George MacDonald. An Antology (edited by C.S.Lewis) -
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against early teachings might on this point have very easily driven him into
a shallow liberalism. But it does not. He hopes, indeed, that all men will
be saved; but that is because he hopes that all will repent. He knows (none
better) that even omnipotence cannot save the uncoverted. He never trifles
with eternal impossibilities. He is as golden and genial as Traherne; but
also as astringent as the Imitation.
So at least I have found him. In making this collection I was
discharging a debt of justice. I have never concealed the fact that I
regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in
which I did not quote from him. But it has not seemed to me that those who
have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice of the
affiliation. Honesty drives me to emphasize it. And even if honesty did
not-well, I am a don, and "source-hunting" (Quellenforschung) is perhaps
in
my marrow. It must be more than thirty years ago that I bought-almost
unwillingly, for I had looked at the volume on that bookstall and rejected
it on a dozen previous occasions-the Everyman edition of Phantasies. A
few
hours later I knew that I had crossed a great frontier. I had already been
waist-deep in Romanticism; and likely enough, at any moment, to flounder
into its darker and more evil forms, slithering down the steep descent that
leads from the love of strangeness to that of eccentricity and thence to
that of perversity. Now Phantasies was romantic enough in all
conscience;
but there was a difference. Nothing was at that time further from my
thoughts than Christianity and I therefore had no notion what this
difference really was. I was only aware that if this new world was strange,