George MacDonald

“ As Harry rose from the piano-forte, he said to me gaily:
"Now, Mr. Smith, it is your turn. I know when you sing, it will be something worth listening to."
"Indeed, I hope so," I answered. "But the song-hour has not yet come to me. How good you all ought to be who can sing! I feel as if my heart would break with delight, if I could sing; and yet there is not a sparrow on the housetop that cannot sing a better song than I."
"Your hour will come," said the clergyman, solemnly. "Then you will sing, and all we shall listen. There is no inborn longing that shall not be fulfilled. ”

“ And Time, in his unresting tides, Makes all things change and pass; Turns riches to a beggar's dole; Sets glory's race an infant's goal. Be noble—that is more than wealth; Do right—that's more than place; Then in the spirit there is health, And gladness in the face; Then thou art with thyself at one, And, no man hating, fearest none. I am content. In trumpet-tones, My song, let people know. And many a mighty man, with throne And sceptre, is not so. And if he is, I joyful cry, Why then, he's just the same as I."
"Is that one of your own, Mr. Armstrong?" asked the colonel. ”

“ Dull is the eye of day that flamed so bright; In gentle death, its colours all are dim; Unfolding fearless in the fair half light, The flower-cups ope, that all day closed their brim; Calm lifts the moon her clear face on the night; Dissolved in masses faint, Earth's features swim; Each grace withdraws the soft relaxing zone— Beauty unrobed shines full on me alone. See I not, there, a white shimmer?— Something with pale silken shine? No; it is the column's glimmer, 'Gainst the gloomy hedge of pine. O longing heart! no more thyself delight With shadow-forms—a sweet deceiving pleasure ”

“ The sea was not frozen; for all the stars shone as clear out of the deeps below as they shone out of the deeps above; and as the bearers slid along the blue-grey surface, with never a furrow in their track, so clear was the water beneath, that the king saw neither surface, bottom, nor substance to it, and seemed to be gliding only through the blue sphere of heaven, with the stars above him, and the stars below him, and between the stars and him nothing but an emptiness, where, for the first time in his life, his soul felt that it had room enough. ”

“ Who would be a man and weep? We ought indeed to love one another, for we alone inherit oblivion; we alone are renewed with eternal birth; we alone have no gathered weight of years. I will tell you the awful fate of one Shadow who rebelled against his nature, and sought to remember the past. He said, 'I will remember this eve.' He fought with the genial influences of kindly sleep when the sun rose on the awful dead day of light; and although he could not keep quite awake, he dreamed of the foregone eve, and he never forgot his dream. ”

“ The sun shone o'er it, large and glowing; Beneath, a ministers structure proud Stood in the gold light, golden showing. It seemed on those great clouds, sun-clear, Aloft to hover, as on pinions; Its spire-point seemed to disappear, Melting away in high dominions. The bell's clear tones, entrancing, full— The quivering tower, they, booming, swung it; No human hand the rope did pull— The holy storm-winds sweeping rung it. The storm, the stream, came down, came near, And seized my heart with longing holy; Into the church I went, with fear, With trembling step, and gladness lowly. ”

“ The sea was very still and grey. Dreamily thinking as I lay, Close by the gliding vessel's wheel, A sleepless slumber did o'er me steal; And I saw the Christ, the healer of woe, In white and waving garments go; Walking in giant form went he Over the land and sea. High in the heaven he towered his head, And his hands in blessing forth he spread Over the land and sea. And for a heart, O wonder meet! In his breast the sun did throb and beat; In his breast, for a heart to the only One, Shone the red, the flaming sun. The flaming red sunheart of the Lord Forth its gracious life-beams poured ”

“ In a moment more, the knock came again—the only sign, for no one could hear the mare's hoofs in the wind and snow. With one glance and one good night, he hurried out. The wind once more, for a brief moment, held an infernal carnival in the house. They crowded to the window—saw a dim form heave up on horseback, and presently vanish. All space lay beyond; but, for them, he was swallowed up by the jaws of the darkness. They knew no more. A flash of pride in his brother shot from Ralph's eyes, as, with restrained excitement, for which he sought some outlet, he walked towards the piano. ”

“ Filling thy arms but as the vault of night Infoldeth darkness without hope or measure. O lead the living beauty to my sight, That living love her loveliness may treasure! Let but her shadow fall across my eyes, And straight my dreams exulting truths will rise! And soft as, when, purple and golden, The clouds of the evening descend, So had she drawn nigh unbeholden, And wakened with kisses her friend."
Never had song a stranger accompaniment than this song; for the air was full of fierce noises near and afar. Again the colonel went to the window. ”

“ And you know that we forget every thing that happened the night before; therefore, we ought to love well, for the love is short. Ah! dear Shadow, whom I love now with all my shadowy soul, I shall not love thee to-morrow eve, I shall not know thee; I shall pass thee in the crowd and never dream that the Shadow whom I now love is near me then. Happy Shades! for we only remember our tales until we have told them here, and then they vanish in the shadow-churchyard, where we bury only our dead selves. Ah! brethren, who would be a man and remember? ”

“ He creeps up stairs to his mother's room. There the fire burns bright, and through the window falls a ray of sunlight. But the fire and the very sunlight are wintry and sad. 'Oh, when will mother be home?' He lays himself in a corner amongst soft pillows, and rests his head; but it is no nest for him, for the covering wings are not there. The bright-coloured curtains look dull and grey; and the clock on the chimney-piece will not hasten its pace one second, but is very monotonous and unfeeling. Poor child! Is there any joy in the world? ”

