Adela Cathcart

by George MacDonald

George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister. Though no longer a household name, his works (particularly his fairy tales and fantasy novels) have inspired deep admiration in such notables as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master". Even Mark Twain, who initially despised MacDonald, became friends with him. MacDonald grew up influenced by his Congregational Church, with an atmosphere of Calvinism. But MacDonald never felt comfortable with some aspects of Calvinist doctrine. Later novels, such as Robert Falconer (1868) and Lilith (1895), show a distaste for the Calvinist idea that God's electing love is limited to some and denied to others. Especially in his Unspoken Sermons (1867-89) he shows a highly developed theology. His best-known works are Phantastes (1858), At the Back of the North Wind (1871) and The Princess and the Goblin (1872), all fantasy novels, and fairy tales su

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Scotland

450 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1875

About the author

George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister. He became a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow-writer Lewis Carroll. In addition to his fairy tales, MacDonald wrote several works of Christian theology, including several collections of sermons.

Reviews

[Lydia Van Calster · Rating 5 out of 5]

“And the man was telling them, sir, that God had picked out so many men, women, and children, to go right away to glory, and left the rest to be damned for ever and ever in hell. And I up and spoke to him; and ‘sir,’ says I, ‘if I was tould as how I was to pick out so many out o’ my childeren, and take ’em with me to a fine house, and leave the rest to be burnt up i’ the old one, which o’ them would I choose?’ ‘How can I tell?’ says he. ‘No doubt,’ says I; ‘they aint your sons and darters. But I can. I wouldn’t move a foot, sir, but I’d take my chance wi’ the poor things. And, sir,’ says I, ‘we’re all God’s childeren; and which o’ us is he to choose, and which is he to leave out? I don’t believe he’d know a bit better how to choose one and leave another than I should, sir — that is, his heart wouldn’t let him lose e’er a one o’ us, or he’d be miserable for ever, as I should be, if I left one o’ mine i’ the fire.’”


//


“The sky soothed him then, he knew not how. For the face of nature is the face of God, and must bear expressions that can influence, though unconsciously to them, the most ignorant and hopeless of His children.”


//


“For all clergymen whom I had yet met, regarded mankind and their interests solely from the clerical point of view, seeming far more desirous that a man should be a good church man, as they called it, than that he should love God.”


//


“It was now dark. We were the under half of the world. The sun was scorching and glowing on the other side, leaving us to night and frost. But the night and the frost wake the sunshine of a higher world in our hearts; and who cares for winter weather at Christmas? — I believe in the proximate correctness of the date of our Saviour’s birth. I believe he always comes in winter. And then let Winter reign without: Love is king within; and Love is lord of the Winter.
How the happy fires were glowing everywhere! We shot past many a lighted cottage, and now and then a brilliant mansion. Inside both were hearts like our own, and faces like ours, with the red coming out on them, the red of joy, because it was Christmas. And most of them had some little feast toward. Is it vulgar, this feasting at Christmas? No. It is the Christmas feast that justifies all feasts, as the bread and wine of the Communion are the essence of all bread and wine, of all strength and rejoicing. “How the happy fires were glowing everywhere! We shot past many a lighted cottage, and now and then a brilliant mansion. Inside both were hearts like our own, and faces like ours, with the red coming out on them, the red of joy, because it was Christmas. And most of them had some little feast toward. Is it vulgar, this feasting at Christmas? No. It is the Christmas feast that justifies all feasts, as the bread and wine of the Communion are the essence of all bread and wine, of all strength and rejoicing. If the Christianity of eating is lost — I will not say forgotten — the true type of eating is to be found at the dinner-hour in the Zoological Gardens. Certain I am, that but for the love which, ever revealing itself, came out brightest at that first Christmas time, there would be no feasting — nay no smiling; no world to go careering in joy about its central fire; no men and women upon it, to look up and rejoice.”


