At the Back of the North Wind Quotes

“Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“...though I cannot promise to take you home," said North Wind, as she sank nearer and nearer to the tops of the houses, "I can promise you it will be all right in the end. You will get home somehow.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“I am always hearing. . . the sound of a far off song. I do not exactly know where it is, or what it means; and I don't hear much of it, only the odour of its music, as it were, flitting across the great billows of the ocean outside this air in which I make such a storm; but what I do hear, is quite enough to make me able to bear the cry from the drowning ship. So it would you if you could hear it.'
'No it wouldn't,' returned Diamond stoutly. 'For they wouldn't hear the music of the far-away song; and if they did, it wouldn't do them any good. You see you and I are not going to be drowned, and so we might enjoy it.'
'But you have never heard the psalm, and you don't know what it is like. Somehow, I can't say how, it tells me that all is right; that it is coming to swallow up all the cries. . . . It wouldn't be the song it seems if it did not swallow up all their fear and pain too, and set them singing it themselves with all the rest.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“Somehow, I can't say how, it tells me that all is right; that it is coming to swallow up all cries.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“How kind you are, North Wind!'
'I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“It's not good at all—mind that, Diamond—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.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“And when heart and head go together, nothing can stand before them”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“I wish I had [made that song]. No, I don't That would be to take it from somebody else. But it's mine for all that.'
'What makes it yours?'
'I love it so.'
'Does loving a thing make it yours?'
'I think so, Mother -- at least more than anything else can. . . . Love makes the only myness,' said Diamond.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“It is a hard thing for a rich man to grow poor; but it is an awful thing for him to grow dishonest, and some kinds of speculation lead a man deep into dishonesty before he thinks what he is about. Poverty will not make a man worthless—he may be of worth a great deal more when he is poor than he was when he was rich; but dishonesty goes very far indeed to make a man of no value—a thing to be thrown out in the dust-hole of the creation, like a bit of broken basin, or dirty rag.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“His little heart was so full of merriment that it could not hold it all, and it ran over into theirs.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty. So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they beautiful.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“That's a poet.'
'I thought you said it was a bo-at.'
'Stupid pet! Don't you know what a poet it?'
'Why, a thing to sail on the water in.'
'Well, perhaps you're not so far wrong. Some poets do carry people over the sea....'
...
'A poet is a man who is glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it too.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“Ah, but, dear North Wind, you don't know how nice it is to feel your arms about me. It is a thousand times better to have them and the wind together, than to have only your hair and the back of your neck and no wind at all."

"But it is surely more comfortable there?"

"Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable."

"Yes, indeed there are. Well, I will keep you in front of me. You will feel the wind, but not too much. I shall only want one arm to take care of you; the other will be quite enough to sink the ship."

"Oh, dear North Wind! how can you talk so?"

"My dear boy, I never talk; I always mean what I say."

"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. Have you anything more to object?"

"No, no, dear North Wind; I am quite satisfied.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“If you see me with my face all black, don't be frightened. If you see me flapping wings like a bat's, as big as the whole sky, don't be frightened. If you hear me raging ten times worse than Mrs. Bill, the blacksmith's wife - even if you see me looking in at people's windows like Mrs. Eve Dropper, the gardener's wife - you must believe that I am doing my work. Nay, diamond, if I change into a serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold of me, for my hand will never change in yours if you keep a good hold. If you keep a hold, you will know who I am all the time, even when you look at me and can't see me the least like the North Wind. I may look something very awful. Do you understand?”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“But I never just quite liked that ryhme.'
'Why not, child?'
'Because it seems to say one's as good as another, or two new ones are better than one that's lost. . . . 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.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“He was dimly angry with himself, he did not know why. It was that he had struck his wife. He had forgotten it, but was miserable about it, notwithstanding. And this misery was the voice of the great Love that had made him and his wife and the baby and Diamond, speaking in his heart, and telling him to be good. For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds. On Mount Sinai, it was thunder; in the cabman's heart it was misery; in the soul of St John it was perfect blessedness.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“The church grew very lonely about him, and he began to feel like a child whose mother has forsaken it. Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“You see when he forgot his Self his mother took care of his Self, and loved and praised his Self. Our own praises poison our Selves, and puff and swell them up, till they lose all shape and beauty, and become like great toadstools. But the praises of father or mother do our Selves good, and comfort them and make them beautiful. They never do them any harm. If they do any harm, it comes of our mixing some of our own praises with them, and that turns them nasty and slimy and poisonous.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“What if I should look ugly without being bad - look ugly myself because I am making ugly things beautiful? - What then?”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“But I don't quite understand, Father: is nobody your friend but the one that does something for you?”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“But he remembered that even if she did box his ears, he musn't box hers again, for she was a girl, and all that boys must do, if girls are rude, is to go away and leave them.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“Everything, dreaming and all, has got a soul in it, or else it's worth nothing, and we don't care a bit about it. Some of our thoughts are worth nothing, because they've got no soul in them.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“I Have been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind. An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his. I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of the place. I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who went there.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“Too good to be true it can’t be. Isn’t true good? and isn’t good good? And how, then, can anything be too good to be true?”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“The little boy was just as much one of God's messengers as if he had been an angel with a flaming sword, going out to fight the devil. The devil he had to fight just then was Misery.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“But 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. For our Selves will always do pretty well if we don't pay them too much attention. Our Selves are like some little children who will be happy enough so long as they are left to their own games, but when we begin to interfere with them, and make them presents of too nice playthings, or too many sweet things, they begin at once to fret and spoil.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“There are not many people who can think about beautiful things and do common work at the same time. But then there are not many people who have been to the back of the north wind.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty. So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they are beautiful.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind