Newsletter of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts

Spring 2019 The Paradox of Place By Dr. Paul Connell, Fellow The farther one travels, oftentimes, often given in a way that one might the closer one feels to what one has not expect. Consequently, the shape The attachment to place runs deep in left behind. Therein lies the paradox of a pilgrimage, going and returning, the Western tradition, revealing a deep of leaving and returning, of home and “biglietto andata e ritorno,” traces a type yearning in us for a sense of stability, away. of crescent, or, more precisely, an ellipse. rooted in the familiar. This movement of departure and (Coincidentally—or perhaps not—the There are many accompanying return finds its parallel in the Christian form of the Piazza San Pietro in Rome, images, but one in particular presents a tradition: pilgrimage. One leaves the the point of convergence for pilgrims certain paradox. familiar on settled terrain for a high from all over the world, is an ellipse.) Odysseus, in Homer’s Odyssey, must spiritual purpose to return to one’s native A poem that expresses this paradox of leave his native Ithaka to fight the place having received certain graces home-and-away and the transformative Trojan War. The primary action of the and having undergone something of a effect of the journey may be found in the epic is his return home to achieve his transformation. works of a sixteenth-century French poet "nostos" or homecoming. There his wife Part of the transformation is looking Joachim du Bellay, born into a family of Penelope and his son Telemachus await, at the place one has left with new eyes. some status in the Loire Valley in 1522, a as does the task of putting in order his One may embark on a pilgrimage first cousin of the then-notable Cardinal household after a twenty-year absence. for various reasons, even for motives Jean du Bellay. The attachment that one feels to not completely known to the pilgrim, In 1553 he was sent to Rome as a the familiar, to hearth and household, but there is the fairly constant sense of secretary of Cardinal du Bellay, staying the sadness of leaving what one loves, a “perceived deficiency” in the pilgrim in Rome for four and one half years. the anxiety and anticipation of the that calls for redress. This was a time of maturation in his unexpected, the trials and tribulations In fact, one of the graces that poetry. And though his time in Rome of the journey, and the hoped-for return, a pilgrim may receive could be a was privileged in a certain sense, it was recur in large ways and small throughout purification of motives. (Continued on page 12) life. One might say that one departs as an “old man” to speak in anthropological terms, and returns a “new man.” And Sugar Shack 3 so it is that the journey is never the same going to the destination as it is coming back, even if it is on the same road. The Marble Faun 4 The path, imaginatively, takes the same pattern as that of the Magi, perhaps the original pilgrimage model Wisdom & Creativity 6 for the Gentile peoples. We are told that after being warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, that the Treasures from the Library 10 Magi departed into their own country another way (Matt. 2:12). America's British Culture 11 Such is the reverberation of an as an Inheritance? Epiphany. What the pilgrim receives, therefore, On Manchester Street 15 at minimum, is the grace of an insight, 2 www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu

ommunitas A community newsletter

Communitas is published by The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts thanks to the generous contributions of loyal supporters. To support this publication go to: www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu/Support To subscribe: www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu/Communitas Editor Layout Editor Executive Editor Carley Cassella Allison Deardurff Dominic Cassella Publisher William Fahey Spring 2019 3 Sugar Shack By Phil Lawler, Visiting Fellow Cover the buckets as you fill them, and pleasant conversation while you take store them somewhere cold, probably turns stirring the pots and adding fresh Sometimes Mother Nature lavishes outdoors. Be prepared to cool them if logs. her bounties upon us at no cost; sunsets the temperature suddenly rises; warm sap As the first pots of sap boil down, and birdsongs are free to all. At other will “bloom” and give off an unpleasant consolidate them, fill the available times she makes us work for her gifts. odor, presaging an unpleasant taste. pots with fresh new sap, and repeat the Sugar is in that latter category. Before If you have professional-grade process. Gradually you notice that the you enjoy that delicious taste, someone