"At the Back of the North Wind" by George MacDonald

[Jamie123]

I've been reading this to my wife for a bedtime story, and we finished it last night. In case you haven't read it, it's the story of a young boy who is befriended by a goddess-like personification of the North Wind, who takes him on various adventures, culminating in a visit to Hyperboria (the mythical land of the far north that Herodotus wrote about) which eventually infects him with the "...highest wisdom [which] must ever appear folly to those who do not possess it".

Yet the North Wind seems to be cruel too: at one point she has to sink a ship. It makes me think of what we were discussing earlier in the "Joseph was a Jerk" thread - not about Joseph himself, but about how the "terrible" God of the Old Testament can be the same as the merciful God of the New. Vort had a lot to say on this, which I am still turning over in my mind. This does kind of tie in with that...

Quote

“Then you do mean to sink the ship with the other hand?”

“Yes.”

“It's not like you.”

“How do you know that?”

“Quite easily. Here you are taking care of a poor little boy with one arm, and there you are sinking a ship with the other. It can't be like you.”

“Ah! but which is me? I can't be two mes, you know.”

“No. Nobody can be two mes.”

“Well, which me is me?”

“Now I must think. There looks to be two.”

“Yes. That's the very point.—You can't be knowing the thing you don't know, can you?”

“No.”

“Which me do you know?”

“The kindest, goodest, best me in the world,” answered Diamond, clinging to North Wind.

“Why am I good to you?”

“I don't know.”

“Have you ever done anything for me?”

“No.”

“Then I must be good to you because I choose to be good to you.”

“Yes.”

“Why should I choose?”

“Because—because—because you like.”

“Why should I like to be good to you?”

“I don't know, except it be because it's good to be good to me.”

“That's just it; I am good to you because I like to be good.”

“Then why shouldn't you be good to other people as well as to me?”

“That's just what I don't know. Why shouldn't I?”

“I don't know either. Then why shouldn't you?”

“Because I am.”

“There it is again,” said Diamond. “I don't see that you are. It looks quite the other thing.”

“Well, but listen to me, Diamond. You know the one me, you say, and that is good.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the other me as well?”

“No. I can't. I shouldn't like to.”

“There it is. You don't know the other me. You are sure of one of them?”

“Yes.”

“And you are sure there can't be two mes?”

“Yes.”

“Then the me you don't know must be the same as the me you do know,—else there would be two mes?”

“Yes.”

“Then the other me you don't know must be as kind as the me you do know?”

“Yes.”

“Besides, I tell you that it is so, only it doesn't look like it. That I confess freely.

Some other wonderful moments in the story:

Quote

“Why did you leave me, dear North Wind?”

“Because I wanted you to walk alone,” she answered.

“But it is so much nicer here!” said Diamond.

“I daresay; but I couldn't hold a little coward to my heart. It would make me so cold!”

“But I wasn't brave of myself,” said Diamond, whom my older readers will have already discovered to be a true child in this, that he was given to metaphysics. “It was the wind that blew in my face that made me brave. Wasn't it now, North Wind?”

“Yes: I know that. You had to be taught what courage was. And you couldn't know what it was without feeling it: therefore it was given you. But don't you feel as if you would try to be brave yourself next time?”

“Yes, I do. But trying is not much.”

“Yes, it is—a very great deal, for it is a beginning. And a beginning is the greatest thing of all. To try to be brave is to be brave. The coward who tries to be brave is before the man who is brave because he is made so, and never had to try.”

“How kind you are, North Wind!”

“I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it.”

Quote

“Please, dear North Wind,” he said, “I am so happy that I'm afraid it's a dream. How am I to know that it's not a dream?”

“What does it matter?” returned North Wind.

“I should, cry” said Diamond.

“But why should you cry? The dream, if it is a dream, is a pleasant one—is it not?”

“That's just why I want it to be true.”

“Have you forgotten what you said to Nanny about her dream?”

“It's not for the dream itself—I mean, it's not for the pleasure of it,” answered Diamond, “for I have that, whether it be a dream or not; it's for you, North Wind; I can't bear to find it a dream, because then I should lose you. You would be nobody then, and I could not bear that. You ain't a dream, are you, dear North Wind? Do say No, else I shall cry, and come awake, and you'll be gone for ever. I daren't dream about you once again if you ain't anybody.”

“I'm either not a dream, or there's something better that's not a dream, Diamond,” said North Wind, in a rather sorrowful tone, he thought.

“But it's not something better—it's you I want, North Wind,” he persisted...

Quote

It is a strange thing how pain of seeing the suffering of those we love will sometimes make us add to their suffering by being cross with them. This comes of not having faith enough in God, and shows how necessary this faith is, for when we lose it, we lose even the kindness which alone can soothe the suffering.

The last one particularly hits home with me. That is me to a T!

There's also a chapter - the story of "Princess Daylight" - which I think must have been part of the inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien's story of Beren and Luthien. (In The Silmarillion, and told as a story by Aragorn in Lord of the Rings). Tolkien always claimed the pivotal scene - where Beren first sees Luthien dancing among the hemlocks came to him when watching his wife Edith dancing, but I still think George MacDonald must have snuck in there somewhere!

Edited November 5, 2019 by Jamie123

[Vort]

Now you've made me want to read this.

[Jamie123]

13 hours ago, Vort said:

Now you've made me want to read this.

I read it off Project Gutenberg here http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/225 - though I do have a battered paperback of it somewhere. My wife liked it so much I'm going to try to find a nice hardback edition to give her for Christmas.