You are right about the blue cloak of the queen of heaven, but Susan is no virgin, more a gaian earth mother.

Yes. She definitely seems like a gaian earth mother.

Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house when they returned to it. He had indeed begun to wonder if it might not be wise to send some one out to explore the garden paths. When Colin was brought back to his room the poor man looked him over seriously.

"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert yourself."

"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well. Tomorrow I am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon."

"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven. "I am afraid it would not be wise."

"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colin quite seriously. "I am going."

I love how Colin questions his doctor, and decides against following his demands. It is one of my favorite parts in the book. It is also amazing to me the wisdom of the children, giving Colin his own physical therapy. Although I don't know for certain, I would assume that questioning a doctor in those times would be unthinkable.
The Secret Garden is on of my favorite books, I read it once every year.

Hello farmgirlshelley, welcome to Booktalk!

Thank you for this great gem from Thoreau, Tom. I seriously considered changing my signature quote to it:

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?

The magic in this book is the primal magic, the feeling of belonging in nature and of nature, having a "like to like" correspondence with elements in the natural world.

Not for the first time, I want to put in a pitch for people to read Stephen Harrod Buhner's The Lost Language of Plants, which I think is a poetically and intelligently written explanation of why we should consider more traditional ways of living and healing than the ones we currently are investing in (with profuse apologies to my sister who does hi-tech medical research. I agree with Buhner anyway.)

I like the fact that the garden is all overgrown and the children, being children, don't make it tidy, they just clear away and make it possible for the flowers and shrubs which are already there, to blossom.

We plant the seeds and make it possible for them to grow. But something else makes them grow. Something else makes our hearts beat and 'breathes' us. The wonderful thing about gardening is that we are co-operating with this something else.

Penelope wrote:We plant the seeds and make it possible for them to grow. But something else makes them grow. Something else makes our hearts beat and 'breathes' us. The wonderful thing about gardening is that we are co-operating with this something else.

Penelope, you are a natural mystic with a friendly attitude toward The Great Unknown. But how are we going to have pacemakers and breathing aids if we stop with a mystical "something else"? Colin, remember, wanted science too.

But Colin's science was based off of magical logic. Don't mean to offend anyone but his logic sounds alot like Scientology.

Raving Lunatic wrote:But Colin's science was based off of magical logic. Don't mean to offend anyone but his logic sounds alot like Scientology.

Colin believed he was doing positive thinking experiments, I think, but how are his ideas like Scientology, please?

Tom Hood said:-

But how are we going to have pacemakers and breathing aids if we stop with a mystical "something else"? Colin, remember, wanted science too.

I wouldn't ever suggest that we sit about with our swords wrought into ploughshares......boring!!!

Like Colin, I want Science too. I appreciate scientific discovery, but it doesn't exclude the 'something else'. In fact, the 'something else' provides the inspiration for the scientific discovery.....don't you think,Tom?

Penelope wrote:Like Colin, I want Science too. I appreciate scientific discovery, but it doesn't exclude the 'something else'. In fact, the 'something else' provides the inspiration for the scientific discovery.....don't you think,Tom?

Well, yes, especially in cases like Newton who spent more time on religion than he did on science and mathematics.