The Portent: A Story of the Inner Vision of the Highlanders Commonly Called the Second Sight

by George MacDonald

The Portent tells of young Duncan Campbell's seemingly hopeless love for the mysterious Lady Alice Hamilton and of the portent itself—the fateful sound of a ghostly horse—which bring to a fast-paced climax this story of revenge, jealousy, and an ordinary world transformed by the supernatural.

Introduction by Glenn E. Sadler; Frontispiece by Maurice Sendak

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Novels, Scotland

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1864

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

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a fan of George MacDonald, and would like to read all his works. This was not one of his strongest novels, and the reasons are structural. In the early chapters, the narrator/protagonist is introduced to a ghostly tale of love and revenge which seems to bear mysteriously on his own fate, but this rich and intense foreshadowing is not brought to fruition. He falls in love with a mysterious woman who seems to be a modern incarnation of the tragic heroine of the tale, and that's as far as the connection is developed. The tale is forgotten, and the resolution seems mundane and perfunctory, with little sense of dramatic necessity. Indeed, the excellent introduction relates that MacDonald changed the original ending to conform to the popular taste for happy endings (as did Dickens with Great Expectations).

It is still, however, a MacDonald novel, boasting a well-wrought narrative full of poetic utterances richly suggestive of his fervent belief that everything is part of a grand, mysterious plan put in place by God. As such, it is recommended.

[Christine Norvell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though a slower-paced plot than most of his novels, here MacDonald explores the idea of second sight, or in this novel, second hearing. Young Duncan Campbell can hear the fateful sound of a ghostly horse that ties to the violent past of his family line. I enjoy how MacDonald ties Scottish folklore to spiritual giftings— "when we wake from this dream of life into truer life beyond." Dreams do contain truth.

[Justin Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just recently finished reading George MacDonald's novella called The Portent, originally published in 1864. It is a fascinating story about the Celtic second sight, inspired by gothic literature, Scottish highland ghost stories, and it also had a great love story between Alice and Duncan which was very moving. This was my favorite quote from the book, "I had never by any means been a bookworm, but the very outside of a book had a charm to me. It was a kind of sacrament-an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, as indeed what on God's earth is not?"- George MacDonald

[Julia Zhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like anything George MacDonald has penned, I deem this a great book. The sole reason being that it has ingrained within the heart of it the soul of a man whose deep respect for duty has only aroused and fed the HONEST, all-consuming, sincere, FLAMING and TRUE loyalty to the love that is of ideal nature -- his trust in it compels it into existence, as is clearly evident among these pages. The stuff of ethereal epic romances are to him what can only be -- material from within his already luminous, tender soul. He has no need to look upon, for he has already looked upon, and has been compelled to look upon. He sets the standard for beholding of the True and Passionate.

All I can add to "written by MacDonald" is that it is self-described as a romance, so will certainly revolve around the uniting (and obstacles to) of two destined souls. I recommend keeping some post-it pads nearby to jot down page numbers and paragraphs to locate that certain sentence or concept that is gifted by this marvelous man (basically on every page). There is much creative fodder here and I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is a book to delight in, not a book for the impatient... though I fit this curse. There ARE ways to bypass certain ADHD tendencies though, especially when it comes to great causes that are fueled by great souls such as this...

[Amanda Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I agree with some other reviewers about the potential of this book. The beginning ghostly tale was so wonderful and I expected it to tie into the story of Duncan and Alice so much more than it did. It really does make me think that MacDonald had planned to do more with it. This story was still very good though. As with all MacDonald stories I have read, they have such a other-worldliness to them that is irresistible.

[Roger Burk · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of a young Scots gentleman of around 1810. He takes a job as a tutor for an English lord while hoping to get a commission in the Scots Grays. He is haunted by occasional flashes of Second Sight, and receives some advice from an old Scotswoman with a good dose of it. A story of how love can conquer death, or perhaps madness. Not my usual cup of tea, but I couldn't put it down.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early Bird Book Deal | Suddenly loses its footing | It's as if the author put the story aside for several years unfinished, and when he picked it back up he didn't go back to see what he'd already written. There's no final conflict, no triumph. Also, almost 40 pages of an unnecessary biography of a portion of the author's life, which is apparently a section of a larger whole broken up amongst the various volumes of this ebook collection. That's a bad choice because a) it's almost half the length of the story, when I didn't want it in the first place, and b) it's strange to assume that ebook readers will have necessarily bought the previous books in the collection and will therefore have read the earlier sections.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

It leaves you a bit wanting, but all in all a highly enjoyable yarn.

