Frances Hodgson Burnett

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.

you may never get over it as long as you live.

while those whom Mary saw slunk or hur­ried about with ashy and scared faces

The bird put his tiny head on one side and looked up at him with his soft bright eye which was like a black dew­drop. He seemed quite fa­mil­iar and not the least afraid. He hopped about and pecked the earth briskly, look­ing for seeds and in­sects. It ac­tu­ally gave Mary a queer feel­ing in her heart, be­cause he was so pretty and cheer­ful and seemed so like a per­son.

Mother says as th’ two worst things as can hap­pen to a child is never to have his own way—or al­ways to have it. She doesn’t know which is th’ worst.

One of the strange things about liv­ing in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is go­ing to live for­ever and ever and ever. One knows it some­times when one gets up at the ten­der solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly chang­ing and flush­ing and mar­velous un­known things hap­pen­ing un­til the East al­most makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange un­chang­ing majesty of the ris­ing of the sun—which has been hap­pen­ing ev­ery morn­ing for thou­sands and thou­sands and thou­sands of years. One knows it then for a mo­ment or so. And one knows it some­times when one stands by one­self in a wood at sun­set and the mys­te­ri­ous deep gold still­ness slant­ing through and un­der the branches seems to be say­ing slowly again and again some­thing one can­not quite hear, how­ever much one tries. Then some­times the im­mense quiet of the dark blue at night with mil­lions of stars wait­ing and watch­ing makes one sure; and some­times a sound of far-off mu­sic makes it true; and some­times a look in some­one’s eyes.

And de­light reigned.

At first peo­ple refuse to be­lieve that a strange new thing can be done, then they be­gin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done and all the world won­ders why it was not done cen­turies ago.

Since she had been

If Mary Len­nox