"A mountain is a strange and awful thing. In old times, without knowing so much of their strangeness and awfulness as we do, people were yet more afraid of mountains. But then somehow they had not come to see how beautiful they are as well as awful, and they hated them - and what people hate they must fear. Now that we have learned to look at them with admiration, perhaps we do not feel quite awe enough of them. To me they are beautiful terrors."
"Nothing that could be got from the heart of the earth could have been put to better purpose than the silver the king's miners got for him. There were people in the country who, when it came into their hands, degraded it by locking it up in a chest, and then it grew diseased and was called mammon, and bred all sorts of quarrels; but when first it left the king's hands it never made any but friends, and the air of the world kept it clean."
"He might have been a captain, they did believe! The good kind people did not reflect that the road to the next duty is the only straight one, or that, for their fancied good, we should never wish our children or friends to do what we would not do ourselves if we were in their position. We must accept righteous sacrifices as well as make them."
~from Chapter One of The Princess and Curdie~
by George MacDonald
The Princess and Curdie is an awesome book!
ReplyDeleteI think so. :-) I always find so many little insights each time I read it (and the prequel). Plus, the story is just wonderful, and the characters.
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