IN THE GARDEN
“Where you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow.
Why it was chosen
Where something tender is cared for, harsher things have less room to take root. A garden can become a quiet argument for love.
Selected Passages
The Secret Garden selected passages.
These sentences were chosen for Today's Passage: lines worth reading slowly, returning to, and turning into copywork.
From Today's Passage
Sentences selected with care.
25 of 25 passages
MAGIC
“The Magic is in me!
Why it was chosen
Healing begins when life is no longer only something received from others. There are moments when strength rises from within like spring from the ground.
MISTRESS MARY QUITE CONTRARY
“Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?
Why it was chosen
Neglect can make a child look contrary before anyone asks what has been withheld. The possibility of growth begins where care finally enters.
THERE IS NO ONE LEFT
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.
Why it was chosen
A hard beginning may be the first clue to a story of thawing. What looks disagreeable is sometimes loneliness with no better language.
IN THE GARDEN
You never knew, sir, perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken.
Why it was chosen
A locked garden can hold beauty and grief in the same silence. What has been shut away often waits for more than a key.
THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY
Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off—and they are nearly always doing it.
Why it was chosen
A small creature becomes a guide when the lonely finally notice the living world. Attention is often the first gate into healing.
THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY
Yorkshire people seemed strange, and Martha was always rather a puzzle to her.
Why it was chosen
Warmth can feel strange when one has grown used to command instead of companionship. A new place begins to change us through ordinary kindness.
THE CURTAIN
I’m always thinking about it—but we couldn’t go on like this much longer.
Why it was chosen
A room built around fear eventually becomes too small to live in. The first crack in such a room may sound like misery speaking aloud.
DICKON
Also she began to believe that he knew everything in the world about flowers.
Why it was chosen
Trust grows around those who seem at home among living things. Knowledge becomes beautiful when it is joined to gentleness.
“MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?”
I never had any children myself and she’s had twelve, and there never was healthier or better ones.
Why it was chosen
Health can feel like warmth, plainness, and shared life. Some houses are healed less by medicine than by the presence of generous hearts.