There and Back, Again

Here are some more quotes from George MacDonald's There and Back. I especially enjoyed all the references to books and reading in the story. The book is full of them because of the author's love of literature and story, and also because the main character of the story is a book-binder by trade and a book-lover too.

 

"I would rather learn to read, though—the right way, I mean—the way that makes one book talk to another."

 

 

What is feeling but poetry in a gaseous condition? What is fine thought but poetry in a fluid condition? What is thought solidified, but fine prose; thought crystallized, but verse?

 

She had yet to learn that books themselves are but weak ministers, that the spirit dwelling in them must lead back to him who gave it or die; that they are but windows, which, if they look not out on the eternal spaces, will themselves be blotted out by the darkness.

 

Only those who haunt the slopes of literature, know that marvels lie in the grass for the hand that will gather them. Multitudes who count themselves readers know no more of the books they read than the crowds that visit the Academy exhibitions know of the pictures they gaze upon. Yet are the realms of literature free as air, freer even than those of music.

 

For what are books, I venture to say, but an army-corps of the lord of hosts, at whose command are troops of all natures, after the various regions of his indwelling! Even the letter is something, for the dry bones of books are every hour coming alive to the reader in whose spirit is blowing the better spirit.

 

The good in a true book, he would say, is the best protection against what may not be so good in it; its wrong as well as its right may wake the conscience: the thoughts of a book accuse and excuse one another. In saying so, he took the true reader for granted; to an untrue reader the truth itself is untrue.

 

"Look here: I am very fond of a well-bound book; I should like all my new books bound in levant morocco; but I don't care about it; I could do well enough without any binding at all."

"Of course you could, sir! and so could I, or any man that cared for the books themselves."

"Very well! I don't care about religion much, but I could not live without my Father in heaven. I don't believe anybody can live without him."