[Ramón S. · Rating 2 out of 5]

So sorry. It's my first book of George Mac Donald and it had been really boring. Sometimes I had been at the point of abandon it.
I wanted to read this author because C.S Lewis

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was originally serialized in three parts in the Cornhill Magazine for May, June, and July 1860. In 1864, George MacDonald expanded the story and published it in book form. He added a happy ending.
One of my favorite passages is the paragraph that ended the original version.
"They say that Time and Space exist not, save in our thoughts. If so, then that which has been is, and the Past can never cease. She is mine, and I shall find her-what matters it where, or when, or how? Till then, my soul is but a moon-lighted chamber of ghosts: and I sit within, the dreariest of them all. When she enters, it will be a home of love. And I wait-I wait."

This is one of my favorites of Macdonald's stories. It's a little strange, and the reincarnation aspect of it comes as a surprise from someone who's full length novels usually deliver a fair amount of sermonizing about Christian principles.

excerpt from the dedication:
"And permit me to say a few words about the story. It is a Romance. I am well aware that, with many readers, this epithet will be enough to ensure condemnation...
I am well aware that such tales are not of much account, at present: and greatly would I regret that they should ever become the fashion: of which, however, there is no danger. But, seeing so much of our life must be spent in dreaming, may there not be a still nook, shadowy, but not miasmatic, in some lowly region of literature, where, in the pauses of labour, a man may sit down and dream such a day-dream as I now offer to your acceptance, and that of those who will judge the work, in part at least, by its purely literary claims? If I confined my pen to such results, you, at least, would have a right to blame me. But you, for one, will, I am sure, justify an author in dreaming, sometimes."

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was working on a rather large art project and I was desperate for an audiobook. So I looked up what randomly popped into my head and it happened to be George MacDonald. I've been a long time admirer of his but knew he could write some queer stories. So I listened with caution and found it to be engrossing, interesting, but dark.

The story is about a Scotsman who finds out he has a curse that has long run in his family. He can hear a horse's hoof beats with a loose shoe approaching. The story behind the foreboding sound is a legend and generally predicts that something bad is about to follow. Later, when he meets a maid with a similar curse, he helps her discover that she is not mad as everyone thinks she is. She can hear the horse with the loose shoe as well as see it, along with different ghosts that haunt the manor.

Now this was where I was hoping MacDonald would battle the darkness and break the curse with light. But instead the curse just fades at the end when true love prevails.


It wasn't my favorite, but some of the concepts were interesting. Definitely not something you want to listen to lighten your mood.

[Jon Knebel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this story. I found it to be a genre-bender, managing to be a sort of ghost story with extremely romantic elements, adventure, and beautiful Christian themes. This unique combination makes it an incredibly original story. It goes very well in the collection, "The Portent and other Stories" because therein are found distinct stories with unique whispers of ghosts, vampires, and wherewolves--completely reimagined with redemption and the soul in mind.

[Sheri-lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to say 4 instead of 5 because I think that I may have liked his original version better which ends differently (no spoilers here). It was originally published as a serial but then edited into a book form. Anywho, it's a great read. I love it's Scottishness and how I feel like this fits right into my family history. I've got the 'second sight' for sure. :)

[Lynn McMillen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow---what a book. A little known work of George MacDonald---but well worth the time to find one. We found an out of print copy on Amazon---and we are wanting to find more copies so we can have a bookclub about it. All of my daughters need to read this!

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

just feelings

[Darlene Young · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gothic.

