George MacDonald
apenitentialprayer September 5, 2023:
detail of Our Lady Star of the Sea, by Theophilia
Could it be—? No, it couldn’t. But what if it should be — yes, —it must be— — her great-great grandmother’s lamp, which guided her pigeons home through the darkest night! She jumped up: she had but to keep that light in view and she must find her house. Her heart grew strong. Speedily, yet softly, she walked down the hill […] Dark as it was, there was little danger now of choosing the wrong road. And —which was most strange— the light that filled her eyes from the lamp, instead of blinding them for a moment to the object upon which they next fell, enabled her for a moment to see it, despite the darkness.
– George MacDonald (The Princess and the Goblin, Chapter 14). Bolded emphases added.
a prayer of Saint Anthony of Padua:
Our Lady, Star of the Sea, we pray that you shine upon us when we are buffeted by the raging sea. Guide us to harbor; defend our going out with your watchful presence, so we may be found fit to go out safely from this prison, and come joyfully to unending joy.
What would you do with the pretended suicides?’
‘Whip them, for trifling with and trading upon the feelings of their kind.’
‘Then you would drive them to suicide in earnest.’
‘Then they might be worth something, which they were not before.’
'We are a great deal too humane for that now-a-days, I fear. We don’t like hurting people.’
'No. We are infested with a philanthropy which is the offspring of our mammon-worship. But surely our tender mercies are cruel. We don’t like to hang people, however unfit they may be to live amongst their fellows. A weakling pity will petition for the life of the worst murderer—but for what? To keep him alive in a confinement as like their notion of hell as they dare to make it—namely, a place whence all the sweet visitings of the grace of God are withdrawn, and the man has not a chance, so to speak, of growing better. In this hell of theirs they will even pamper his beastly body.’
— Robert Falconer, George MacDonaldfrom The Golden Key, by George MacDonald (Illustration by Craig Yoe, via Amazon Book Preview)
It is a great privilege to be poor, Peter—one that no man ever coveted, and but a very few have sought to retain, but one that yet many have learned to prize. You must not mistake, however, and imagine it a virtue; it is but a privilege, and one also that, like other privileges, may be terribly misused. — The Princess in The Princess and Curdie, George MacDonald
intheheatherbright:George Macdonald, The Princess and Curdie, illustrated by Will Nickless (London: Collins, no date [1883].
This is a wise, sane Christian faith: that a man commit himself, his life, and his hopes to God; that God undertakes the special protection of that man; that therefore that man ought not to be afraid of anything. —
George MacDonald
[This includes fear of death itself. MacDonald’s holy characters are generally less concerned about prosperity or health–even living or dying (MacDonald was no pacifist) than with upholding a good end for all; that is, loving the Lord thy God with heart, mind, strength; and loving thy neighbor as thyself.]
This is a wise, sane Christian faith: that a man commit himself, his life, and his hopes to God; that God undertakes the special protection of that man; that therefore that man ought not to be afraid of anything. —
George MacDonald
This includes fear of death itself. MacDonald’s holy characters are generally less concerned about prosperity or health–even living or dying (MacDonald was no pacificist) than with upholding a good end for all; that is, loving the Lord thy God with heart, mind, strength; and loving thy neighbor as thyself.
One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.George MacDonald
“Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of painful thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill.” — “Phantastes,” by George MacDonald
George MacDonald, from “The Complete Poems & Fairytales,” wr. c. 1905
neovictorian:Sun & Moon by Timbre Sun & Moon is the exploration of an idea: no art exists on its own. Art always influences art. This album explores the deep intrinsic relationship between popular music and classical music. “Sun” features music written and performed by my band, while “Moon” features classical music I have written for solo harp, harp & oboe, orchestra, and choir. Playing with the ideas of reflection, shadow, light, and darkness, the two halves of Sun & Moon reflect one another, mirroring the relationship between these two art forms. Many of the musical themes pass back and forth between the two sides. A four-note motif begins “Sunrise” and ends “Sunset”, representing the space between light and dark, where everything blends together. This motif can be heard throughout both sides of the album, constantly blurring the thin separation between them. With Sun & Moon I strive to paint vividly with the light, the joy, the passion of modern commercial music, and the darkness, depth, and richness of classical music, and show that together they can communicate beauty in greater depths than either can alone. My hope is that through experiencing these two languages of art, listeners will have a new, deep, and visceral experience of beauty, for beauty is more than an idea, but is a reality that is meant to be deeply known and experienced. -Timbre “Your eyes, they are so black. Darkness can’t see, of course. I will be your eyes, and teach you to see.” - The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris, George MacDonald
“She does not belong by rights to this world at all, but to some other planet, probably Mercury. Her proclivity to her true sphere destroys all the natural influence which this orb would otherwise possess over her corporeal frame. She cares for nothing here. There is no relation between her and this world.” — George MacDonald, The Light Princess
This is not the perspective of MacDonald; these are words through Kopy-Keck the spiritualist as a comedic foil to Hum-Drum the materialist, both of which are foil to the actual solution. Kopy-Keck resumes:
“She must therefore be taught, by the sternest compulsion, to take an interest in the earth as the earth. She must study every department of its history–its animal history; its vegetable history; its mineral history; its social history; its moral history; its political history, its scientific history; its literary history; its musical history; its artistical history; above all, its metaphysical history. She must begin with the Chinese dynasty and end with Japan. But first of all she must study geology, and especially the history of the extinct races of animals-their natures, their habits, their loves, their hates, their revenges. She must–” Which of course does not solve anything for a girl who has lost her gravity.
