Lilith by George MacDonald

    His best characters are those which reveal how much real charity and spiritual wisdom can co-exist with the profession of a theology that seems to encourage neither. MacDonald illustrates not the doubtful maxim that to know all is to forgive all, but the unshakable truth that to forgive is to know. He who loves, sees. ~ CS Lewis

Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

   Headed over to the dark side today, even if just for a bit. I don't usually choose science fiction or darkness in books, but this new year, I've determined to step up and stretch my fiction writing skills. Therefore, I'm stretching my reading roster. In Lilith, I got more than I bargained. I really don't have much to add, but to say that this book speaks to me. I'm not quite through it yet, and will likely post more quotes. But, oh the words and truths. Sister and I read the passage on Eve and Lilith the other day; it sparked quite the conversation. 

Lilith Quotes

When a heart is really alive, then it is able to think live things.

All live things were thoughts to begin with, and are fit therefore to be used by those that think. When one says to the great Thinker: - “Here is one of thy thoughts: I am thinking it now!” that is a prayer – a word to the big heart from one of it's own little hearts.

Indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise.

You can tell what sort a man is by his creature that comes oftenest to the front.

Your world is such a half-baked sort of place, it is at once so childish and so self satisfied.

You know nothing about whereness. The only way to come to know where you are is to begin to make yourself a home.

“Two objects,” I said, “cannot exist in the same place at the same time.”

"Can they not? I did not know! - I remember now they do teach that with you. It is a great mistake - one of the greatest ever wiseacre made! No man of the universe, only a man of the world could have said so!" ~ The Raven

Cindy Lee Jones, The Raven

 Of Little Ones

“She will never go bad and grow big! When they begin to grow big they care for nothing but bigness; and when they cannot grow any bigger, they try to grow fatter. The bad giants are very proud of being fat.” “So they are in my world.” I said, “only they do not say fat there, they say rich.”

“He is forever eating those apples now!” she said. “That is what comes of Little Ones that won't be little!”

“They call it growing up in my world!” I said to myself. “If only she would teach me to grow the other way, and become a Little One! - Shall I ever be able to laugh like them?”

Pondering as I went, I recalled many traits of my little friends.

Once when I suggested that they should leave the country of the bad giants, and go with me to find another, they answered, “But that would be to not ourselves!” - so strong in them was the love of place that their country seemed essential to their very being! Without ambition or fear, discomfort or greed, they had no motive to desire any change; they knew of nothing amiss; and, except their babies, they had never had a chance of helping anyone but myself: - How were they to grow? But again, why should they grow? In seeking to improve their conditions, might I not do them harm, and only harm? To enlarge their minds after the notions of my world – might it not be to distort and weaken them? Their fear of growth as a possible start for giant-hood might be instinctive!

In this world never trust a person who has once deceived you. Above all, never do anything such a one may ask you to do.  

In Bulika (The Evil Netherlands)

“Doubt,” I said to myself, “may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.”

I was too daring: a man must not, for knowledge, of his own will encounter temptation! On the other hand, I had reinstated an evil force about to perish, and was, to the extent of my opposing faculty, accountable for what mischief might ensue!

I asked how they were rich if none of them earned money. She replied that their ancestors had saved for them, and they never spent. When they wanted money they sold a few of their gems. “But there must be some poor!” I said. 

 

“I suppose there must be, but we never think of such people. When one goes poor, we forget him. That is how we keep rich. We mean to be rich always.”

“But when you have dug up all your precious stones and sold them, you will have to spend your money, and one day you will have none left!” 

De Beers Venetia Mine, South Africa Photographer Unknown

Every now and then as she spoke, she would stop and look behind her.

I asked why her people had such a hatred of strangers.

She answered that the presence of a stranger defiled the city. 

“How is that?” I said.

“Because we are more ancient and noble than any other nation. - Therefore,” she added, “we always turn strangers out before night.”

Mr. Vane comes out of Bulika and is home in the library. He was saved from the Princess; pulled through the Silent Fountain by the Raven

When a man will not act where he is, he must go far to find work.

But for the weeping in it, your world would never have become worth saving!

Is not a little knowledge, a dangerous thing? 

