‘Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row.’
— Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, 1744
THE GREATEST CHILDREN'S NOVEL
Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden (1911) is the greatest children's story I have ever read.
In a bleak midwinter in Yorkshire, cousins Mary Lennox and Colin Craven along with their friend Dickon uncover a neglected garden on the grounds of Misselthwaite Manor.
Mary, 'quite contrary,' has just arrived from India after losing her parents in a terrible fire. She laments her fate, missing the warm weather and the company of her Ayah, her nursemaid.
Mary's cousin, Colin, is a frail, bed-bound boy and has spent most of his life confined in his bedroom. Although spoiled daily with attention from the house staff, he is as much a victim of his weak back as he is of his widowed and absent father. All the while Misselthwaite's head housekeeper Mrs. Medlock's enables his sour tantrums.
Dickon is a handsome farm boy who lives on the moors. Hardworking and honest, he has an almost magical ability to connect with plants and animals. He helps both Mary and Colin to reconnect with the earth and themselves.
In a bleak midwinter in Yorkshire, cousins Mary Lennox and Colin Craven along with their friend Dickon uncover a neglected garden on the grounds of Misselthwaite Manor.
Mary, 'quite contrary,' has just arrived from India after losing her parents in a terrible fire. She laments her fate, missing the warm weather and the company of her Ayah, her nursemaid.
Mary's cousin, Colin, is a frail, bed-bound boy and has spent most of his life confined in his bedroom. Although spoiled daily with attention from the house staff, he is as much a victim of his weak back as he is of his widowed and absent father. All the while Misselthwaite's head housekeeper Mrs. Medlock's enables his sour tantrums.
Dickon is a handsome farm boy who lives on the moors. Hardworking and honest, he has an almost magical ability to connect with plants and animals. He helps both Mary and Colin to reconnect with the earth and themselves.
| “[Mary sat and looked at the fire.] ‘I wonder,’ she said slowly, ‘if it would not do him good to go out into a garden and watch things growing. It did me good.’” |
SOULS TOO CAN GROW
For all the protagonists' weeding, planting, nurturing, and playing in their secret garden, the greatest growth shown throughout the novel is within the children's souls—and later the adults'.
Mary comes to England like a seed buried in frost, unable to plant herself in happiness. She is starving for both physical and emotional sustenance, and had been before her parents' tragic death. Only when she finally goes out onto the moors does her healing begin: "...the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body and whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anything about it.” Contrasted so beautifully is the constrictive and almost gothic energy of Misselthwaite Manor, which, indeed still houses a tragic past: Colin Craven.
Colin, Master Craven's only son, is languishing, physically and emotionally. But his first conversation with Mary reveals his unspoiled curiosity for life: “‘Is the spring coming?’ he said. ‘What is it like? You don’t see it in rooms if you are ill.’” Mary then paints him a picture of the world he has been denied: “‘It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth.’” To which Colin “...had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like stars…” And when Colin falls back on dark thoughts, Mary refuses to let him spiral: “‘Don’t let us talk about dying; I don’t like it. Let us talk about living.’”
The protagonists' healing explodes after the discovery of a brass key that fits the locked gate of a long-ago neglected garden waiting to be tended: “[Mary] unchained and unbolted and unlocked… she sprang across the step… the sun pouring down on her… warm, sweet wafts… and the fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree.”
Mary comes to England like a seed buried in frost, unable to plant herself in happiness. She is starving for both physical and emotional sustenance, and had been before her parents' tragic death. Only when she finally goes out onto the moors does her healing begin: "...the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body and whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anything about it.” Contrasted so beautifully is the constrictive and almost gothic energy of Misselthwaite Manor, which, indeed still houses a tragic past: Colin Craven.
Colin, Master Craven's only son, is languishing, physically and emotionally. But his first conversation with Mary reveals his unspoiled curiosity for life: “‘Is the spring coming?’ he said. ‘What is it like? You don’t see it in rooms if you are ill.’” Mary then paints him a picture of the world he has been denied: “‘It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth.’” To which Colin “...had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like stars…” And when Colin falls back on dark thoughts, Mary refuses to let him spiral: “‘Don’t let us talk about dying; I don’t like it. Let us talk about living.’”
