemed to be to look forward to, and Sara stood quite still for
several minutes and thought it over.
Then a thought came back to her which made the color rise in her cheek
and a spark light itself in her eyes. She straightened her thin little
body and lifted her head.
"Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a
princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be
easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a
great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows
it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne
was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and
they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more
like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand.
I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten
her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off."
This was not a new thought, but quite an old one, by this time. It had
consoled her through many a bitter day, and she had gone about the
house with an expression in her face which Miss Minchin could not
understand and which was a source of great annoyance to her, as it
seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above
the rest of the world. It was as if she scarcely heard the rude and
acid things said to her; or, if she heard them, did not care for them
at all. Sometimes, when she was in the midst of some harsh,
domineering speech, Miss Minchin would find the still, unchildish eyes
fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them.
If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that—warm things, kind things, sweet things—help and comfort and laughter—and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.
They were satisfying--and so were beef sandwiches, bought at a
cook-shop--and so were rolls and Bologna sausage. In time, Becky began
to lose her hungry, tired feeling, and the coal box did not seem so
unbearably heavy.
However heavy it was, and whatsoever the temper of the cook, and the
hardness of the work heaped upon her shoulders, she had always the
chance of the afternoon to look forward to--the chance that Miss Sara
would be able to be in her sitting room. In fact, the mere seeing of
Miss Sara would have been enough without meat pies. If there was time
only for a few words, they were always friendly, merry words that put
heart into one; and if there was time for more, then there was an
installment of a story to be told, or some other thing one remembered
afterward and sometimes lay awake in one's bed in the attic to think
over. Sara--who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better
than anything else, Nature having made her for a giver--had not the
least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a benefactor
she seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born
open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your
hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out
of that--warm things, kind things, sweet things--help and comfort and
laughter--and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all.
Becky had scarcely known what laughter was through all her poor, little
hard-driven life. Sara made her laugh, and laughed with her; and,
though neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was as "fillin'" as
the meat pies.
A few weeks before Sara's eleventh birthday a letter came to her from
her father, which did not seem to be written in such boyish high
spirits as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently overweighted
by the business connected with the diamond mines.
"You see, little Sara," he wrote, "your daddy is not a businessman at
all, and figures and documents bother him. He does not really
understand them, and all this seems so enormous. Perhaps, if I was not
feverish I should not be awake, tossing about, one half of the night
and spend the other half in troublesome dreams. If my little missus
were here, I dare say she would give me some solemn, good advice. You
would, wouldn't you, Little Missus?"
One of his many jokes had been to call her his "little missus" because
she had such an old-fashioned air.
One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts- just mere thoughts- are as powerful as electric batteries- as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got you in you may never get over it as long as you live.
But before he got into
his chair he stood quite close to Susan and fixed his eyes on her with
a kind of bewildered adoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold
of her blue cloak and held it fast.
“You are just what I—what I wanted,” he said. “I wish you were my
mother—as well as Dickon’s!”
All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms
close against the bosom under the blue cloak—as if he had been Dickon’s
brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes.
“Eh! dear lad!” she said. “Thy own mother’s in this ’ere very garden, I
do believe. She couldna’ keep out of it. Thy father mun come back to
thee—he mun!”
CHAPTER XXVII.
IN THE GARDEN
In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have
been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out
than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things
still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse
to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to
hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done and
all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new
things people began to find out in the last century was that
thoughts—just mere thoughts—are as powerful as electric batteries—as
good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad
thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a
scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after
it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.
So long as Mistress Mary’s mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about
her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to
be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced,
sickly, bored and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very
kind to her, though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push
her about for her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with
robins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed
old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime
and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor
boy and his “creatures,” there was no room left for the disagreeable
thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow
and tired.
So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his
fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and
reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical
half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and
the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand
upon his feet if he tried to do it.
My mother always says people should be able to take care of themselves, even if theyre rich and important.
Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.
I am writing in the garden. To write as one should of a garden one must write not outside it or merely somewhere near it, but in the garden.
The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place. The few books she had read and liked had been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret gardens in some of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them for a hundred years, which she had thought must be rather stupid. She had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite.
Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage.It makes me feel as if something had hit me, Sara had told Ermengarde once in confidence. And as if I want to hit back. I have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill-tempered.
She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself.
Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book.
She liked books more than anything else, and was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to herself.
I wish I was friends with things, he said at last, but Im not. I never had anything to be friends with, and I cant bear people.
Is the spring coming? he said. What is it like?...It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...
How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.
He sat down in his chair by the fire and began to chat, as was his habit before he and his wife parted to dress for dinner. When he was out during the day he often looked forward to these chats, and made notes of things he would like to tell his Mary. During her day, which was given to feminine duties and pleasures, she frequently did the same thing. Between seven and eight in the evening they had delightful conversational opportunities. He picked up her book and glanced it over, he asked her a few questions and answered a few...
…Mrs. Warren allowed her book to fall closed upon her lap, and her attractive face awakened to an expression of agreeable expectation, in itself denoting the existence of interesting and desirable qualities in the husband at the moment inserting his latch-key in the front door preparatory to mounting the stairs and joining her. The man who, after twenty-five years of marriage, can call, by his return to her side, this expression to the countenance of an intelligent woman is, without question or argument, an individual whose life and occupations are as interesting as his character and points of view.
There is nothing so nice as supposing. Its almost like being a fairy. If you suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real.
If you fill your mind with a beautiful thought, there will be no room in it for an ugly one. - King Amor
Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world, he said wisely one day, but people dont know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.
Thoughts -- just mere thoughts -- are as powerful as electric batteries -- as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison.
