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
George MacDonald, Scottish poet and author, writer of many a fine story for children, has a wide range of works worth exploring. Many people are familiar with his fairy tale “The Princess and the Goblin,” but of far less acclaim is his worthwhile allegorical fairy tale “The Day Boy and the Night Girl.”
Another work that receives less widespread attention is his lengthy, meandering and imaginative fable “At the Back of the North Wind.” The entire text is available through Project Gutenberg here. The story follows a little boy named Diamond, an angelic child who journeys into eternity under the tutelage of a mysterious woman who embodies the North Wind.
After witnessing some great beyond, “having been to the Back of the North Wind,” Diamond brings hope to the people around him as they struggle with the daily cares of business failures, job loss, illness, abuse, and alcoholism.
The story, especially the elegiac ode to swallows and other birds that goes on for ages, verging on nonsense, is reminiscent of the disorienting and delightful, almost reminiscent of Carl Sandburg’s “Rootabaga Stories,” though, I suppose “At the Back of the North Wind” came first.
The harsh, almost shocking realities depicted in the story are filtered through Diamond’s innocent perspective. Woven throughout the scenes of everyday life and fantastical adventures to other dimensions are proverbs and reflections on the nature of life.
The narrator’s observations often leave much for the listener to reflect on, though, somehow, the book does not come across as preachy or overbearing Described by some sources as a “theodicean Fantasy,” another review notes that while the story “has been seen by many scholars as an allegorical tale.. for young readers, it is simply an exciting fantasy story.”
The above quoted passage on our happiness is truth and worth reflecting on. When we seek to coddle ourselves with massages and extra time off we often only end up making ourselves all the more miserable. When we seek to serve others, we can attain that blissful and fleeting sense of purpose and conviction that is the substance of a truly happy life.
The passage continues with Diamond who has just recovered from a fever:
When he woke that first morning he got up at once, saying to himself, “I’ve been ill long enough, and have given a great deal of trouble; I must try and be of use now, and help my mother.” When he went into her room he found her lighting the fire, and his father just getting out of bed. They had only the one room, besides the little one, not much more than a closet, in which Diamond slept. He began at once to set things to rights, but the baby waking up, he took him, and nursed him till his mother had got the breakfast ready. She was looking gloomy, and his father was silent; and indeed except Diamond had done all he possibly could to keep out the misery that was trying to get in at doors and windows, he too would have grown miserable, and then they would have been all miserable together.
“Why, Diamond, child!” said his mother at last, “you’re as good to your mother as if you were a girl—nursing the baby, and toasting the bread, and sweeping up the hearth! I declare a body would think you had been among the fairies.”
Could Diamond have had greater praise or greater pleasure? 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.
In the world beyond a children’s story, there are subtleties. If we seek only the happiness of others and neglect utterly to care for ourselves we will not be happy. Cultivating an inner world and an independent spirit are an essential precursor to caring for others. Arguably, that is in essence what Diamond’s journey “to the Back of the North Wind” is: the experience of time outside of time that could be described as true leisure, a journey within himself before returning to the world with all its cares.
In the day-to-day hubbub of life, however, seeking to soothe ourselves and seek first our own comfort will surely fail to satisfy. It is in neglecting ourselves, in the best sense, that our “Selves” find happiness.
“At the Back of the North Wind” is long and meandering. There is a collaborative recording available through Librivox. While the quality of the narrators vary greatly, it is nice to listen and absorb the many profound observations of the book instead of having to be the one reading aloud. Highly recommend for dull roadtrips through Texas cattle fields and dreary rain.
