Excerpt from At the Back of the North Wind

By George MacDonald

I’ve been meaning to post this for weeks, and I keep forgetting. I decided today was the day. My favorite part is the very last line of the passage.

He trembled so at the thunder, that his knees failed him, and he sunk down at North Wind’s feet, and clasped her round the column of her ankle. She instantly stooped, lifted him from the roof–up–up into her bosom, and held him there, saying, as if to an inconsolable child–

“Diamond, dear, this will never do.”

“Oh yes, it will,” answered Diamond. “I am all right now– quite comfortable, I assure you, dear North Wind. If you will only let me stay here, I shall be all right indeed.”

“But you will feel the wind here, Diamond.”

“I don’t mind that a bit, so long as I feel your arms through it,” answered Diamond, nestling closer to her grand bosom.

“Brave boy!” returned North Wind, pressing him closer.

“No,” said Diamond, “I don’t see that. It’s not courage at all, so long as I feel you there.”

“But hadn’t you better get into my hair? Then you would not feel the wind; you will here.”

“Ah, but, dear North Wind, you don’t know how nice it is to feel your arms about me. It is a thousand times better to have them and the wind together, than to have only your hair and the back of your neck and no wind at all.”

“But it is surely more comfortable there?”

“Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable.”