I just finished reading, “A Double Story” by George MacDonald. As usual, MacDonald did a fantastic job of bringing this reader to a deeper understanding of God’s dealings with humanity.
Written in fairytale form (probably published for children), it may not be the first book an adult would pick up to learn about human nature and how to be set free from selfishness and pride. But I would recommend this book to anyone because although it is a simple fairytale it profoundly convicts and challenges the reader. We are all spoiled, rotten children who consider ourselves to be very important, just like the two main characters in this book. We may appear to have dignity but, as this book reveals, we all have childlike delusions about ourselves and our own goodness.
In a nutshell, the moral of the story is that in order to be set free from our wretchedness we must first come to an understanding of it. Most of us do not even realize our actual condition. Once we realize our condition, it takes a while for that to sink in. We often think we are “getting better” when we have not yet begun to realize our desperate need to lean on something other than ourselves to be better.
“People are so ready to think themselves changed when it is only their mood that is changed!”
The princess in the story had to come to the end of her own strength—she became so exhausted trying to change herself.
“I am made horrid, and I shall be horrid, and I hate myself, and yet I can’t help being myself!”
…
“Couldn’t you help me?” said Rosamond piteously.
“Perhaps I could, now you ask me,” answered the wise woman. “When you are ready to try again, we shall see.”
“I am very tired of myself,” said the princess. “But I can’t rest until I try again.”
“That is the only way to get rid of your weary, shadowy self, and find your strong, true self. Come, my child; I will help you all I can, for now I CAN help you.”
Once we begin to be changed (because we realize our need for help from Someone stronger), the change has just begun—it is not complete until we have purity and truth (Christ’s nature) reigning completely in our hearts and lives. Sanctification is a journey—a learning process.
MacDonald also does a great job explaining why so many of us misjudge each other. We’re skeptical of the good until we are made good. Light seems dark to us until we are walking in light.
“But whatever she might have said would have been only perverted by the princess into yet stronger proof of her evil designs, for a fancy in her own head would outweigh any multitude of facts in another’s.”
“For whoever is possessed by a devil, judges with the mind of that devil.”
Perhaps the most powerful message of the book was at the end—it really challenged me.
“You must not think, because you have seen me once, that therefore you are capable of seeing me at all times. No; there are many things in you yet that must be changed before that can be. Now, however, you will seek me. Every time you feel you want me, that is a sign I am wanting you. There are yet many rooms in my house you may have to go through . . . do not think . . . that the things you ahve seen in my house are mere empty shows. You do not know, you cannot yet think, how living and true they are.—Now you must go.” (the wise woman)
“Will you forgive ALL my naughtiness, and ALL the trouble I have given you?” (the princess)
“If I had not forgiven you, I would never have taken the trouble to punish you. If I had not loved you, do you think I would have carried you away in my cloak?” (the wise woman)
“How could you love such an ugly, ill-tempered, rude, hateful little wretch?” (the princess)
“I saw, though it all, what you were going to be. . . but remember you have yet only BEGUN to be what I saw.” (the wise woman)
I recommend this book to EVERYONE. It is very short and you can download it for free on the iPad!
Here are some other quotes:
” . . . they were the same in this, that each cared more for her own fancies and desires than for any thing else in the world.”
“As she spoke, suddenly she held up before the princess a tiny mirror, so clear that nobody looking into it could tell what it was made of, or even see it at all—only the thing reflected in it. Rosamond saw a child with dirty fat cheeks, greedy mouth, cowardly eyes—which, not daring to look forward, seemed to be trying to hide behind an impertinent nose—stooping shoulders, tangled hair, tattered clothes, and smears and stains everywhere. That was what she had made herself. And to tell the truth, she was shocked at the sight, and immediately began, in her dirty heart, to lay the blame on the wise woman . . . ”
“Instead of thinking how to kill the ugly things in her heart, she was with all her might resolving to be more careful of her face, that is, to keep down the things in her heart so that they should not show in her face, she was resolving to be a hypocrite as well as a self-worshipper.”
“The only thing that could save the princess from her hatefulness, was that she should be made to mind somebody else than her own miserable Somebody.”
“The man who will do his work in spite of his fear is a man of true courage.”
“Until our duty becomes to us common as breathing, we are poor creatures.”
“Rosamond then understood that the mere calling herself a princess, without having any thing to show for it, was of no use.”
“There is but one true way, however, of getting out of any position we may be in, and that is, to do the work of it so well that we grow fit for a better.”
“Rosamond, if you would be a blessed creature instead of a mere wretch, you must submit to be tried.”
“Nobody can be a real princess . . . until she is a princess over herself, that is, until when she finds herself unwilling to do the things that is right, she makes herself do it. So long as any mood she is in makes her do the thing she will be sorry for when that mood is over, she is a slave, and no princess. Nay, more: her might goes father than she could send it, for if she act so, the evil mood will wither and die, and leave her loving and clean.”
“Perhaps you will understand me better if I say it just comes to this, that you must NOT DO what is wrong, however much you are inclined to do it, and you must DO what is right, however much you are disinclined to it.”
And that’s the end of my little book review of “A Double Story” by George MacDonald. 🙂
Stephanie