//


And into this old, and quaint, and weary but stout-hearted church, we went that bright winter morning, to hear about a baby. My heart was full enough before I left it


//


Old Mr. Venables read the service with a voice and manner far more memorial of departed dinners than of joys to come; but I sat — little heeding the service, I confess — with my mind full of thoughts that made me glad.
Now all my glad thoughts came to me through a hole in the tower-door. For the door was far in a shadowy retreat, and in the irregular lozenge-shaped hole in it, there was a piece of coarse thick glass of a deep yellow. And through this yellow glass the sun shone. And the cold shine of the winter sun was changed into the warm glory of summer by the magic of that bit of glass.
Now when I saw the glow first, I thought without thinking, that it came from some inner place, some shrine of old, or some ancient tomb in the chancel of the church — forgetting the points of the compass — where one might pray as in the penetralia of the temple; and I gazed on it as the pilgrim might gaze upon the lamp-light oozing from the cavern of the Holy Sepulchre. But some one opened the door, and the clear light of the Christmas morn broke upon the pavement, and swept away the summer splendour. — The door was to the outside. — And I said to myself: All the doors that lead inwards to the secret place of the Most High, are doors outwards — out of self — out of smallness — out of wrong. And these were some of the thoughts that came to me through the hole in the door, and made me forget the service, which Mr. Venables mumbled like a nicely cooked sweetbread.


//


“It is not the high summer alone that is God’s. The winter also is His. And into His winter He came to visit us. And all man’s winters are His — the winter of our poverty, the winter of our sorrow, the winter of our unhappiness — even ‘the winter of our discontent.’


//


The winter is the childhood of the year. Into this childhood of the year came the child Jesus; and into this childhood of the year must we all descend. It is as if God spoke to each of us according to our need: My son, my daughter, you are growing old and cunning; you must grow a child again, with my son, this blessed birth-time. You are growing old and selfish; you must become a child. You are growing old and careful; you must become a child. You are growing old and distrustful; you must become a child. You are growing old and petty, and weak, and foolish; you must become a child — my child, like the baby there, that strong sunrise of faith and hope and love, lying in his mother’s arms in the stable.
“But one may say to me: ‘You are talking in a dream. The Son of God is a child no longer. He is the King of Heaven.’ True, my friends. But He who is the Unchangeable, could never become anything that He was not always, for that would be to change. He is as much a child now as ever he was. When he became a child, it was only to show us by itself, that we might understand it better, what he was always in his deepest nature. And when he was a child, he was not less the King of Heaven; for it is in virtue of his childhood, of his sonship, that he is Lord of Heaven and of Earth— ‘for of such’ — namely, of children— ‘is the kingdom of heaven.’ And, therefore, when we think of the baby now, it is still of the Son of man, of the King of men, that we think. And all the feelings that the thought of that babe can wake in us, are as true now as they were on that first Christmas day, when Mary covered from the cold his little naked feet, ere long to be washed with the tears of repentant women, and nailed by the hands of thoughtless men, who knew not what they did, to the cross of fainting, and desolation, and death.”


//


“So, my friends, let us be children this Christmas. Of course, when I say to anyone, ‘You must be like a child,’ I mean a good child. A naughty child is not a child as long as his naughtiness lasts. He is not what God meant when He said, ‘I will make a child.’ Think of the best child you know — the one who has filled you with most admiration. It is his child-likeness that has so delighted you. It is because he is so true to the child-nature that you admire him. Jesus is like that child. You must be like that child. But you cannot help knowing some faults in him — some things that are like ill-grown men and women. Jesus is not like him, there. Think of the best child you can imagine; nay, think of a better than you can imagine — of the one that God thinks of when he invents a child in the depth of his fatherhood: such child-like men and women must you one day become; and what day better to begin, than this blessed Christmas Morn? Let such a child be born in your hearts this day. Take the child Jesus to your bosoms, into your very souls, and let him grow there till he is one with your every thought, and purpose, and hope. As a good child born in a family will make the family good; so Jesus, born into the world, will make the world good at last. And this perfect child, born in your hearts, will make your hearts good; and that is God’s best gift to you.
“Then be happy this Christmas Day; for to you a child is born. Childless women, this infant is yours — wives or maidens. Fathers and mothers, he is your first-born, and he will save his brethren. “Eat and drink, and be merry and kind, for the love of God is the source of all joy and all good things, and this love is present in the child Jesus. — Now, to God the Father, &c.”