 

That is one of the pet falsehoods of your world! Is a man's greatest knowledge more than a little – or is it therefore dangerous? The fancy that knowledge is in itself a great thing would make any degree of knowledge more dangerous than any amount of ignorance. To know all things would not be greatness.

The Persian Cat

“But if I found a man that could believe

In what he saw not, felt not, and yet knew,

From him I should take substance, and receive

Firmness and form related to touch and view,

then should I clothe me in the likeness true

Of that idea where his soul did cleave!

At these words such a howling, such a prolonged yell of agony burst from the cat , that we both stopped our ears.... “Now we have her, I think!” and returning to the cat, stood over her and said, in a still, solemn voice:-

“Lilith, when you came here on the way to your evil will, you little thought into whose hands you were delivering yourself! - Mr. Vane, when God created me – not out of glory – He brought me an angelic splendor to be my wife: there she lies! For her first thought was power; she counted it slavery to be one with me, and bear children for Him who gave her being. One child, indeed, she bore, then, puffed with the fancy that she had created her, would have me fall down and worship her! Finding, however, that I would but love and honour her, never obey and worship her, she poured out her blood to escape me, fled to the army of the aliens, and soon had so ensnared the heart of the great Shadow, that he became her slave, wrought her will, and made her Queen of Hell.

The one child of her body, she fears and hates, and would kill, asserting a right, which is a lie, over what God sent through her into His new world. Of creating, she knows no more than the crystal that takes its allotted shape, or the worm that makes two worms when it is cloven asunder. Vilest of God's creatures, she lives by the blood and lives and souls of men. She consumes and slays, but is powerless to destroy as to create.

The animal lay motionless, it's beryl eyes fixed, flaming on the man: his eyes on hers held them fixed that they could not move from his.

“Then God gave me another wife – not an angel but a woman – who is to this as light is to darkness.”

The cat gave a horrible screech, and began to grower bigger. She went on growing and growing. At last the spotted leopardess uttered a roar that made the house tremble. I sprang to my feet. I do not think Mr. Raven started even with his eyelids.

“It is but her jealousy that speaks,” he said, “jealousy self-kindled, foiled and fruitless, for here I am, her master now, whom she would not have for her husband! While my beautiful Eve yet lives, hoping immortally! Her hated daughter lives also, but beyond her evil ken, one day to be what she counts her destruction – for even Lilith shall be saved by her childbearing. Meanwhile she exults that my human wife plunged herself and me in despair, and has borne me a countless race of miserables; but my Eve repented, and is now beautiful as never was a woman or angel, while her groaning, travailing world is the nursery of our Father's children. I too have repented, and am blessed. - Thou, Lilith, has not yet repented, but thou must. - Tell me, is the great Shadow beautiful? - Answer me, if thou knowest.”

Then at last I understood that Mr. Raven was indeed Adam the old and the new man, and that his wife, ministering in the house of the dead, was Eve, the mother of us all, the lady of the New Jerusalem.

“I am beautiful - and immortal !” Lilith said. - and she looked the goddess she would be. 

 “As a bush that burns, and is consumed,” answered he who had been her husband.

“Lilith,” said Adam, and his tone had changed to a tender beseeching, “hear me, and repent, and He who made thee will cleanse thee!”

She gave the cry of one from whom hope is vanishing. The cry passed into a howl. She lay writhing on the floor, a leopardess covered with spots.

“The evil thou meditatest,” Adam resumed, “thou shalt never compass, Lilith, for Good and not Evil is the Universe. The battle between them may last countless ages, but it must end: how will it fare with thee when Time hath vanished in the dawn of the eternal morn? Repent, I beseech thee, repent, and be again an angel of God!”

She rose, she stood upright, a woman once more, and said,

“I will not repent. I will drink the blood of thy child.”

My eyes were fastened on the princess; but when Adam spoke, I turned to him: he stood towering above her; the form of his visage was altered, and his voice was terrible.

“Down!” he cried; “or by the power given me I will melt thy very bones!”

She flung herself on the floor, dwindled and dwindled, and was again a gray cat. Adam caught her up by the skin of her neck, bore her to the closet, and threw her in. He described a strange figure on the threshold, and closing the door, locked it.

Then he returned to my side the old librarian, looking sad and worn, and furtively wiping tears from his eyes.

Jewish Lilith Theology

* I love MacDonald's use of punctuation. There's hope for those who use commas generously!