In George
MacDonald’s Phantastes *, the central
theme of Anodos’ journey is his heart: more specifically, the nature of true
love. Throughout his adventure, he encounters women with whom he fancies
himself being in love. Some of his attractions are merely physical, some end
with discovering the woman is evil, and some are obsessions. In all of these
experiences, there lies within Andodos’ heart a self-centeredness that is the
antithesis of love. Love is all about him: his feelings, his needs, and his
projections upon the beloved.
At one point in
his journey Anodos enters a house with a great library where he discovers books
that, upon reading, pull him inside the story where he experiences first hand
what the protagonist is experiencing. One such story is about a man named Cosmo.
In this story, Cosmo finds a mirror; in this mirror he espies a woman with whom
he falls in love. Cosmo is mesmerized. Does she see me? How can I get her to
pay attention to me? How do I meet her and let her know of my love? He is
obsessed with her.
Finally being
able to communicate with the lady, he tells her of his love and asks if she
might feel the same. As she is bewildered by her predicament, she replies that
she cannot know as long as she is under an enchantment.
“Cosmo, if thou
lovest me, set me free, even from thyself: break the mirror.”
A fierce
struggle raged in his heart. “To break the mirror would be to destroy his very life….Not
yet pure in love, he hesitated.”
“With a wail of
sorrow, the lady rose to her feet. ‘Ah! he loves me not; he loves me not even
as I love him; and alas! I care more for his love than even for the freedom I
ask.’”
Upon investigation,
he learns that the lady is a princess who has fallen deathly ill. Lying abed,
she is “a form more like marble than a living woman.” What he is seeing in the
mirror is an apparition. As he seeks to discover how to free the woman, his
love for her is converted from being a self-centered obsession into a love that
transcends his self. All he cares for now is her welfare.
Cosmo finally
breaks the mirror. The princess opens her eyes and calls out his name, and then
runs to find him. Seeing him, she proclaims, “I am free—and thy servant
forever.” But Cosmo has been mortally wounded by a shard of glass.
For Anodos,
experiencing the story of Cosmo and the lady in the mirror leads to the
transformation of his heart so that, at the very end of his journey, before
returning to his own world, he has learned the spiritual nature of true love:
“It is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the
soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other, and
not the being beloved by each other, that originates and perfects and assures
their blessedness. I knew now that love gives to him that loveth, power over
any soul beloved, even if that soul knew him not, bringing him inwardly close
to that
spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion as selfishness
intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs there-from dies. Yet all
love will, one day, meet with its return. All true love will, one day, behold
its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad.”
* George
MacDonald, “Phantastes,” Wm Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan,
1964
Copyright,
Monte E Wilson, 2014
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