//


“For his ambition, it had died of its own mortality. He read the words of Jesus, and the words of great prophets whom he has sent; and learned that the wind-tossed anemone is a word of God as real and true as the unbending oak beneath which it grows — that reality is an absolute existence precluding degrees. If his mind was, as his room, scantily furnished, it was yet lofty; if his light was small, it was brilliant. God lived, and he lived. Perhaps the highest moral height which a man can reach, and at the same time the most difficult of attainment, is the willingness to be nothing relatively, so that he attain that positive excellence which the original conditions of his being render not merely possible, but imperative. It is nothing to a man to be greater or less than another — to be esteemed or otherwise by the public or private world in which he moves. Does he, or does he not, behold and love and live the unchangeable, the essential, the divine? This he can only do according as God has made him. He can behold and understand God in the least degree, as well “as in the greatest, only by the godlike within him; and he that loves thus the good and great has no room, no thought, no necessity for comparison and difference. The truth satisfies him. He lives in its absoluteness. God makes the glow-worm as well as the star; the light in both is divine. If mine be an earth-star to gladden the wayside, I must cultivate humbly and rejoicingly its green earth-glow, and not seek to blanch it to the whiteness of the stars that lie in the fields of blue. For to deny God in my own being is to cease to behold him in any. God and man can meet only by the man’s becoming that which God meant him to be. Then he enters into the house of life, which is greater than the house of fame. It is better to be a child in a green field, than a knight of many orders in a state ceremonial.”


//


“I am the child Jesus.’ ‘The child Jesus!’ said the dreamer, astonished. ‘Thou art like any other child.’ ‘No, do not say so,’ returned the boy; ‘but say, Any other child is like me.’ And the child and the dream slowly faded away; and he awoke with these words sounding in his heart— ‘Whosoever shall receiveth one of such children in my name, receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.’ It was the voice of God saying to him: ‘Thou wouldst receive the child whom I sent thee out of the cold, stormy night; receive the new child out of the cold waste into the warm human house, as the door by which it can enter God’s house, its home. If better could be done for it, or for thee, would I have sent it hither? Through thy love, my little one must learn my love and be blessed. And thou shall not keep it without thy reward. For thy necessities — in thy little house, is there not yet room? in thy barrel, is there not yet meal? and thy purse is not empty quite. Thou canst not eat more than “a mouthful at once. I have made thee so. Is it any trouble to me to take care of thee? Only I prefer to feed thee from my own hand, and not from thy store.’And the schoolmaster sprang up in joy, ran upstairs, kissed his wife, and clasped the baby in his arms in the name of the child Jesus. And in that embrace, he knew that he received God to his heart. Soon, with a tender, beaming face, he was wading through the snow to the school-house, where he spent a happy day amidst the rosy faces and bright eyes of his boys and girls. These, likewise, he loved the more dearly and joyfully for that dream, and those words in his heart; so that, amidst their true child-faces, (all going well with them, as not unfrequently happened in his schoolroom), he felt as if all the elements of Paradise were gathered around him, and knew that he was God’s child, doing God’s work.”


