At the Back of the North Wind quotes

I have been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind.

An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his.

“But if it’s not right, you know,” said Diamond, “that’s no matter. You shouldn’t do it.”

“I am so tall I am above that law,” said the voice.

“You must have a tall house, then,” said Diamond.

“Dear me!” said Diamond, and thought a minute. “I think, then, you can hardly expect me to keep a window in my bed for you. Why don’t you make a window into Mr. Dyves’s bed?”

“Nobody makes a window into an ash-pit,” said the voice, rather sadly. “I like to see nice things out of my windows.”

“But he must have a nicer bed than I have, though mine is very nice—so nice that I couldn’t wish a better.”

And indeed he did not.

For to know a person’s name is not always to know the person’s self.

“Then I must not be angry with you.—You had better look and see, though.”

“

You must not be ready to go with everything beautiful all at once, Diamond.

”

Then he thought of what the lady had said about people being cold because they were not with the North Wind. How it was that he should have guessed what she meant at that very moment I cannot tell, but

I have observed that the most wonderful thing in the world is how people come to understand anything.

He turned his back to the wind, and trotted again towards the yard; whereupon, strange to say, it blew so much more gently against his calves than it had blown against his shins that he began to feel almost warm by contrast.

he did so only because he thought Lady North Wind had said something like telling him to do so. If she had said to him that he must hold his face to it, Diamond would have held his face to it.

But the most foolish thing is to fight for no good, and to please nobody.

Well, it was just as if the wind was pushing Diamond along.

And Diamond thought that, next to his own home, he had never seen any place he would like so much to live in as that sky.

For it is not fine things that make home a nice place, but your mother and your father.

As he was looking at the lovely colours, the gates were thrown open, and there was old Diamond and his friend in the carriage, dancing with impatience to get at their stalls and their oats. And in they came.

… to blow, and two or three long leaves that stood up behind the flower shook and waved and quivered, but the primrose lay still in the green hollow, looking up at the sky, and not seeming to know that the wind was blowing at all.

It was just a one eye that the dull black wintry earth had opened to look at the sky with.

All at once Diamond thought it was saying its prayers, and he ought not to be staring at it so. He ran to the stable to see his father make Diamond’s bed.

“Oh, dear North Wind! how can you talk so?”

“My dear boy, I never talk; I always mean what I say.”

“Then you do mean to sink the ship with the other hand?”

Diamond nestled to her, and murmured into her bosom—“Why did you leave me, dear North Wind?”

“Because I wanted you to walk alone,” she answered.

“But it is so much nicer here!” said Diamond.

“How kind you are, North Wind!”

“I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it.”

“I don’t quite understand that.”

He could only tell where it was far up by the faint glimmer of the windows of the clerestory, whose sills made part of it. The church grew very lonely about him, and he began to feel like a child whose mother has forsaken it.

Only he knew that to be left alone is not always to be forsaken.

He began to feel his way about the place, and for a while went wandering up and down. His little footsteps waked little answering echoes in the great house. It wasn’t too big to mind him.

… of the five chief seaports in England, but it began to hold itself too high, and the consequence was the sea grew less and less intimate with it, gradually drew back, and kept more to itself, till at length it left it high and dry:

Sandwich was a seaport no more; the sea went on with its own tide-business a long way off, and forgot it.

Of course it went to sleep, and had no more to do with ships. That’s what comes to cities and nations, and boys and girls, who say, “I can do without your help. I’m enough for myself.”

“You don’t care for me any more,” said Diamond, almost crying now.

“Yes I do. Only I can’t show it. All my love is down at the bottom of my heart. But I feel it bubbling there.”

“What do you want me to do next, dear North Wind?” said Diamond, wishing to show his love by being obedient.

“

They looked as if they were waiting to be gladder some day.

”

If my reader find it hard to believe that Diamond should be so good, he must remember that he had been to the back of the north wind.

If he never knew a boy so good, did he ever know a boy that had been to the back of the north wind?

It was not in the least strange of Diamond to behave as he did; on the contrary, it was thoroughly sensible of him.

and indeed except Diamond had done all he possibly could to keep out the misery that was trying to get in at doors and windows, he too would have grown miserable, and then they would have been all miserable together.

But to try to make others comfortable is the only way to get right comfortable ourselves

, and that comes partly of not being able to think so much about ourselves when we are helping other people. For our Selves will always do pretty well if we don’t pay them too much attention.

Could Diamond have had greater praise or greater pleasure? You see when he forgot his Self his mother took care of his Self, and loved and praised his Self.

Our own praises poison our Selves, and puff and swell them up, till they lose all shape and beauty, and become like great toadstools.

But the praises of father or mother do our Selves good, and comfort them and make them beautiful. They never do them any harm.

Nothing helps one to get on like that. Some people don’t know how to do what they are told; they have not been used to it, and they neither understand quickly nor are able to turn what they do understand into action quickly.

With an obedient mind one learns the rights of things fast enough; for it is the law of the universe, and to obey is to understand.

“Look out!” cried Mr. Stonecrop, as they were turning the corner into Bloomsbury Square.