“But, sir, isn’t death a dreadful thing?” asked Malcolm.“That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate or as the will of a perfect God. Its obscurity is its dread. But if God be light, then death itself must be full of splendor - a splendor probably too keen for our eyes to receive.”“But there’s the dying itself; isn’t that fearsome? It’s that I would be afraid of.”“I don’t see why it should be. It’s the lack a of God that makes it dreadful, and you would be greatly to blame for that, Malcolm, if you hadn’t found your God by the time you had to die.”
–Malcolm, by George MacDonald
“We are all very anxious to be understood, & it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.’What is that, grandmother?’To understand other people.’Yes, I must be fair - for if I’m not fair to other people, I’m not worth being understood myself. I see.”
–George MacDonald
Did you know? C.S. Lewis never actually said the line, “You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
We get a lot of questions about where to find Lewis quotes, and the source of this one is frequently asked for, with good reason!
A very similar quote can be found instead in Walter Miller, Jr.’s famous sci-fi novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. In part III, the Abbot Zerchi says, "You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.” The Doctor in dialogue with the Abbot calls this a “semantic confusion.” Lewis greatly enjoyed A Canticle for Leibowitz, calling it a “major work,” but he did not take this line from it.— C.S. Lewis Foundation
In fact, the quote can be found even earlier than that. In 1892, a piece was published in the British Friend, a Quaker magazine, which attributed the line to George MacDonald: “‘Never tell a child you have a soul. Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body.” Lewis, of course, had great reverence for MacDonald, so perhaps this explains how the famous saying became attributed to him.
Noun[vy/vee-uh dol-uh-ro-suh]1. a distressing journey or experience.Origin: From the Latin word via dolōrōsa literally, sorrowful road
“There was no moon; nothing but the gas-lamps lighted Clare’s Via dolorosa.”
– George MacDonald, A Rough Shaking
Life is measured by intensity, not by dial, dropping sand or watch.
— George MacDonald
“No words can express how much the world owes to sorrow. Most of the Psalms were born in the wilderness. Most of the Epistles were written in a prison. The greatest thoughts of the greatest thinkers have all passed through fire. The greatest poets have “learned in suffering what they taught in song.” In bonds Bunyan lived the allegory that he afterwards wrote, and we may thank Bedford Jail for the Pilgrim’s Progress. Take comfort, afflicted Christian! When God is about to make pre-eminent use of a person, He put them in the fire.” — George MacDonald
George MacDonald
“There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected."
–George MacDonald
“ …Then she carried her to the side of the room. Irene wondered what she was going to do with her, but asked no questions, only starting a little when she found that she was going to lay her in the large silver bath; for as she looked into it, again she saw no bottom, but the stars shining miles away, as it seemed, in a great blue gulf.” - Princess & The Goblin (1872) by George Macdonald
“Then you must lay your finger, the same that wore the ring, upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you.”“Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, grandmother, I know!”“Yes. But, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.”The Princess & The Goblin (1872) by George Macdonald
To be right with God is to be right with the universe; one with the power, the love, the will of the mighty Father, the cherisher of joy, the Lord of laughter, whose are all glories, all hopes, who loves everything, and hates nothing but selfishness, which he will not have in his kingdom.
— George MacDonald
The Princess and Curdie by MacDonald, 1927, Dorothy Lathrop
Institutionalized Christianity has been no stranger to unjustified and evil violence. But at the same time, Christianity in itself makes peace not only something good, but something foundational and indeed transcendental. And as far as I can tell it is unique in this regard. This is because of the doctrine of the Trinity. Only in Christianity is reality itself, the source of all being, personal - and not only personal, but persons in communion. On the Christian view and no other is everything that exists an overflowing result of, and in some way a participation in, eternal loving relationship between distinct persons. Other worldviews have personality as an accident, or an illusion, or at best as springing from a lonely monad. Only in Christianity is the One also and equally the Many, and, as George MacDonald says “two at least are needed for oneness.” – onancientpaths