[Jeanette]

"What a wonderful thing waking is! The time of the ghostly moonshine passes by, and the great positive sunlight comes. A man who dreams, and knows that he is dreaming, thinks he knows what waking is; but know it so little, that he mistakes, one after another, many a vague and dim change in his dream for an awaking. When the true waking comes at last, he is filled and overflowed with the power of its reality. So, likewise, one who, in the darkness, lies waiting for the light about to be struck, and trying to conceive, with all the force of his imagination, what the light will be like, is yet, when the reality flames up before him, seized as by a new and unexpected thing, different from and beyond all his imagining. He feels as if the darkness were cast to an infinite distance behind him. So shall it be with us when we wake from this dream of life into the truer life beyond, and find all our present notions of being, thrown back as into a dim, vapoury region of dreamland, where yet we thought we knew, and whence we looked forward into the present. This must be Novalis means when he says: 'Our life is not a dream; but it may become a dream, and perhaps out to become one.'" (28)

"...your armour must be worn over the conscience, and not over the body. Be a man, Duncan, my boy. Fear nothing, and do your duty." (29)

"I could not now endure the thought of compelling the attendance of her unconscious form; of making her body, like a living cage, transport to my presence the unresisting soul. I shrank from it as a true man would shrink from kissing the lips of a sleeping woman whom he loved, not knowing that she loved him in return." (79)

"Much she loves, because she much hath borne;
Love-led, through the darksome way she goeth-
On to meet him in the breaking morn." (88)

"'My lost love!' I cried; and then, rebuking myself, 'No; she is not lost. They say that Time and Space exist not, save in our thoughts. If so, then that which has been is, and the Past can never cease. She is mine, and I shall find her - what matters it where, or when, or how? Till then, my soul is but a moon-lighted chamber of ghosts; and I sit within, the dreariest of them all. When she enters, it will be a home of love. And I wait - I wait.'" (93)

"It was winter within me - that was the reason; and I could feel no autumn around me, because I saw no spring beyond me." (130)

"For her heart, I know that cannot grow old; and while the heart is young, man may laugh old Time in the face, and dare him to do his worst." (160)

[Kara ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

From shockingly beautiful prose (I literally closed the book and stared into space one time) to atmospheric Scottish scapes, MacDonald weaves (yes WEAVES) his tale of transformative love overshadowed by ghostly premonitions.

MacDonald’s writing creates an expressive image. I can certainly understand how writers like Tolkien were influenced by him. I wanted to jump into the worlds he evokes with each new sentence.

Lady of the Mansion has that feel common with fairy tales or gothic tales in which you’re in the present time of the story but the callbacks to ancient times is always prominent.
___________

“I lighted the candles which stood upon the table, but the room, instead of being brightened, looked blacker than before, for the light revealed its essential blackness.”

“The neglected library was open to me at all hours; and in it I often took refuge from the dreariness of unsympathetic society.”

“A faded moonbeam fell on the floor, and filled the place with an ancient dream-light, which wrought strangely on my brain, and filled it, as if it, too, were but a deserted, sleepy house, haunted by old dreams and memories.”

“What news can the serene face of the moon, ever the same to us, give of the hidden half of herself turned ever towards what seems to us but the blind abysmal darkness, which yet has its own light and its own life?”

“I sat down in my old study-chamber among the rocks, and thought that if I could but find Alice she would be my home — of the past as well as of the future for in her mind my necromantic words would recall the departed, and we should love them together.”

“That it was autumn could not account for this; for I had always found that the sadness of autumn vivified the poetic sense, and that the colours of decay had a pathetic glory more beautiful than the glory of the most gorgeous summer with all its flowers. It was winter within me—that was the reason; and I could feel no autumn around me, because I saw no spring beyond me.”

“The moon was going down. Her light looked to me strange, and almost malignant. I feared that when she came to the full she would hurt my darling's brain, and I longed to climb the sky, and cut her in pieces.”

“She could endure marvelously; but without love and its joy she could not live, in any real sense.”

[Paul Goodwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a fountainhead of a book. Read over a couple of days during Easter week, I saw references to later works: most obviously CS Lewis’ wardrobe leading to another mysterious world; Alice in Wonderland; also David Bentley Hart’s ‘somnambulist’ suspicions of himself in his dealing with his dog, in his Roland in Moonlight. The work itself is deep, delightfully deep. One is drawn right close to the border between the visible and invisible and by this tale understands the phenomenon of ‘ghosts’. As to the subject of the tale, I would confidently say that it is Time, as this word is in the second to last clause of the last sentence in the book, just as Machines likely the theme of Rebecca Du Maurier’s The Birds for the same reason that the key word is placed right at the end of the story.

