A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul — Inside the Classic

Recurring Images of Knocking, Waking, and Breathing

Across the excerpts, three images recur with unusual frequency: knocking, waking, and breathing. The January 7 poem presents "a child before an empty house, / Knocking and knocking at the closed door"—an image of persistent prayer that yields no immediate answer. The speaker often describes waking in confusion: "Sometimes I wake, and, lo! I have forgot" (January 3), or waking to find his soul "at rest now resteth not." Breathing appears as a metaphor for dependence: "My soul breathes only in thy infinite soul" (January 5). These are not abstract theological terms but physical, sensory experiences. The catalog labels this "devotional literature" and "Christian poetry," but the excerpts show a speaker who does not simply affirm faith; he dramatizes its difficulty through these bodily metaphors. The knocking child, the disoriented waker, and the creature that breathes only in God's "airy sea" all suggest a spirituality grounded in need rather than certainty.

Doubt as a Structural Element, Not a Foil

Many devotional works present doubt as a temporary obstacle overcome by faith. MacDonald's diary, however, gives doubt a persistent voice. The speaker admits, "Truth seems a blind moon in a glaring morn" (January 3), and later worries that his own "notions" might substitute for God's realities: "Let me live in thy realities, / Nor substitute my notions for thy facts" (January 28). The July 24 entry warns that the soul may be "Buffeted in a tumult of low cares, / And treacheries of the old man 'gainst the new." These are not confessions followed by easy resolution; they are part of the diary's ongoing argument with itself. The catalog subject "devotional literature" might imply a settled piety, but the excerpts reveal a work that treats spiritual struggle as the normal condition of faith. The speaker's cry "I love thee for I must" (January 26) suggests compulsion more than comfort.

The Calendar as a Framework for Spiritual Unfolding

The book is organized by months, from January to December, with each day receiving a single poem. This structure is not merely chronological; it creates a pattern of return and variation. The January entries establish key concerns—memory, waking, dependence—that reappear in later months. For instance, the August 1 poem speaks of entering "liberty's divine expanse" through a rent made by Christ, echoing the January 2 image of a "dim aurora" and an "unopened door." The August 3 poem uses the metaphor of a traveler who drinks from a pool and then leaves, only to return—a pattern that mirrors the speaker's own cycles of closeness and distance. The catalog lists "devotional calendars" as a subject, and indeed the work fits that genre, but the excerpts show that MacDonald uses the calendar not as a mere ordering device but as a way to dramatize spiritual repetition and slow growth. The speaker does not progress linearly; he returns to the same images and struggles, month after month.

Readers approaching A Book of Strife should expect not a systematic theology but a record of spiritual restlessness. The poems reward attention to their recurring images and to the way each month reworks earlier themes. The blank pages of the original edition invite response; modern readers might consider keeping a notebook alongside the text. MacDonald's diary is best read slowly, one entry at a time, allowing the speaker's struggles to echo in one's own.

The rain blurred the window as I turned the pages of the diary, its verses on waking and knocking settling into a slow rhythm that matched the afternoon. I kept thinking about that image of struggle—a life's work earned stroke by stroke. Later, on a whim, I opened Dauber: A Poem — Edition Insights, finding a similar quiet perseverance, another soul wrestling with its craft against the vast, indifferent sea. Both felt like confessions.