//


“Mourner, that dost deserve thy mournfulness,
   Call thyself punished, call the earth thy hell;
   Say, ‘God is angry, and I earned it well;
 ‘I would not have him smile and not redress.’
 Say this, and straightway all thy grief grows less.
   ‘God rules at least, I find, as prophets tell,
  ‘And proves it in this prison.’ Straight thy cell
 Smiles with an unsuspected loveliness.
— ‘A prison — and yet from door and window-bar,
   ‘I catch a thousand breaths of his sweet air;
   ‘Even to me, his days and nights are fair;”
“ ‘He shows me many a flower, and many a star;
 ‘And though I mourn, and he is very far,
   ‘He does not kill the hope that reaches there.’”
“Where did you get that wonderful sonnet?” I cried, hardly interrupting him, for when he came to the end of it, he paused with a solemn pause.
“It is one of the stars of the higher heavens which I spied through my prison-bars.”
“Will you give me a copy of it?”
“With all my heart. It has never been in print.”
“Then your star reminds me of that quaint simile of Henry Vaughan,
 ‘If a star were confined into a tomb,
       Her captive flames must needs burn there;
 But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
       She’ll shine through all the sphere.’”


//


“There is no way of helping them but by being good to them, and making them trust me. But in every one of them there lies a secret chamber, to which God has access from behind by a hidden door; while they know nothing of this chamber; and the other door towards their own consciousness, is hidden by darkness and wrong, and ruin of all kinds. “Sometimes they become dimly aware that there must be such a door. Some of us search for it, find it, turn back aghast; while God is standing behind the door waiting to be found, and ready to hold forth the arms of eternal tenderness to him who will open and look. Some of us have torn the door open, and, lo! there is the Father, at the heart of us, at the heart of all things.’ I saw that he was leading these men through dark ways of disappointment and misery, the cure of their own wrong-doing, to find this door and find him. But could nothing be done to help them — to lead them? They, too, must learn of Christ. Could they not be led to him? If He leads to the Father, could not man lead to Him? True, he says that it is the leading of the Father that brings to Him; for the Father is all in all; He fills and rounds the cycle. But He leads by the hand of man. ”


//


“Brothers, sisters! do I not know your hearts from my own? — sick hearts, which nothing can restore to health and joy but the presence of Him who is Father and Mother both in one. Sunshine is not gladness, because you see him not. The stars are far away, because He is not near; and the flowers, the smiles of old Earth, do not make you smile, because, although, thank God! you cannot get rid of the child’s need, you have forgotten what it is the need of. The winter is dreary and dull, because, although you have the homeliest of homes, the warmest of shelters, the safest of nests to creep into and rest — though the most cheerful of fires is blazing for you, and a table is spread, waiting to refresh your frozen and weary hearts — “you have forgot the way thither, and will not be troubled to ask the way; you shiver with the cold and the hunger, rather than arise you say, ‘I will go to my Father;’ you will die in the storm rather than fight the storm; you will lie down in the snow rather than tread it under foot. The heart within you cries out for something, and you let it cry. It is crying for its God — for its father and mother and home. And all the world will look dull and grey — and it if does not look so now, the day will come when it must look so — till your heart is satisfied and quieted with the known presence of Him in whom we live and move and have our being.”


//


“Yes I do, my dear. I believe that the grand noble way of thinking of God and his will must be the true way, though it never can be grand or noble enough; and that belief in beauty and truth, notwithstanding so many things that are neither beautiful nor true, is essential to a right understanding of the world. Whatever is not good and beautiful, is doomed by the very death that is in it; and when we find such things in ourselves or in other people, we may take comfort that these must be destroyed one day, even if it be by that form of divine love which appears as a consuming fire.”
“But that is very dreadful too, is it not, uncle?”
“Yes, me dear. But there is a refuge from it; and then the fear proves a friend.”
“What refuge?”
“God himself. If you go close up to him, his spirit will become your spirit, and you will need no fire then. You will find that that which is fire to them that are afar off, is a mighty graciousness to them that are nigh. They are both the same thing.”


