MacDonald dedicated There and Back to his son Ronald, who, less than twenty years later would write one of the warmest and most human reminiscences of his father that has been left to posterity. ⁵

Michael Phillips

Cullen, Morayshire

Scotland, 2017

1 George MacDonald, Victorian Mythmaker by Rolland Hein, Star Song Publishing, Nashville, TN, 1993, pp. 376-77.

2 Hein, Mythmaker, p. 375.

3 The Athenaeum, April 25, 1891, quoted in Hein, Mythmaker, p. 377.

4 Hein, Mythmaker, p. 377.

5 That 1911 tribute appeared in the collection of essays entitled From A Northern Window.

THERE AND BACK

1891

The Cullen Collection

Volume 32

NOTE

Some of the readers of this tale will be glad to know that the passage with which it ends is a real dream; and that, with but three or four changes almost too slight to require acknowledging, I have given it word for word as the friend to whom it came set it down for me.

In the sure hope of ever lasting brotherhood, I offer this book to Ronald MacDonald, my son and friend, my pupil, fellow-student, and fellow-workman.

BORDIGHERA

February, 1891 *

— One —

Bookbinder and Son

Stretching his aching muscles and straightening from his book, John Tuke rested his glance on his son Richard. A fine strong lad, Tuke thought as he observed the boy at work. And such skilled hands! Hands I never thought could produce such skill in the trade. *

But clumsiness or ugliness in infancy is sometimes promise of grace or beauty in manhood. In Richard’s case, the promise was fulfilled—what had seemed repulsive to some who beheld him as an infant had given place to a certain winsomeness. He was now a handsome, well-grown youth, with dark brown hair, dark green eyes, broad shoulders, and a bit of a stoop which made his mother uneasy. But he had good health, and what was better, an even temper, and what was better still, a willing heart toward his neighbour. A certain overhanging of his brow was called a scowl by those who did not love him, but it was of minor significance—probably the trick of some ancestor.

With pride—not the possessiveness of the owner, but the liberating joy of the mentor—John Tuke watched in silence as the skilful fingers of the seventeen-year-old youth moved lovingly over the volume under his care. Richard occasionally assisted his father in binding, but in general, as now, he occupied himself with his own particular devotion—the restoration of antiquity.

While learning the bookbinding trade, Richard had attended evening classes at King’s College, where he developed a true love for the best of literature, especially from the sixteenth century. He grew to possess a peculiar regard for old books, and with the three or four shillings a week at his disposal, searched about to discover and buy volumes that, for their physical condition, would be of little worth to the bookseller. With these for his first “patients,” he opened a hospital for the lodging, restorative treatment, and invigoration of decayed volumes.