The protagonists' healing explodes after the discovery of a brass key that fits the locked gate of a long-ago neglected garden waiting to be tended: “[Mary] unchained and unbolted and unlocked… she sprang across the step… the sun pouring down on her… warm, sweet wafts… and the fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree.”
| “The afternoon was even lovelier and busier than the morning had been. Already nearly all the weeds were cleared out of the garden and most of the roses and trees had been poured or dug about.” |
MASTER CRAVEN'S REBIRTH
Meanwhile, Master Archibald Craven has been traveling abroad, grieving for his dead wife, Colin's mother. Dark thoughts have consumed him, and he's let them grow and stay there. Burnett describes him as "courageous" as he "refused obstinately to allow any rift of light to pierce through [his soul]." And yet, ever so slowly, across Norway's fjords, and then more actively in the Swiss Alps by a stream, Craven's "mind and body grew quiet." He savors the change. “He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and what wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not know that just that simple thought was slowly filling his mind—filling and filling it until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as if a sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen until at last it swept the dark water away.”
And the feeling remains: “The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening, and he slept a new, reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long. He did not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the doors wide to his dark thoughts, and they had come trooping and rushing back. He left the valley and went on his wandering way again. But, strange as it seemed to hum, there were minutes sometimes half-hours—when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one.”
Now newly restored, Master Craven sets off for home.
And the feeling remains: “The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening, and he slept a new, reposeful sleep; but it was not with him very long. He did not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the doors wide to his dark thoughts, and they had come trooping and rushing back. He left the valley and went on his wandering way again. But, strange as it seemed to hum, there were minutes sometimes half-hours—when, without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one.”
Now newly restored, Master Craven sets off for home.
| “When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to [Master Craven], his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood.” |
THE 1993 FILM VERSION
Director Agnieszka Holland's 1993 adaptation is a treasure. I think it deepens the internal conflicts of Mary Lennox more than the novel, especially in the film's climax. Holland also expands on the conflict between the children and the adults (Mrs. Medlock and some of the older servants). Lastly, I think the film turns up the volume of the gothic tone in Misselthwaite, with cold stone interiors, secret passages, scary hunting dogs, ghostly sounds, and haunted objects of Mrs. Craven.
The acting is fantastic, especially from the three children: Kate Maberly plays Mary Lennox, Heydon Prowse plays Colin Craven, Andrew Knott plays Dickon, John Lynch plays Lord Archibald Craven, and the late, great Maggie Smith plays Mrs. Medlock.
The acting is fantastic, especially from the three children: Kate Maberly plays Mary Lennox, Heydon Prowse plays Colin Craven, Andrew Knott plays Dickon, John Lynch plays Lord Archibald Craven, and the late, great Maggie Smith plays Mrs. Medlock.
TENDING THE MIND'S GARDEN
The final chapter delivers one of the most satisfying crescendos in literature that I have ever encountered — the revelation, reunion, the restoration of the broken family. The novel's climax is not dramatic because of plot twists, but rather because of the psychological changes achieved within the characters—and the unique means by which they achieve them. Nature, with its gentle, persistent examples of growth and beauty, inspire Mary, Colin, and Craven to choose to change themselves.
The children give attention to and responsibility for their words and their secret garden. Master Craven finally gives attention to his own dark thoughts and takes responsibility for his neglected son when the healing Swiss countryside allows for space and light to shine through him.
Burnett's benevolent story of nature, of its restorative powers, and of humans, and their ability to choose to self-heal with positive and intentional thoughts and actions, is a masterpiece. [JG]
The children give attention to and responsibility for their words and their secret garden. Master Craven finally gives attention to his own dark thoughts and takes responsibility for his neglected son when the healing Swiss countryside allows for space and light to shine through him.
Burnett's benevolent story of nature, of its restorative powers, and of humans, and their ability to choose to self-heal with positive and intentional thoughts and actions, is a masterpiece. [JG]
“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 hundred of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that strange new things can be done, then they begin to hope that it can be done, then they see it can be done—this 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.”
— Francis Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
— Francis Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
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