//


“The highest poetic feeling of which we are now conscious, springs not from the beholding of perfected beauty, but from the mute sympathy which the creation with all its children manifests with us in the groaning and travailing which look for the sonship. Because of our need and aspiration, the snowdrop gives birth in our hearts to a loftier spiritual and poetic feeling, than the rose most complete in form, colour, and odour. The rose is of Paradise — the snowdrop is of the striving, hoping, longing Earth. Perhaps our highest poetry is the expression of our aspirations in the sympathetic forms of visible nature.”


//


“And the real muscular Christianity is that which pours in a life-giving torrent from the devotion of the heart, receiving only that it may give.”

[Bryana Beaird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Novel about a sickly and psychologically weary young woman who is restored to health through the efforts of a group of acquaintances who form a storytelling club. The plot is rather thin, and some of the stories are annoyingly sentimental, but a few of MacDonald’s classic short stories are also included in this volume, such as The Light Princess and The Giant’s Heart. Overall, I have read better things by MacDonald and expect to read more of them in the future.

[Seon Ji (Dawn) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of my favorites of MacDonald's.

Very long. Basically a series of short stories built around a main narrative.

Adela is ill. Depression. Family, friends and a handsome doctor start a story club, where each night someone reads a tale to the group, but it's mostly for Adela. During the course of the get togethers she falls in love with the doctor.

No content concerns.

[Misha Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be ye warned: it's a long book. But not monotonous.

The book follows young Adela Cathcart's journey through something very like depression. In an effort to revive her spirits, her friends and family tell a series of varying stories to Adela, and as they do so, she finds purpose in life and falls in love.

This book is fascinating to me for several reasons: it documents depression (or something very like it) as an actual malady: rare for it's time.

It gives you a beautiful scope of the story-telling of George MacDonald; from ethereal to eerie, whimsical and charming to utterly terrifying. In the form of poetry, essay, prose.

I adore this book. It contains several of my favorite mini-stories of George MacDonald.

[Jason Shuttlesworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

When 21-year-old Adela suffers from depression, or some other type of malaise, a group of friends forms a story-telling society in which each night somebody tells a different story around the fireplace. Along the way, a young doctor (one of the story-tellers) and Adela fall in love though they try to hide their feelings towards one another. I'll leave it to the readers to decide what cures Adela...falling in love or hearing the stories, but I will say this is a highly recomended book.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of stories framed within a story about 21 year old ill Adela Cathcart as told by her uncle. It is modeled after Canterbury Tales but with a difference; the premise is that stories can be used to bring healing. At the end Adela has recovered. Some of the stories are well known outside of this framework like 'The Light Princess' , others are not and some were tedious to read.

[Jonathan Ammon · Rating 4 out of 5]

ADELA CATHART contains some of Macdonald’s best short stories weaved together with a frame story of a group of friends who engage in a series of story-telling gatherings as a therapy at the prescription of a young doctor for Adela, a young woman suffering depression. CATHART also features some of the most tedious stories I’ve read from Macdonald as well as some of the strangest, and the romance has some of the predictable tropes of Victorian fiction. This gets four stars because of the inclusion of “The Light Princess” several striking parables, and a strange Victorian vampire story. In some ways this is a
good introduction to Macdonald because of its wide range and variety, but many readers will find parts tedious.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read some MacDonald before, though none of his adult novels, I think. He's always an original writer in the sense that he does what he does and you take it or leave it. Nevertheless, Adela Cathcart is a most odd book. It hangs on a threadbare frame of a story about a girl with a psychological illness who is apparently 'cured' by the stories told by a group of her family and friends. Whether the cure comes about because of the stories or because she falls in love with the local doctor or because of some other of several circumstances is another question (one which the narrator does consider at the end). But the bulk of the book is made up of the stories told or read by the various characters, most of them supposedly made up by them. They vary in length (some are very long) and vary in quality. Some are downright peculiar, and like fairytales; others are strange parables that need to be worked at the figure out their meaning. One or two are more biographical, and one is a curious horror story.
For me, the best thing about the book is the way the various characters live straightforward Christian lives; their faith is part and parcel of them, though none of them evangelise or minister in any special way (apart from the one who actually is a minister). The only two characters who are remotely close to unpleasant, the girl's aunt, and her cousin, are dispatched from the story before the end: the cousin, realising he's not worthy of the girl has a very stilted conversation with another character, and the aunt is dismissed in an offhand sentence.
So don't come to the book looking for a typical Victorian-era story, with some cohesive plot. Be prepared to sit through a bunch of stories which are mostly more interesting than the framework, and find yourself wondering why MacDonald chose to write in such a curious way.!

