Contrary to my expectations, Lilith by George MacDonald is a tough slog. I’m not sure why. Maybe I was expecting something more like The Princess and the Goblin. It seems as though Lilith is really a message with a story as a background rather than a story with a message in the background. I’m sure it is just my lack of sophistication. Despite this, MacDonald manages to transmit quite a few profound ideas to the attentive reader.
“These words are too big for you and me: all is one of them, and ever is another,” said a voice near me which I knew.
George MacDonald, Lilith, p.93
Ahh, such sweet music to my epistemological senses, however distorted they may be. Yes, there is little context to go on here, but it does speak for itself doesn’t it? All and ever are rarely epistemologically admissible and yet easily used in our everyday speech. Who has such authority to lay claim to all and ever? Is it you and I?
“Doubt”, I said to myself, “may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.”
George MacDonald, Lilith, p.97
Classic. Do I need to elaborate?
Books, Thoughts
George MacDonald, Lilith
But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise!
– George MacDonald, Lilith 1895
I love the Platonic ring to this. Socrates in the Apology makes a similar statement about how little we really know and how we let ourselves to believe otherwise.
Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know.
– Plato, Apology
In MacDonald’s novel, as a twist of irony, the statement comes from the mouth of a talking raven! The exchange leading up to the quotation above is fantastic. It reminds me in how we sometimes do not want to go through the trouble of learning things for ourselves or doing the work required to acquire some skill. Here’s the rest if you’re interested.
“Could you not teach me to know a prayer-flower when I see it?” I said.
“I could not. But if I could, what better would you be? You would not know if of yourself and itself! Why know the name of a thing when the thing itself you do not know? Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes?”
– George MacDonald, Lilith 1895
Part of the fun is the journey itself. I know, it seems trite these days, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
Books, Thoughts
George MacDonald, Lilith