In honor of Maurice Sendak — one of his illustrations from George MacDonald’s “The Golden Key.”
(via Sailor Twain Or The Mermaid In The Hudson - SailorTwain248)
‘Of one thing I am pretty sure,’ he resumed, ‘that the same recipe Goethe gave for the enjoyment of life, applies equally to all work: “Do the thing that lies next you.” That is all our business. Hurried results are worse than none. We must force nothing, but be partakers of the divine patience. How long it took to make the cradle! and we fret that the baby Humanity is not reading Euclid and Plato, even that it is not understanding the Gospel of St. John! If there is one thing evident in the world’s history, it is that God hasteneth not. All haste implies weakness. Time is as cheap as space and matter. What they call the church militant is only at drill yet, and a good many of the officers too not out of the awkward squad.
“
| — | Robert Falconer, Book III, Chapter 8 |
Creation thou dost work by faint degrees,
By shade and shadow from unseen beginning;
Far, far apart, in unthought mysteries
Of thy own dark, unfathomable seas,
Thou will’st thy will; and thence, upon the earth—
Slow travelling, his way through centuries winning—
A child at length arrives at never ending birth.
- George MacDonald
____________________
George Bellows, Wave
Through all the fog, through all earth’s wintery sighs,
I scent Thy spring, I feel the eternal air,
Warm, soft, and dewy, filled with flowery eyes,
And gentle, murmuring motions everywhere—
Of life in heart, and tree, and brook, and moss;
Thy breath wakes beauty, love, and bliss, and prayer,
And strength to hang with nails upon thy cross.
- George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul
_________________
Ha Giang, 2/2/12, Duong Quoc Dinh
“What boy, however fain to be a disciple of Christ and a child of God, would prefer a sermon to his glorious kite, that divinest of toys, with God himself for his playmate, in the blue wind that tossed it hither and thither in the golden void! He might be ready to part with kite and wind and sun, and go down to the grave for his brothers—but surely not that they might be admitted to an everlasting prayer-meeting!”
- George MacDonald, “The Inheritance” from Unspoken Sermons
With thanks to Dwelling in Possibility
Image: rowteight
My nerd-worlds are combining: after a month of discovering David Tennant as Doctor Who, I learn that he once appeared as Curdie in a panto production of The Princess and the Goblin!
(via THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN - The Play’s The Thing A Dedicated David Tennant Theatre Site)
i'd like to start reading macdonald stories to my children ages 8, 6 and 2. Any recommendations?
Certainly! I would start with The Princess and the Goblin. Not only does it have MacDonald’s characteristic richness and wisdom, it is well-paced and nicely plotted. The sequel, The Princess and Curdie, is also excellent, although the 8-year-old might appreciate it more than the others, for while the two are sequels, the second is in many ways more complex, even darker.
There are also many other good short tales and novels — particularly “The Light Princess,” “Little Daylight,” and “The Castle.”
Those would be my starter suggestions — do come back and let me know what the children think of them!
gmd:
“The wind of the summer night was like a spiritual wine, filling Nycteris’ whole being with an intoxication of purest joy”
from Photogen and Nycteris, by George MacDonald (Illustration by Craig Yoe, via Google Book Preview)