“ One night, following a sultry calm day, he thought that Mercy had heard his unuttered prayer. The air and sea were intense darkness, till a light as intense for one moment annihilated it, and the succeeding darkness seemed shattered with the sharp reports of the thunder that cracked without reverberation. He who had shrunk from battle with his fellowmen, rushed to the mainmast, threw himself on his knees, and stretched forth his arms in speechless energy of supplication; but the storm passed away overhead, and left him kneeling still by the uninjured mast. ”

“ And when one with another meets, They look at each other with eyes that tell That they understand each other well; And, trembling with love and sweet restraint, Each kisses the other upon the brow, And looks above, like a hoping saint, To the holy, healing sunheart's glow; Which atoning all, its red blood streams Downward in still outwelling beams; Till, threefold blessed, they call aloud, The single hearts of a happy crowd. Praised be Jesus Christ!"
"You will like that better," concluded the curate, again addressing Mrs. Cathcart. ”

“ In the churchyard, all the singing Is above the tombs. Spring will come, slow-lingering, Opening buds of faith. Man goes forth to meet his spring, Through the door of death. So we love, with no less loving, Hair that turns to grey; Or a step less lightly moving In life's autumn day. And if thought, still-brooding, lingers O'er each bygone thing, 'Tis because old Autumn's fingers Paint in hues of Spring.
The whole tone of this song was practical and true, and so was fitted to correct the unhealthiness of imagination which might have been suspected in the choice of the preceding. ”

“ Some dreams like these, in poetry or in sleep, arouse individual states of consciousness altogether different from any of our waking moods, and not to be recalled by any mere effort of the will. All our being, for the moment, has a new and strange colouring. We have another kind of life. I think myself, our life would be much poorer without our dreams; a thousand rainbow tints and combinations would be gone; music and poetry would lose many an indescribable exquisiteness and tenderness. You see I like to take our dreams seriously, as I would even our fun. ”

“ The ground was very slippery; and so fast fell the snow, that it had actually begun to ball in the horses' feet before we reached our destination. When we were all safe in Mrs. Armstrong's drawing-room, we sat for a while listening to the wind roaring in the chimney, before any of us spoke. And then I did not join in the conversation, but pleased myself with looking at the room; for next to human faces, I delight in human abodes, which will always, more or less, according to the amount of choice vouchsafed in the occupancy, be like the creatures who dwell in them. ”

“ All day long he sat silent in his cabin; nor could any effort of the captain, or others on board, induce him to go on deck till night came on, when, under the starlight, he ventured into the open air. The sky soothed him then, he knew not how. For the face of nature is the face of God, and must bear expressions that can influence, though unconsciously to them, the most ignorant and hopeless of His children. Often did he watch the clouds in hope of a storm, his spirit rising and falling as the sky darkened or cleared ”

“ Then the Shadows rose gently to the window, passed through it, and sinking slowing upon the field of outstretched snow, commenced an orderly gliding rather than march along the frozen surface. They took it by turns to bear the king, as they sped with the swiftness of thought, in a straight line towards the north. The polestar rose above their heads with visible rapidity; for indeed they moved quite as fast as the sad thoughts, though not with all the speed of happy desires. England and Scotland slid past the litter of the king of the Shadows. ”

“ But the sun is under a cloud; cold, white, and cheerless, like death, lies the wide world out of doors; and the prints of his mother's feet in the snow, all point towards the village, and away from home. ”

“ For I believe that those new mysterious feelings that come to us in sleep, if they be only from dreams of a richer grass and a softer wind than we have known awake, are indications of wells of feeling and delight which have not yet broken out of their hiding-places in our souls, and are only to be suspected from these rings of fairy green that spring up in the high places of our sleep."
"I say, Ralph," interrupted Harry, "just repeat that strangest of Heine's ballads, that—"
"Oh, no, no; not that one. Mrs. Cathcart would not like it at all."
"Yes, please do," said Adela. ”

“ But the glory fades off into grey and black, and night settles down upon the heart which, rightly uncontent with the childish, and not having yet learned the childlike, seeks knowledge and manhood as a thing denied by the Maker, and yet to be gained by the creature; so sets forth alone to climb the heavens, and instead of climbing, falls into the abyss. Then follows the long dismal night of feverish efforts and delirious visions, or, it may be, helpless despair; till at length a deeper stratum of the soul is heaved to the surface ”

“ I wakened up, and listened To a knocking at my tomb. "'Wilt thou not rise, my Henry? Immortal day draws on; The dead are all arisen; The endless joy begun.' "'My love, I cannot raise me; Nor could I find the door; My eyes with bitter weeping Are blind for evermore.' "'But from thine eyes, dear Henry, I'll kiss away the night; Thou shall behold the angels, And Heaven's own blessed light.' "'My love, I cannot raise me; The blood is flowing still, Where thou, heart-deep, didst stab me, With a dagger-speech, to kill.' "'Oh! I will lay my hand, Henry, So soft upon thy heart ”

“ And we will go through life together, working hard, but for each other; and when we die, she shall lead me into paradise as the prize her angel-hand found cast on a desert shore, from the storm of winds and waves which I was too weak to resist—and raised, and tended, and saved. ”

“ As often as I read the story of Aladdin—and I read it now and then still, for I have children about, and their books about—the subterranean orchard of jewels always brings back to my inward vision the inexhaustible riches of the toy-shop to which Uncle Peter took me that Christmas-eve. As soon as, in despair of choosing well, I had made a desperate plunge at decision, my Uncle Peter, as if to forestall any supervention of repentance, began buying like a maniac, giving me everything that took his fancy or mine, till we and our toys nearly filled the cab which he called to take us home. ”