The Secret Garden is a
novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was first published in its entirety in
1911. It is now one of Burnett''s most popular novels, and is considered to be a
classic of English children''s literature. Several stage and film adaptations
have been produced.
This book brings
together the three lonely children: Mary, who has no close family and is not
fond of people; Colin, who is so full of hatred, self-pity and anger, and who
is not even sure whether his father loves him, but is certain that he is going
to die; and Dickon, who although constantly has a bright and sunny disposition,
prefers the company of animals to people, until he meets Mary.
The Secret Garden is charming and wonderfully written, full of the right
amount of intrigue for children. It is considered to be the epitome of
children’s literature, it is still read and loved by many children today, even
though it’s over 100 years old.
CHAPTER 6 “THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING—THERE WAS!” 43
CHAPTER 7 THE KEY OF THE GARDEN 50
CHAPTER 8 THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY 56
CHAPTER 9 THE STRANGEST HOUSE 64
CHAPTER 10 DICKON 74
CHAPTER 11 THE NEST OF THE MISSEL THRUSH 85
CHAPTER 12 “MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?” 93
CHAPTER 13 “I AM COLIN” 102
CHAPTER 14 A YOUNG RAJAH 115
CHAPTER 15 NEST BUILDING 127
CHAPTER 16 “I WON’T!” SAID MARY 138
CHAPTER 17 A TANTRUM 146
CHAPTER 18 “THA’ MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME” 153
CHAPTER 19 “IT HAS COME!” 160
CHAPTER 20 I SHALL LIVE FOREVER 171
CHAPTER 21 BEN WEATHERSTAFF 179
CHAPTER 22 WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN 189
CHAPTER 23 MAGIC 195
CHAPTER 24 “LET THEM LAUGH” 207
CHAPTER 25 THE CURTAIN 219
CHAPTER 26 “IT’S MOTHER!” 226
CHAPTER 27 IN THE GARDEN 235
內容試閱：
THERE IS NO ONE LEFT
When Mary Lennox was
sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the
most disagreeablelooking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little
thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her
hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and
had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under
the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother
had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with
gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she
handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she
wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as
possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of
the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out
of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark
faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her
and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if
she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as
tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young English governess
who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up
her place in three months, and when other governesses came to try to fill it
they always went away in a shorter time than the first one. So if Mary had not
chosen to really want to know how to read books she would never have learned
her letters at all.
One frightfully hot
morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakened feeling very cross,
and she became crosser still when she saw that the servant who stood by her
bedside was not her Ayah.
“Why did you come?”
she said to the strange woman. “I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me.”
The woman looked
frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could not come and when Mary
threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked her, she looked only more
frightened and repeated that it was not possible for the Ayah to come to Missie
Sahib.
There was something
mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in its regular order and
several of the native servants seemed missing, while those whom Mary saw slunk
or hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no one would tell her anything
and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone as the morning went on,
and at last she wandered out into the garden and began to play by herself under
a tree near the veranda. She pretended that she was making a flower-bed, and
she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth, all the
time growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she would
say and the names she would call Saidie when she returned.
“Pig! Pig! Daughter of
Pigs!” she said, because to call a native a pig is the worst insult of all.
She
was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she heard her
mother come out on the veranda with some one. She was with a fair young man and
they stood talking together in low strange voices. Mary knew the fair young man
who looked like a boy. She had heard that he was a very young officer who had
just come from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her
mother. She always did this when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem
Sahib—Mary used to call her that oftener than anything else—was such a tall,
slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk
and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and
she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary
said they were “full of lace.” They looked fuller of lace than ever this
morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared and
lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer’s face.
“Is it so very bad?
Oh, is it?” Mary heard her say.
“Awfully,” the young
man answered in a trembling voice. “Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have
gone to the hills two weeks ago.”The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.
“Oh, I know I ought!”
she cried. “I only stayed to go to that silly dinner party. What a fool I was!”
At that very moment
such a loud sound of wailing broke out from the servants’ quarters that she
clutched the young man’s arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to foot. The
wailing grew wilder and wilder. “What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Lennox gasped.
“Some one has died,”
answered the boy officer. “You did not say it had broken out among your
servants.”
“I did not know!” the
Mem Sahib cried. “Come with me! Come with me!” and she turned and ran into the
house.
After that, appalling
things happened, and the mysteriousness of the morning was explained to Mary.
The cholera had broken out in its most fatal form and people were dying like
flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night, and it was because she had just
died that the servants had wailed in the huts. Before the next day three other
servants were dead and others had run away in terror. There was panic on every
side, and dying people in all the bungalows.
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