“Why, Diamond, it’s a bad beginning to run into your own father,” cried the driver.

“But, father, wouldn’t it have been a bad ending to run into your own son?”

said Diamond in return; and the two men laughed heartily.

For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds.

On Mount Sinai, it was thunder; in the cabman’s heart it was misery; in the soul of St. John it was perfect blessedness.

By and by he became aware that there was a voice of singing in the room.

Still Diamond, though he heard every word, and understood it too, kept on smiling. What could it matter what people called him, so long as he did nothing he ought not to do?

And, besides, God’s baby was surely the best of names!

“Well, my little man, and what can you do?” asked the gentleman, turning towards him—just for the sake of saying something.

“Oh no, I shouldn’t.

Baby can laugh in your face, and crow in your ears, and make you feel so happy. Call you that nothing, father?

”

“And there’s the best of mine to come yet—and that’s you, daddy—except it be mother, you know. You’re my friend, daddy, ain’t you? And I’m your friend, ain’t I?”

“And God for us all,” said his father, and then they were both silent for that was very solemn.

“But what on earth do you want here?”

Diamond told him plainly what he was about, and of course the man believed him, for nobody ever disbelieved Diamond. People might think he was mistaken, but they never thought he was telling a story.

“It’s an ugly place,” said the policeman.

“They would have if I hadn’t been at hand, though.”

“Yes; but you were at hand, you know, so they couldn’t.”

Perhaps the answer was deeper in purport than either Diamond or the policeman knew. They walked away together, Diamond telling his new friend how ill poor Nanny was, and that he was going to let the tall gentleman know.

“I don’t know what a riddle is,” said Diamond.

“It’s something that means something else, and you’ve got to find out what the something else is.”

Mr. Raymond liked the old-fashioned riddle best, and had written a few—one of which he now read.

“Oh then,” I think I hear some little reader say, “he could not have been a genius, for a genius finds out things without being told.”

I answer, “Genius finds out truths, not tricks.”

And if you do not understand that, I am afraid you must be content to wait till you grow older and know more.

“But you needn’t tell him anyone told you.”

Diamond gave him a stare which came from the very back of the north wind, where that kind of thing is unknown.

“That would be cheating,” he said at last.

“Yes, I do see him. And I sees you too. You’d better leave him alone. He ain’t no oyster.

He’s a angel come down on his own business.

You be off, or I’ll be nearer you than quite agreeable.”

They kept constantly coming back to Diamond, however, as the centre of their enjoyment, rejoicing over him as if they had found a lost playmate.

There was a wind on the hillside which blew like the very embodiment of living gladness. It blew into Diamond’s heart, and made him so happy that he was forced to sit down and cry.

“Now let’s go and dig for stars,” said one who seemed to be the captain of the troop.

His head was full of the dream he had dreamed; but it did not make him neglect his work, for his work was not to dig stars but to drive old Diamond and pick up fares.

There are not many people who can think about beautiful things and do common work at the same time. But then there are not many people who have been to the back of the north wind.

There was not much business doing. And Diamond felt rather cold, notwithstanding his mother had herself put on his comforter and helped him with his greatcoat. But he was too well aware of his dignity to get inside his cab as some do.

I have said that he had not behaved very well to Miss Coleman. He had put off their marriage more than once in a cowardly fashion, merely because he was ashamed to marry upon a small income, and live in a humble way.

When a man thinks of what people will say in such a case, he may love, but his love is but a poor affair.

Mr. Coleman took him into the firm as a junior partner, and it was in a measure through his influence that he entered upon those speculations which ruined him. So his love had not been a blessing.

There was great jubilation in the palace, for this was the first baby the queen had had, and there is as much happiness over a new baby in a palace as in a cottage.

But there is one disadvantage of living near a wood: you do not know quite who your neighbours may be.

Everybody knew there were in it several fairies, living within a few miles of the palace, who always had had something to do with each new baby that came;

Of course the old hag was there without being asked. Not to be asked was just what she wanted, that she might have a sort of reason for doing what she wished to do.

For somehow even the wickedest of creatures likes a pretext for doing the wrong thing.

Five fairies had one after the other given the child such gifts as each counted best, and the fifth had just stepped back to her place in the surrounding splendour of ladies and gentlemen, when, mumbling a laugh between her toothless gums, the wicked fairy …

The poor prince turned and walked towards the wood.

“Come back,” said Daylight: “I like you. You do what you are told. Are you good?”

“Not so good as I should like to be,” said the prince.

“Oh! don’t I?” said the prince. “More than you would believe, mother.”

“A fairy can believe anything that ever was or ever could be,” said the old woman.

“Then are you a fairy?” asked the prince.

“Then are you a fairy?” asked the prince.

“Then what do you do for things not to believe?” asked the prince.

“There’s plenty of them—everything that never was nor ever could be.”

The prince recoiled in overmastering wonder. It was Daylight herself whom he had brought from the forest! He fell at her feet, nor dared to look up until she laid her hand upon his head. He rose then.

“You kissed me when I was an old woman: there! I kiss you when I am a young princess,” murmured Daylight.