[Kilian Metcalf · Rating 3 out of 5]

The romance in this novel is merely a framing device for some of MacDonald's charming stories, including one of my favorites The Light Princess. I owned a delightful edition with illustrations by Maurice Sendak that was one of my treasures until I lost it in a move. The invalid Adela is treated, under the direction of the handsome young doctor, by causing her to listen to a series of stories told by the various members of the house party. The stories range from children's stories to Gothic horror stories. She recovers, falls in love with the doctor, and they marry and live happily ever after. It is a bit awkward, and the stories could have stood on their own.

Words I learned from this book:

termagant: a harsh-tempered or overbearing woman, originally a deity erroneously ascribed to Islam by medieval dramatists and used to represent a violent character

somniculose: state of being drowsy, sleepy

'mit gleichem Tritt und Schritt': to go at the same pace, to march in step

lustration: purify ritually or ceremonially

coeval: of the same or equal age

pretermit: to leave undone, to allow to pass without mention or notice, to suspend indefinitely

[Aharon Zorea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book with a wide variety of stories contained within. It is set as a single narrative about a man who is visiting a friend, but the man sets up a story telling club and MacDonald uses that device to be able to incorporate a couple dozen short stories within the single narrative. It is not fast moving insofar as the later story is being carried along through a host of smaller stories, but each of the smaller stories are quite good -- even of they often have less relation to the larger narrative. And yet... like all MacDonald stories, they all do carry the same strong themes of love and faith. I am not we, but I think some of the short stories(the "Light Princess" in particular) seem to have been published separately...as such, they really deserve separate comments. As a whole, the larger narrative is quite sweet, if not a bit undeveloped as a result of serving primarily as a vehicle for the short story. Still, the total is continually thought provoking and I felt very satisfied when it was finished.

[Erika RS · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rambling and sincere. This novel is built around the device of a story telling group got up to improve the spirits of the depressed Adela. This worked well in parts, but oftentimes, it seemed that MacDonald mainly cared about the containing story in so far as it provided a structure for the inner stories and poems. This would have been more reasonable had the stories not been so varied in quality.

Overall, this book is something more to be appreciated by those who enjoy George MacDonald's philosophy than by those who enjoy his stories.

[Nathan Wesson · Rating 5 out of 5]

George MacDonald has a way of using stories inside of stories to create a cathartic experience in his readers. A Great story, but greater stories within the story make this novel one that is set apart in creativity and wonder.

[Frank Peters · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like the book, thus the low rating. The concept behind the book was intriguing and a few of the short stories were OK, but the amount of preachy monologue was excessive. The book was an excuse to write a series of short stories while folding them into a larger narration. In the book a group of adults got together to help a rich young woman who was in some form of depression. Their idea was to tell stories that would encourage the young woman to take her eyes off herself and to see that there was much to live for. This was a good idea, but I didn’t like the implementation.

[Eileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

ⓒ 1864. The second of three volumes, although I didn't know this when I started it. One of MacDonald's earlier works. I enjoyed it but not as much as some of his others.

[Lynda Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusual

[Kori Hartman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't too bad, but it was definitely not what I expected. I had read an excerpt from this book that made me think it was going to be really, really good, so I was somewhat disappointed.

[Micah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really enjoyable Romance (in the classic sense) that both stands on its own and functions as a vehicle to offer up some of MacDonald's more inventive short fiction.

[Bruce Baker]

not bad. I got into it eventually.