※ spectator:one who looks on or watches
※auditorium:the part of a public building where an audience sits
※audience:
a group of people who gather together to listen to something (such as a concert) or watch something (such as a movie or play) ; the people who attend a performance
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the secret garden written by Frances Hodgson Burnett
-----a classic of English children's literature
Plot summary
Around the turn of the 20th century, Mary Lennox is a troubled, sickly and unloved 10-year-old girl, who was born in India to selfish, wealthy British parents, who never wanted her. She is cared for mainly by servants, who pacify her as far as possible to keep her out of her parents' way. She grows into a spoiled and selfish girl.
After a cholera epidemic which kills Mary's parents and all the servants, Mary is discovered alive but alone in the empty house. She briefly lives with an English clergyman and his family, and is then sent to Yorkshire, England, to live with Archibald Craven, an uncle she has never met, at his bleak, isolated house, Misselthwaite Manor.
At first, Mary is her usual self: sour and rude. She dislikes her uncle's home, the people in it, and most of all, the vast stretch of moor on which it sits, which seems scrubby and grey after the winter. She is told that she must stay confined to her two rooms and keep herself amused without much attention. Martha Sowerby, a good-natured maid, tells Mary a story of the late Mrs Craven and how she would spend hours in a private walled garden growing roses. Mrs Craven died after a tree branch fell on her in the garden, and the devastated Lord Craven locked the garden and buried the key. Mary's interest is aroused by this story and her ill manners begin to soften. Soon she comes to enjoy the company of Martha, the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and a friendly robin redbreast, to whom she assigns a human personality. Her health and attitude improve, and she grows stronger as she plays by herself on the moor. Martha's mother buys Mary a skipping rope to encourage this, and Mary takes to it immediately. Mary occupies her time wondering about both the secret garden and about cries she hears at night. The servants claim not to hear the cries.
As Mary explores the periphery of the gardens, her robin draws her attention to an area of disturbed soil. Here Mary finds the key to the locked garden and eventually the door to the garden itself. She asks Martha for garden tools, which Martha sends with Dickon, her 12-year-old brother. Mary and Dickon take a liking to each other, as Dickon has a kind way with animals and a good nature. Eager to absorb his gardening knowledge, Mary shared the secret of the garden with him.
That night Mary hears crying again. She follows the noise and finds to her surprise a small boy of her own age living in a hidden bedroom. His name is Colin. She soon discovers that they are cousins: he is the son of her uncle. His mother died when he was a baby, and he suffers from an unspecified spinal problem. Mary visits him every day that week, distracting him from his troubles with stories of the moor, Dickon and his animals, and the garden. Mary finally confides she has access to the secret garden, and they decide Colin needs fresh air. Colin is put into his wheelchair and brought outside into the garden. It is the first time he has been outdoors for years.
While in the garden, the children are surprised to see Ben Weatherstaff looking over the wall on a ladder. Startled and angry to find the children in Colin's mother's garden, he admits he believed Colin to be a cripple. Colin stands up from his chair and finds that his legs are fine, though weak from long disuse. Colin soon spends every day in the garden. The children conspire to keep Colin's recovering health a secret, so as to surprise his father, who is travelling and still mourns his late wife. As Colin's health improves, his faraway father sees a coinciding increase in spirits, culminating in a dream where his late wife calls to him from inside the garden. When he receives a letter from Martha's mother, he takes the opportunity finally to return home. He walks the outer garden wall in his wife's memory, but hears voices inside, finds the door unlocked, and is shocked to see the garden in full bloom, and his son healthy and invigorated. The servants watch, stunned, as Lord Craven walks back to the manor and Colin runs beside him.
※cholera:
: a serious disease that causes severe vomiting and diarrhea and that often results in death
※epidemic:
affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time
※ periphery:
: the outside edge of an area
※ robin:)
a North American bird with a grayish back and reddish breast
※disuse:
: to discontinue the use or practice of
※ conspire:
to secretly plan with someone to do something that is harmful or illegal
※culminating
to reach the end or the final result of something
※ invigorated
to give life and energy to
※manor
a large country house on a large piece of land
※disagreeable:
not pleasing : unpleasant or offensive
※A disagreeable face
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tele-
Word-forming element meaning "far, far off, operating over distance"
from Greek tele-, combining form of tele "far off, afar, at or to a distance"
For example:
1.telephone
2.telegram(both from Greek teleskopos "far-seeing," from tele- "far" ( tele-) + -skopos "watcher"(scope) )
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bona fide
:real or genuine
Latin, literally "in good faith," ablative of bona fides "good faith" . Originally used as an adverb, later also as an adjective. The opposite is mala fide.
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The story of ...Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans", is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. Joan of Arc was born to Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée, a peasant family, at Domrémy in north-east France. Joan said she received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent Joan to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence after the siege was lifted only nine days later. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims. This long-awaited event boosted French morale and paved the way for the final French victory.
On 23 May 1430, she was captured at Compiègne by the Burgundian faction, which was allied with the English. She was later handed over to the English and put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon on a variety of charges.After Cauchon declared her guilty she was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, dying at about nineteen years of age.
In 1456, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, debunked the charges against her, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr. In the 16th century she became a symbol of the Catholic League, and in 1803 she was declared a national symbol of France by the decision of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.
Now a major picture of movie"Joan of Arc"
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These ROOT-WORDS are VER & VERI
which come from the Latin verus which means true and genuine.
To complete the meaning of VERism , the VERist who believes in VERism calls it realism & impressionism. Ugliness does exist in life and so do vulgarity and other evils. Therefore they belong in the picture, the true picture of life.
※verism:
artistic use of contemporary everyday material in preference to the heroic or legendary especially in grand opera
※ verist
artistic use of contemporary everyday material in preference to the heroic or legendary especially in grand opera
1.Veracious: VER acious (ve ray’ shus) adj.
Truthful; accurate
2.Veracity: VER acity (ve ras’ it ee) n.
Truth; accuracy
3.Verify: VER ify (ver i fie) v.
To prove to be true; confirm
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