Monday, April 6, 2009

George MacDonald on Reflections

From Phantastes:

"Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality? — not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? ... All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass. ... In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one thing we may be sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But how have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I only float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land! The moon, which is the lovelier memory or reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirror of the brooding night, had rapt me away."

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