equipment, the next step is equally processed sap is thickening and taking must grow, harvest, and process cane or easy. For a hobbyist, though, the real on a hint of color. You find yourself beet. Or someone must keep bees, and work begins. You have collected sap, treating it with great care, whereas you after a little nurturing and coaxing of the not syrup. If you sample a bit, it will sloshed the pure sap around roughly. industrious little creatures, take away the look and taste like water because that’s And indeed it is precious. Taste it now. surplus of their labor. Or one may tap essentially what it is. To produce one You’re almost there. maple trees and boil sap down into sugar. quart of maple syrup, you need to boil I have found that the last step is best Since someone must do that work, off approximately 40 quarts of water. taken in the kitchen, where it’s easier to why not do it yourself? I myself keep This boiling must be done outdoors; control the temperature. A moderate bees and tap trees, and I find the that much steam would take the paint off amount of steam will not be unwelcome work instructive as well as rewarding. your kitchen walls. You’ll need a fire pit, in a house that has dried out through Instructive, because through the process I several large pots, and plenty of wood the winter heating season. When the learn a bit more about nature, about the for fuel. This might be a good time to precious liquid reaches 219°, it’s maple beauty of Creation. And this rewarding, use up scrap wood or soft pine that you syrup. Congratulations. because—well, because the end result wouldn’t use in your woodstove. (But be Sample the syrup once, and you'll brings quarts and quarts of pure honey careful; pine burns hot and fast; you’ll know that you can never accept the or maple syrup. have to stoke the first constantly and sticky, pallid substitutes again. You'll Making maple syrup is deceptively watch vigilantly so that the sap doesn’t feel a sense of accomplishment because it simple but not necessarily easy. The trees boil over.) Expect to spend several hours was your work that transformed watery provide the sap; all we need to do is boil boiling. sap into this amber elixir. As you share it. And boil it, and boil it. But first, of At this stage the process could be the final product with your friends, course, we must choose the right trees. boring, but I find that it can also be a you’ll find that they want to be invited New England is rich in sugar pleasant social occasion. Invite a few back again next year—or maybe take maples—beautiful trees that help give friends to come join you. You’ll all be up maple-syruping themselves. Can you the region its spectacular autumn colors. warm around the fire and can enjoy a blame them? Sugar maples can be identified by their five-lobed leaves and their distinctive seed fruits. After a bit of consultation with an experienced hand (or a book or a web site), any novice can pick the right trees. Tapping the trees is easy. Late in winter, when temperatures are below freezing at night and above during day— usually mid-February in the vicinity of TMC—the time is right to drill holes and insert taps. Any household drill will work. Taps are available online but can easily be improvised. Hook a plastic bucket to the tap, or better, run clear plastic tubing from the tap to a bucket, and wait. Have plenty of large buckets on hand; a healthy tree can produce a couple of gallons a day. 4 www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun Highlights from the Curriculum: Companion Reflections by a Fellow & an Alumnus Pauline Pilgrimage year. For that trip, I and to shatter it with more picturesque brought three books—my Bible, Pope decay. Byron’s celebrated description is Benedict’s Paul the Apostle, and Nathaniel better than the reality.” The party then Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun. goes on to observe other Americans and During that pilgrimage I was cured of English “paying the inevitable visit by two maladies. I had prayed for healing moonlight, and exalting themselves with of the body and mind and, through them, raptures that were Byron’s, and not their the cleansing and strengthening of my own.” Throughout the novel, Hawthorne soul. In all truth, a leg injury that had forces the reader to meditate with him on burdened me for over two decades simply the doom of the thoughtful: How does one vanished after my visit to San Paolo alle Tre untangle the visions of the imagination Fontane—the church built over the site of from the firmness of the world? How do St. Paul’s execution. Equally wonderful we turn away from idols toward reality, was reading The Marble Faun at the Villa without an abandonment of the arts of Seranella to the merry