—“Is that the sun coming?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Diamond,” said Nanny.

“Never mind,” answered Diamond. “Two people can’t always understand each other. They’d both be at the back of the north wind directly, and what would become of the other places without them?”

“You do talk so oddly!” said Nanny. “I sometimes think they must have been right about you.”

“Well, we won’t dispute about it,” said Nanny: “you’ve got a tile loose, you know.”

“Suppose I have,” returned Diamond, “don’t you see it may let in the moonlight, or the sunlight for that matter?”

“Perhaps yes, perhaps no,” said Nanny.

“There are very few things good enough to be true,” said Diamond; “but I hope this is. Too good to be true it can’t be.

Isn’t true good? and isn’t good good? And how, then, can anything be too good to be true?

That’s like old Sal—to say that.”

I was going to clean the windows. It takes a good many, you know. Really, what they do say of their superiors down there!’ ‘It’s only because they don’t know better,’ I ventured to say. ‘Of course, of course,’ said the little man. ‘

Nobody ever does know better. Well, I forgive them, and that sets it all right, I hope.

’ ‘It’s very good of you,’ I said. ‘No!’ said he, ‘it’s not in the least good of me. I couldn’t be comfortable otherwise.’

The mother would always pay the week’s rent before she laid out anything even on food. His father had been very gloomy—so gloomy that he had actually been cross to his wife.

It is a strange thing how pain of seeing the suffering of those we love will sometimes make us add to their suffering by being cross with them.

This comes of not having faith enough in God, and shows how necessary this faith is, for when we lose it, we lose even the kindness which alone can soothe the suffering.

His father had been very gloomy—so gloomy that he had actually been cross to his wife. It is a strange thing how pain of seeing the suffering of those we love will sometimes make us add to their suffering by being cross with them.

This comes of not having faith enough in God, and shows how necessary this faith is, for when we lose it, we lose even the kindness which alone can soothe the suffering.

Diamond in consequence had gone to bed very quiet and thoughtful—a little troubled indeed.

“Is that because you love me?”

“Yes, just because. Love makes the only myness,” said Diamond.

When his father came home to have his dinner, and change Diamond for Ruby, they saw him look very sad, and he told them he had not had a fare worth mentioning the whole morning.

“We shall all have to go to the workhouse, wife,” he said.

“It would be better to go to the back of the north wind,” said Diamond, dreamily, not intending to say it aloud.

“So it would,” answered his father. “But how are we to get there, Diamond?”

“So it would,” answered his father. “But how are we to get there, Diamond?”

“We must wait till we’re taken,” returned Diamond.

Before his father could speak again, a knock came to the door, and in walked Mr. Raymond with a smile on his face. Joseph got up and received him respectfully, but not very cordially.

“Well, that’s quite right, so long as what you want is right.

Everybody is always wanting something; only we don’t mention it in the right place often enough.

What is it now?”

What Mr. Raymond thought, I dare hardly attempt to put down here.

But one part of it was, that the highest wisdom must ever appear folly to those who do not possess it.

“I think he would come though—after dark, you know,” Diamond continued. “He does well at shining boots. People’s kind to lame boys, you know, sir. But after dark, there ain’t so much doing.”

“Oh dear no!

Any story always tells me itself what I’m to think about it.

Mr. Raymond doesn’t want me to say whether it is a clever story or not, but whether I like it, and why I like it.

“And weren’t you frightened at it?”

“Because I’m silly. I’m never frightened at things.”

I could not help thinking of the old meaning of the word “silly.”

“And it didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Why should it? I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“What did your companions say then?”

“Oh, no!

When nobody minds me, I get into my nest, and look up. And then the sky does mind me, and thinks about me.

”

“I don’t see anything more, except a few leaves, and the big sky over me. It goes swinging about. The earth is all behind my back. There comes another star!

The wind is like kisses from a big lady. When I get up here I feel as if I were in North Wind’s arms.

”

Dulcimer crowed with pleasure; but when the roar of thunder came after it, the little brother gave a loud cry of terror. Nanny and Jim came running up to us, pale with fear.

Diamond’s face, too, was paler than usual, but with delight.

Some of the glory seemed to have clung to it, and remained shining.

“He ain’t got sense to be frightened,” said Nanny, going up to him and giving him a pitying hug.

“Perhaps there’s more sense in not being frightened, Nanny,”

I returned. “Do you think the lightning can do as it likes?”

Perhaps some of my readers may wonder that he could go to sleep with such an expectation; and, indeed, if I had not known him, I should have wondered at it myself; but it was one of his peculiarities, and seemed nothing strange in him.

He was so full of quietness that he could go to sleep almost any time, if he only composed himself and let the sleep come.

This time he went fast asleep as usual.

You ain’t a dream, are you, dear North Wind? Do say No, else I shall cry, and come awake, and you’ll be gone forever. I daren’t dream about you once again if you ain’t anybody.”

“I’m either not a dream, or there’s something better that’s not a dream, Diamond,”

said North Wind, in a rather sorrowful tone, he thought.