“There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
”
This verse from Victorian Poet Laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson, perfectly illustrates George MacDonald's response to deep-thinking seekers of God, such as the tragic but compelling character of Eric Ericson, one of the most carefully drawn characters in Robert Falconer. A kind of "Scottish Shelley", Eric suffers terrible inner conflict between faith and doubt, and reflects on this through poems he writes and shares with Robert. The illustration shows Robert just as he finds Ericson standing before a door in an old wall on a cold and misty night. Robert's combined sorrow, admiration, and devotion for the man is well described in their conversation on the page opposite the drawing, with English translations side-by-side the original Scots dialogue, translated by David Jack.
