Explore "Phantastes" by George MacDonald on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"O lady! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does nature live: Ours is her wedding garments ours her shroud! Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth, A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud, Enveloping the Earth- And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element! " COLERIDGE.
From this time, until I arrived at the palace of Fairy Land, I can attempt no consecutive account of my wanderings and adventures. Everything, henceforward, existed for me in its relation to my attendant. What influence he exercised upon everything into contact with which I was brought, may be understood from a few detached instances. To begin with this very day on which he first joined me: after I had walked heartlessly along for two or three hours, I was very weary, and lay down to rest in a most delightful part of the forest, carpeted with wild flowers. I lay for half an hour in a dull repose, and then got up to pursue my way. The flowers on the spot where I had lain were crushed to the earth: but I saw that they would soon lift their heads and rejoice again in the sun and air. Not so those on which my shadow had lain.