At the Back of the North Wind I have just finished reading George MacDonald’s “At the Back of the North Wind.” It is an excellent book (his works always are) whose original analogies inspire meditation. In short, it awakens the imagination. I have always enjoyed George MacDonald’s works, my favorite being “The Light Princess and Other Stories.” For those of you who don’t know, MacDonald was a contemporary of my beloved C. S. Lewis (he wrote a little series called “The Chronicles of Narnia”) and J. R. R. Tolkien (yeah. Lord of the Rings guy.). All three bring a different perspective to fantasy fiction. Tolkien offers the grand, wide view of the world, and how the smallest event can affect all. Lewis explores the magic of the unseen. MacDonald embraces the simple truth of fairy tales. His style is the matter-of-fact “why-couldn’t-this-be-true?” sense of literature. I recommend anything and everything that any of these men have written. This book, “At the Back of the North Wind,” is another of MacDonald’s gems. It follows the story of Diamond, a boy who meets North Wind and goes with her on her adventures. The dialogue is clever and MacDonald captures the essence of childlike logic perfectly. Read it; it’s good. As is my custom, here are a few of my underlined quotes. Diamond ~ “There are better things than being comfortable.” ~ “If I choose to be their friend, you know, they can’t prevent me.” ~ “It’s only loving a thing that can make it yours.” ~ “Somehow, when once you’ve looked into anybody’s eyes, right deep down into them, I mean, nobody will do for that one any more. Nobody, ever so beautiful or so good, will make up for that one going out of sight.” North Wind ~ “What’s to become of me without a window?” ~ “To know a name is not always to know a person’s self.” ~ “Sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes time for their badness to spoil their beauty. ~ “You must not let go your hold of me, for my hand will never change in yours if you keep a good hold.” ~ “I don’t mind people crying so much as I mind what they cry about, and how they cry…” ~ “Every man ought to be a gentleman.” ~ “What’s the use of knowing a thing only because you’re told it?” ~ “I am always able for what I have to do. When I see my work, I must rush at it—and it is done.” ~ “I can do nothing cruel, although I often do what looks like cruel to those who do not know what I really am doing.” ~ “A poet is a man who is glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it too.” ~ “You can’t be knowing the thing you don’t know, can you?” ~ “To try to be brave is to be brace. The coward who tries to be brace is before the man who is brave because he is made so, and never had to try.” ~ “It is not good at all to do everything for those you love, and not give them a share in the doing. It’s not kind. It’s making too much of yourself.” ~ “I don’t think you could dream anything that hadn’t something real like it somewhere.” Narrator ~ “It is always a dreadful thing to think there is somebody and find nobody.” ~ “It can’t be denied that a little gentle crying does one good.” ~ “It is not fine things that make a home a nice place, but your mother and your father.” ~ “Perhaps kissing is the best thing for crying, but it will not always stop it.” ~ “Every place has some advantages, and they are always better worth knowing than the disadvantages.” ~ “To try to make others comfortable is the only way to get right comfortable ourselves, and that comes partly of not being able to think so much about ourselves when we are helping other people.” ~ “With an obedient mind one learns the rights of things fast enough: for it is the law of the universe, and to obey is to understand.” ~ “Genius… it means one who understands things without any other body telling him what they mean. God makes a few such now and then to teach the rest of us.” ~ “There are not many people who can think about beautiful things and do common work at the same time.” ~ “Even the wickedest of creatures likes a pretext for doing the wrong thing.” ~ “It is amazing how things contrive to accommodate themselves.” ~ “Of God’s gifts a baby is of the greatest.” ~ “It is a strange thing how the 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 love even the kindness which alone can soothe the suffering.” ~ “The highest wisdom must ever appear folly to those who do not possess it.” | 
