Frances Hodgson Burnett Quote
That girl has been listening, she said.The culprit snatched up her brush, and scrambled to her feet. She caught at the coal box and simply scuttled out of the room like a frightened rabbit.Sara felt rather hot-tempered.I knew she was listening, she said. Why shouldn’t she?Lavinia tossed her head with great elegance.Well, she remarked, I do not know whether your mamma would like you to tell stories to servant girls, but I know manna wouldn’t like to do it.My mamma! said Sara, looking odd. I don’t believe she would mind in the least. She knows that stories belong to everybody.I thought, retorted Lavinia, in severe recollection, that your mamma was dead. How can she know things?Do you think she know things? said Sara, in her stern little voice. Sometimes she had a rather stern little voice.Sara’s mamma knows everything, piped in Lottie. So does my mamma--’cept Sara is my mamma at Miss Minchin’s--my other one knows everything. The streets are shining, and there are fields and fields of lilies, and everybody gathers them. Sara tells me when she puts me to bed.You wicked thing, said Lavinia, turning on Sara; making fairy stories about heaven.There are much more splendid stories in Revelation, returned Sara. Just look and see! How do you know mine are fairy stories? But I can tell you--with a fine bit of unheavenly temper--you will never find out whether they are or not if you’re not kinder to people than you are now. Come along, Lottie.
That girl has been listening, she said.The culprit snatched up her brush, and scrambled to her feet. She caught at the coal box and simply scuttled out of the room like a frightened rabbit.Sara felt rather hot-tempered.I knew she was listening, she said. Why shouldn’t she?Lavinia tossed her head with great elegance.Well, she remarked, I do not know whether your mamma would like you to tell stories to servant girls, but I know manna wouldn’t like to do it.My mamma! said Sara, looking odd. I don’t believe she would mind in the least. She knows that stories belong to everybody.I thought, retorted Lavinia, in severe recollection, that your mamma was dead. How can she know things?Do you think she know things? said Sara, in her stern little voice. Sometimes she had a rather stern little voice.Sara’s mamma knows everything, piped in Lottie. So does my mamma--’cept Sara is my mamma at Miss Minchin’s--my other one knows everything. The streets are shining, and there are fields and fields of lilies, and everybody gathers them. Sara tells me when she puts me to bed.You wicked thing, said Lavinia, turning on Sara; making fairy stories about heaven.There are much more splendid stories in Revelation, returned Sara. Just look and see! How do you know mine are fairy stories? But I can tell you--with a fine bit of unheavenly temper--you will never find out whether they are or not if you’re not kinder to people than you are now. Come along, Lottie.
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About Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Eliza Hodgson was born in Cheetham, Manchester, England. After her father died in 1853, when Frances was 4 years old, the family fell on straitened circumstances and in 1865 emigrated to the United States, settling in New Market, Tennessee. Frances began her writing career there at age 19 to help earn money for the family, publishing stories in magazines. In 1870, her mother died. In Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1873 she married Swan Burnett, who became a medical doctor. Their first son Lionel was born a year later. The Burnetts lived for two years in Paris, where their second son Vivian was born, before returning to the United States to live in Washington, D.C. Burnett then began to write novels, the first of which (That Lass o' Lowrie's), was published to good reviews. Little Lord Fauntleroy was published in 1886 and made her a popular writer of children's fiction, although her romantic adult novels written in the 1890s were also popular. She wrote and helped to produce stage versions of Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess.
Beginning in the 1880s, Burnett began to travel to England frequently and in the 1890s bought a home there, where she wrote The Secret Garden. Her elder son, Lionel, died of tuberculosis in 1890, which caused a relapse of the depression she had struggled with for much of her life. She divorced Swan Burnett in 1898, married Stephen Townsend in 1900, and divorced him in 1902. A few years later she settled in Nassau County, New York, where she died in 1924 and is buried in Roslyn Cemetery.
In 1936, a memorial sculpture by Bessie Potter Vonnoh was erected in her honor in Central Park's Conservatory Garden. The statue depicts her two famous Secret Garden characters, Mary and Dickon.