Mistress Mary Quite Contrary

Much More Surprising Things Can Happen To Anyone Who, When A Disagreeable Or Discouraged Thought Comes Into His Mind, Just Has The Sense To Remember In Time And Push It Out By Putting In An Agreeable, Determinedly Courageous One. Two Things Cannot Be In One Place.

When I Was At School My Jography Told Me Th' Earth Was Shaped Like A Orange An' I Found Out Before I Was Ten That Th' Whole Orange Doesn't Belong To Nobody. No One Owns More Than His Bit Of A Quarter An' There's Times It Seems There's Not Enow Quarters To Go Around. But Don't You-none O' You- Think As You Own Th' Whole Orange Or You'll Find Out You're Mistaken, An' You Won't Find It Without Hard Knocks. What Children Learns From Children, Is That There's No Sense Grabbin' At Th' Whole Orange-peel An' All. If You Do You'll Likely Not Get Even Th' Pips, An' Them's Too Bitter To Eat.

Two Things Cannot Be In One Place. Where You Tend A Rose, My Lad, A Thistle Cannot Grow.

The Robin Flew From His Swinging Spray Of Ivy On To The Top Of The Wall And He Opened His Beak And Sang A Loud, Lovely Trill, Merely To Show Off. Nothing In The World Is Quite As Adorably Lovely As A Robin When He Shows Off - And They Are Nearly Always Doing It.

In The Garden There Was Nothing Which Was Not Quite Like Themselves - Nothing Which Did Not Understand The Wonderfulness Of What Was Happening To Them - The Immense, Tender, Terrible, Heart-breaking Beauty And Solemnity Of Eggs. If There Had Been One Person In That Garden Who Had Not Known Through All His Or Her Innermost Being That If An Egg Were Taken Away Or Hurt The Whole World Would Whirl Round And Crash Through Space And Come To An End... There Could Have Been No Happiness Even In That Golden Springtime Air.