Chapter 27 In The Garden.docx

1、Chapter 27 In The GardenChapter 27 In The Garden In each century since the beginning of the world wonderfulthings have been discovered. In the last century moreamazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still moreastounding will be brought to lig

2、ht. At first peoplerefuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done,then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see itcan be done-then it is done and all the world wonderswhy it was not done centuries ago. One of the new thingspeople began to find out in the last century was thatthoughts

3、-just mere thoughts-are as powerful as electricbatteries-as good for one as sunlight is, or as badfor one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one getinto your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fevergerm get into your body. If you let it stay there afterit has got in you may never get ov

4、er it as long as you live.So long as Mistress Marys mind was full of disagreeablethoughts about her dislikes and sour opinions of peopleand her determination not to be pleased by or interestedin anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored andwretched child. Circumstances, however, were verykind

5、to her, though she was not at all aware of it.They began to push her about for her own good. When hermind gradually filled itself with robins, and moorlandcottages crowded with children, with queer crabbedold gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids,with springtime and with secret gardens co

6、ming alive dayby day, and also with a moor boy and his creatures, therewas no room left for the disagreeable thoughts which affectedher liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired.So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thoughtonly of his fears and weakness and his detestationof p

7、eople who looked at him and reflected hourly onhumps and early death, he was a hysterical half-crazylittle hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshineand the spring and also did not know that he could getwell and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it.When new beautiful thoughts began to

8、push out the oldhideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ranhealthily through his veins and strength poured into himlike a flood. His scientific experiment was quite practicaland simple and there was nothing weird about it at all.Much more surprising things can happen to any one who,w

9、hen a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind,just has the sense to remember in time and push it outby putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one.Two things cannot be in one place.Where, you tend a rose, my lad,A thistle cannot grow.While the secret garden was coming alive a

10、nd two childrenwere coming alive with it, there was a man wandering aboutcertain far-away beautiful places in the Norwegian fiordsand the valleys and mountains of Switzerland and he wasa man who for ten years had kept his mind filled with darkand heart-broken thinking. He had not been courageous;he

11、had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place ofthe dark ones. He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them;he had lain on mountain-sides with sheets of deep bluegentians blooming all about him and flower breaths fillingall the air and he had thought them. A terrible sorrowhad fallen upon

12、 him when he had been happy and he hadlet his soul fill itself with blackness and had refusedobstinately to allow any rift of light to pierce through.He had forgotten and deserted his home and his duties.When he traveled about, darkness so brooded over him thatthe sight of him was a wrong done to ot

13、her people becauseit was as if he poisoned the air about him with gloom.Most strangers thought he must be either half mad or a manwith some hidden crime on his soul. He, was a tall manwith a drawn face and crooked shoulders and the name healways entered on hotel registers was, Archibald Craven,Misse

14、lthwaite Manor, Yorkshire, England.He had traveled far and wide since the day he saw MistressMary in his study and told her she might have her bitof earth. He had been in the most beautiful places in Europe,though he had remained nowhere more than a few days.He had chosen the quietest and remotest s

15、pots.He had been on the tops of mountains whose heads werein the clouds and had looked down on other mountainswhen the sun rose and touched them with such lightas made it seem as if the world were just being born.But the light had never seemed to touch himself untilone day when he realized that for

16、the first time in tenyears a strange thing had happened. He was in a wonderfulvalley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had been walking alonethrough such beauty as might have lifted, any mans soulout of shadow. He had walked a long way and it had notlifted his. But at last he had felt tired and had throw

17、nhimself down to rest on a carpet of moss by a stream.It was a clear little stream which ran quite merrily alongon its narrow way through the luscious damp greenness.Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low laughteras it bubbled over and round stones. He saw birdscome and dip their heads to dr

18、ink in it and then flicktheir wings and fly away. It seemed like a thing aliveand yet its tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper.The valley was very, very still.As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water,Archibald Craven gradually felt his mind and bodyboth grow quiet, as quiet as the v

19、alley itself.He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not.He sat and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes beganto see things growing at its edge. There was one lovelymass of blue forget-me-nots growing so close to the streamthat its leaves were wet and at these he found himself lookingas

20、he remembered he had looked at such things years ago.He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was andwhat wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were.He did not know that just that simple thought was slowlyfilling his mind-filling and filling it until other thingswere softly pushed a

21、side. It was as if a sweet clearspring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risenand risen until at last it swept the dark water away.But of course he did not think of this himself. He onlyknew that the valley seemed to grow quieter and quieteras he sat and stared at the bright delicate blue

22、ness.He did not know how long he sat there or what was happeningto him, but at last he moved as if he were awakeningand he got up slowly and stood on the moss carpet,drawing a long, deep, soft breath and wondering at himself.Something seemed to have been unbound and released in him,very quietly.What

23、 is it? he said, almost in a whisper, and he passedhis hand over his forehead. I almost feel as if-Iwere alive!I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscoveredthings to be able to explain how this had happened to him.Neither does any one else yet. He did not understandat all himself-but

24、he remembered this strange hourmonths afterward when he was at Misselthwaite againand he found out quite by accident that on this very dayColin had cried out as he went into the secret garden:I am going to live forever and ever and ever!The singular calmness remained with him the rest of theevening

25、and he slept a new reposeful sleep; but it wasnot with him very long. He did not know that it couldbe kept. By the next night he had opened the doorswide to his dark thoughts and they had come troopingand rushing back. He left the valley and went on hiswandering way again. But, strange as it seemed

26、to him,there were minutes-sometimes half-hours-when, withouthis knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itselfagain and he knew he was a living man and not a dead one.Slowly-slowly-for no reason that he knew of-he wascoming alive with the garden.As the golden summer changed into the deep golden

27、 autumn hewent to the Lake of Como. There he found the lovelinessof a dream. He spent his days upon the crystal bluenessof the lake or he walked back into the soft thick verdureof the hills and tramped until he was tired so that hemight sleep. But by this time he had begun to sleep better,he knew, a

28、nd his dreams had ceased to be a terror to him.Perhaps, he thought, my body is growing stronger.It was growing stronger but-because of the rarepeaceful hours when his thoughts were changed-his soulwas slowly growing stronger, too. He began to thinkof Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home

29、.Now and then he wondered vaguely about his boy and askedhimself what he should feel when he went and stoodby the carved four-posted bed again and looked down atthe sharply chiseled ivory-white face while it slept and,the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes.He shrank from it.One m

30、arvel of a day he had walked so far that when hereturned the moon was high and full and all the worldwas purple shadow and silver. The stillness of lakeand shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not gointo the villa he lived in. He walked down to a littlebowered terrace at the waters edge and s

31、at upon a seatand breathed in all the heavenly scents of the night.He felt the strange calmness stealing over him and it grewdeeper and deeper until he fell asleep.He did not know when he fell asleep and when he beganto dream; his dream was so real that he did not feelas if he were dreaming. He reme

32、mbered afterward howintensely wide awake and alert he had thought he was.He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent ofthe late roses and listened to the lapping of the waterat his feet he heard a voice calling. It was sweetand clear and happy and far away. It seemed very far,but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at hisvery side.Archie! Archie! Archie! it said, and then again,sweeter and clearer than before, Archie! Archie!He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled.It