Writing _before Einstein_, this from chapter 23 is, for me, perhaps the central quote of the work: “After I had floated, as it were, upon the waves of memory for some time, I suddenly glanced behind me and around the room, and a new and strange experience dawned upon me. Time became to my conciousness what some metaphysicians say it is in itself - only a _form_ of human thought. For the Past had returned and had become the present.”

Herein is Cher roundly answered - If I could Turn Back Time - yes, Cher, you can. (Alas, I fear she won’t be told, already doomed as she is to repeat her refrain endlessly on radio rotation; she is become one of MacDonald’s ghosts, disembodied and stuck in a moment she cannot get out of, with all the rest of us Day Trippers in tow. #killuglyradio)

But I digress.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full title: "The Portent: A Story of the Inner Vision of the Highlanders, Commonly Called the Second Sight" 1864 Interesting mix of his folk/fairy-tale-type stories and a regular non-magic-type story. Ghosts and tales of the past are very near the material world and have their influence on the characters in this book. Love wins in the end.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Portent” is a moving and unusual romance that is underpinned with other-worldly influences. A mystical fable opens the story, and influences the main characters throughout their lives. This book has wild Scottish mountainsides, a rambling and spooky gothic mansion, an old nanny who nurtures her babe with faithful love along with Scottish songs and tales, step-relatives all too eager to declare their dependent heiress to be mad, and true love that refuses to give up hope of finding the beloved. I read several of MacDonald’s stories a number of years ago, and now after reading this one I want to delve into some of his books on Christian theology. George MacDonald had a great influence on many well-known fantasy writers through the years.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1817, the main character Duncan Campbell, from Scotland, is a teacher and gets a job in London tutoring for a family in higher society. Here, he meets Lady Alice. She is generally kept away from others, and after their meeting and Duncan learning that Lady Alice cannot read, at age 19, he begins to teach her. She is a fast learner, but once her parents learn of this, they are told this has to stop and Duncan does not see Lady Alice for some time due to her "becoming ill".
However, they do reconnect later and Duncan learns Lady Alice is prone to sleep walking. Again, they are discovered to have been seeing one another and Duncan is now banished from the house. Then begins the journey of him finding Lady Alice again.
Overall, an enjoyable read.

[Frank Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this short fantasy work by George MacDonald to be rather delightful. The work is based on an (apparent) Scottish myth of a second sight. It was evident in the way the book was written that the author recognised many to find this idea to be too close to the occult. He therefore made the second sight something that was genetic, and God given. I have found a number of MacDonald’s books to be tedious and even irritating. In contrast, this one resonated with me for reasons that I do not quite understand.

[Mia Ojeda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really know how to describe this tale—it reads almost like a Gothic ghost tale, but it isn't. Its sort of like a mix of the Headless Horseman meets Jane Eyre (in terms of the woman in the attic). This follows a young man named Duncan Campbell, who falls in love with a mysterious young woman living with the family he tutors. The mansion itself is a bit like the Haunted Mansion through an awareness of the spiritual realm and having second sight. There were threads of the tale that weren't necessarily resolved, but overall I loved the Victorian writing style.

[Lukas Merrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Macdonald is always such an aesthetic experience. He is so good at making you feel the “otherness” of the world in which his story inhabits.

Lady of the Mansion (The Portent) is part ghost story and part romance that is presented to the reader in that classic fairy tale style.

Despite some small weaknesses in the plot, I still highly recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Macdonald’s other works.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haunting

A love story . Difficult read for me due to the archaic wording. Two star crossed people find love across time. Very detailed and told from the man’s point of view. His and his lady share each other’s dreams literally until they can be together.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the middle I lost attention. Sadly. So now I'm uncertain whether Alice was really supernatural, or just insane, or maybe they both were. And I also wonder if I could have found an answer had I not lost attention half way...

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent work of 19th century speculative fiction, I originally thought this book was written in the 1970's simply because of the awful cover. Whoops!

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange occurrences, ghosts in the old Hilton Hall? Was Lady Alice a ghost from the past, or real? Would Duncan find true love?
Read for yourself in a short novel of old.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was lots of fun to read, full of gloomy old houses, secret passages, ghosts, unrequited loves, and family secrets. There were big holes in the plot but I didn't mind too much.