How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"You are going to be sent home," Basil said to her, "at the end of the week. And we're glad of it."
"I am glad of it, too," answered Mary. "Where is home?"
"She doesn't know where home is!" said Basil, with seven-year-old scorn. "It's England, of course. Our grandmama lives there and our sister Mabel was sent to her last year. You are not going to your grandmama. You have none. You are going to your uncle. His name is Mr. Archibald Craven." (2.8-10)
"Home" is a strange way for bratty Basil to talk about England, a place that neither he nor Mary have ever seen. Basil has grown up in India just like Mary has, but for him, England is still the place where he imagines he belongs. And in fact, Mary does finally start growing up into a better kid when she is "back" in England. So Frances Hodgson Burnett appears to agree that, somehow, because Mary's parents were British, that Mary truly "belongs" in England.
What do you think of this idea? How do the concepts of "home" and "country" overlap in this book?
Quote #2
"She is such a plain child," Mrs. Crawford said pityingly, afterward. "And her mother was such a pretty creature. She had a very pretty manner, too, and Mary has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in a child. The children call her 'Mistress Mary Quite Contrary,' and though it's naughty of them, one can't help understanding it."
"Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty face and her pretty manners oftener into the nursery Mary might have learned some pretty ways too. It is very sad, now the poor beautiful thing is gone, to remember that many people never even knew that she had a child at all." (2.15-16)
We know that Mary starts out The Secret Garden as a selfish little brat. But the book is also careful to link Mary's horrible behavior at the beginning of the novel to neglect. Mary's mother may have been pretty to look at, but she spent almost no time with her daughter at all—she was clearly prettier on the outside than on the inside. It's only once Mary finds a new, warmer, more sociable home that she starts to take an interest in the world around her.
Quote #3
"It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee stomach for tha' victuals," answered Martha. "It's lucky for thee that tha's got victuals as well as appetite. There's been twelve in our cottage as had th' stomach an' nothin' to put in it. You go on playin' you out o' doors every day an' you'll get some flesh on your bones an' you won't be so yeller." (5.5)
The Secret Garden presents a big contrast between Mary's life and Martha's. Mary never has to worry about the basics like food, water, or shelter, and when her parents die, she has a super-rich (though pretty weird) uncle to take her in. But Martha's family is poor. They do have to worry—all the time—about finding food. Yet, the fact that they all have to work together to survive actually bonds them together: Martha's family may be poor, but they are happy in a way that Mary has to learn.
What do you think Burnett is trying to say about what makes people happy? Why do you think that she includes Martha as a point of contrast with Mary? Martha's name is even a variation on Mary's.
Quote #4
In all [Mary's] wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms, she had seen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something. Just after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound. It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from which it seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa there was a cushion, and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out of the hole peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it.
Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to a little gray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were seven mice who did not look lonely at all. (6.27-28)
At first, Mary's new home at Misselthwaite Manor seems even lonelier than her parents' house in India: It's a giant, (mostly) empty mansion in the middle of bleak Yorkshire countryside. How creepy is it that Mary can walk around for hours inside and see "nothing alive" around her? But then, there's this little mouse family—for more on them, hop on over to the "Symbols" section.
Quote #5
"Whatever happens, you—you never would tell?" [Mary] said.
[Dickon's] poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of bread and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly.
"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was, does tha' think I'd tell any one? Not me," he said. "Tha' art as safe as a missel thrush."
And she was quite sure she was. (11.91-94)
Considering how neglected Mary was while living in India, it makes sense that she doesn't trust grown-ups to help her or support her choices. So she worries that, if an adult finds out about the Secret Garden, he might try to stop her from gardening there. Dickon agrees to keep quiet about Mary's garden because he sees that the garden is more than just a garden for her. It's like Mary's nest—her true home, which she is starting to build for herself in this unfamiliar place.
Quote #6
"I'll never tell about it," he answered. "But I says to mother, 'Mother,' I says, 'I got a secret to keep. It's not a bad 'un, tha' knows that. It's no worse than hidin' where a bird's nest is. Tha' doesn't mind it, does tha'?'"
Mary always wanted to hear about mother.
"What did she say?" she asked, not at all afraid to hear.
Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly.
"It was just like her, what she said," he answered. "She give my head a bit of a rub an' laughed an' she says, 'Eh, lad, tha' can have all th' secrets tha' likes. I've knowed thee twelve year'.'" (15.61-65)
First of all, this whole exchange is really sweet—Dickon wants to be honest with his mom, so he tells her that he has a secret, even though he can't tell her what it is because he promised Mary he wouldn't. And then his mom—who loves and trusts him because she's known him his whole life—says that's totally fine.
But beyond this view of Dickon and his mother's close relationship, this scene is also interesting for what it says about Mary. We know that Mary's mother let her down. But the personal failure of Mary's mother doesn't mean that Mary isn't interested in mothers, as a general category. She loves hearing about Dickon's mom perhaps because she wants to know what mothers can be like at their best.
In short, the whole idea of motherhood is still super-important to this book and to Mary personally, even though Mary's own mom didn't live up to the high standards set by Dickon's mother.
Quote #7
The nurse went away, concealing a smile, to give the order for two breakfasts. She found the servants' hall a more amusing place than the invalid's chamber and just now everybody wanted to hear the news from upstairs. There was a great deal of joking about the unpopular young recluse who, as the cook said, "had found his master, and good for him." The servants' hall had been very tired of the tantrums, and the butler, who was a man with a family, had more than once expressed his opinion that the invalid would be all the better "for a good hiding." (15.55)
Of course, as we've all seen on Downton Abbey, the whole idea of a home gets a little weird when you're talking about a giant English mansion at the beginning of the twentieth century. Imagine sharing your house with a bunch of people paid to serve you—or imagine living in a house where you are paid to take care of the owner—and you'll see what we mean when we say that the word home doesn't totally seem to apply to Misselthwaite Manor.
Even though Misselthwaite Manor is technically Colin Craven's home—it's where he was born, after all—the people who work there all hate him. Of course he feels isolated. It takes his friendship with Mary to make Misselthwaite Manor into a warmer, more genuine home for Colin.
Quote #8
"Tha'll see [the robin] often enow after a bit," answered Dickon. "When th' eggs hatches out th' little chap he'll be kep' so busy it'll make his head swim. […] Mother says as when she sees th' work a robin has to keep them gapin' beaks filled, she feels like she was a lady with nothin' to do. She says she's seen th' little chaps when it seemed like th' sweat must be droppin' off 'em, though folk can't see it." (21.12)
There's a lot in this book about just how much work it takes for parents to keep a family together and make a home. There's this robin here, who'll be so busy feeding his chicks that "it'll make his head swim," and then there is also Mrs. Sowerby, Dickon's mom, who is constantly working to keep her many kids fed and happy.
While all this family-directed housework (both bird and human) sounds like a lot of effort to us, the novel definitely emphasizes the positive, healthy side of hard work. After all, the parents who don't take the time to work hard for their kids, like Mary's mother and Mr. Craven, turn their kids (Mary and Colin) into truly terrible human beings.
Quote #9
"When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator [Colin] proceeded. "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and making things out of nothing. One day things weren't there and another they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be scientific. I keep saying to myself, 'What is it? What is it?' It's something. It can't be nothing! I don't know its name so I call it Magic. […] Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden—in all the places. (23.41)
Colin sees people as closely connected with the natural world of "leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels." Nature is, in a strong sense, home for the characters of the Secret Garden.
Quote #10
When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it was an immense relief. But for a long time—or it seemed a long time to the robin—he was a source of some anxiety. He did not act as the other humans did. He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of sitting or lying down for a while and then getting up in a disconcerting manner to begin again.
One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to learn to fly by his parents he had done much the same sort of thing. He had taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to rest. So it occurred to him that this boy was learning to fly—or rather to walk. (25.4-5)
It took us by surprise to read this sudden, literal bird's-eye view on Colin's process of learning to walk, told from the point of view of the robin who lives in the Secret Garden. However, it reminds us of that earlier comparison Dickon makes between the Secret Garden and a nest (read our thoughts on the quote for 11.91-4 above for more on this). Colin is learning to walk as clumsily as baby birds first learn to fly; however, he's learning in the homey, nest-like comfort of the Secret Garden.