It seemed an old, old forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasure. Great boughs crossed my path great roots based the tree-columns, and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong to uphold. “Great stems rose about me, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches, and twigs, and leaves- the bird and insect world uplifted over mine, with its own landscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and glades, and dwellings its own bird-ways and insect-delights. ― George MacDonald, quote from Phantastes They are portions of the living house wherein he abides.” No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a self-encircling twin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a man's soul, and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well. The blank, which is only a forgotten life, lying behind the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an undeveloped life, lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations of other connexions with the worlds around us, than those of science and poetry. Else a grander idea is conceivable than that which is already imbodied. The community of the centre of all creation suggests an interradiating connection and dependence of the parts. Worlds cannot be without an intermundane relationship. “They who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates of men, are, in feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who regard the heavenly bodies as related to them merely by a common obedience to an external law.

Phantastes by George MacDonald