song of the Rose- civilization that make our lives tolerable ringed Parakeets and striking upon a and meaningful, if not cheerful? particularly illuminating passage. Rome instructs; great art and artists By Dr. William Fahey, President The Marble Faun is a tale that explores, instruct. When in Rome, I try to take When I first came to Rome, I came as Hawthorne put it, “the Human Soul, the students through the Piazza de like so many—filled with strong images with its choice of good or evil close at Campidolgio and through the Capitoline of imperial grandeur and Pontifical hand.” It is a tale of friends, American and Museum, an area that plays a central solemnity. The city of my imagination European, who are drawn to Rome by their part in Hawthorne’s tale. But there is had been laid out and constructed on a own conception of its beauty and power something else I like to show them. There monumental scale. In earlier years, I had and who move through their own Edenic is a little path I know that will take you soaked myself along Hadrian’s Wall, spent revelry and fall from innocence. There is around corners, through arches, and up several summers surveying Legionary mystery, murder, love, cruelty, retribution, steps to a hidden café, atop the Museum. fortifications in Armenia and Syria, and and forgiveness—the full sweep of From the patio, you can scan Rome—to tramped through the provinces; now I human experience. I have now carried the east the ruins of the Forum, to the would enter Rome triumphant. I would this book with me through all quarters of west you gaze over the Campo di Fiori now march through the arches of Piranesi, Rome, bright and shadowy, over the past towards St. Peter’s. There is life. There is pledge an oath before Robert’s Marcus decade, and my love and appreciation for Roma aeterna. The reality of Rome now Aurelius, sweep along the Via Sacra just as Hawthorne’s craftsmanship as well as his works well with my imagination. They it had been photographed in my Jenney’s melancholic struggles with his own mind are reconciled. When I gaze on the messy Latin. grow with each pilgrimage. stone squalor of the Forum, a history of As I rode in, that first time, from What was that first illumination that I magnanimous failures, I see more the Fiumicino, I felt less like Judah Ben-Hur was given to the song of the Parakeet? It magnanimity of what was attempted, and gazing upon the Palaestra, and more like came with the following words, words that less of the disarray. Or perhaps, better, I see an Elizabethan Cassius uttering in disbelief, express a central idea which Hawthorne that the ruins have a quiet nobility to them, “What trash is Rome, what rubbish and reconfigures again and again throughout for a ruin speaks of hope, initiative, and what offal.” My encounter with Rome the book. The quartet of friends in the action. A noble ruin is a testimony of a was just what I needed, a humiliation. A novel goes to visit the Coliseum at night. noble life. The ruin demonstrates human complete and utter devastation of the idols Their minds are filled with Romantic failure and anticipates divine perfection. in my mind. It is not that all my youthful notions as they enter the Coliseum, which And when the tolling of Aracoeli persuades readings and meditations were false, in is flooded with the startling light of the me to look the other direction, I am not the common sense, but the images I had moon, and they find it, as Hawthorne sad, nor do I think of my mind as divided constructed in my imagination were idols; says, “a great empty space… too distinctly between the literary Rome of Edward and like all who lose their idols, I was visible.” With a strong sense of irony, Gibbon (or Hawthorne) and the Rome left with a confusion and sadness. Rome he continues, “The splendor of the of Benedict and Francis. The tolling bells conquered and dictated terms—parcere revelation took away that inestimable that I hear now are real, at one with all that subjectis et debellare superbos. Ironically, effect of dimness and mystery by which I have read, and calls me to the same thing. I did not fully understand this until the imagination might be assisted to build Benigne fac, Domine, in bona voluntate tua my second trip to Rome during the a grander structure than the Coliseum, Sion: ut aedificetur muri Jerusalem. Spring 2019 5 Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun Highlights from the Curriculum: Companion Reflections by a Fellow & an Alumnus and their own imaginative responses to repeats that it is the overwhelming it, brings them closer to whatever is real presence of the past that makes Rome (or “truly” represented) within artificial unbearable. It is Rome’s everlastingness creation. In The Marble Faun, art is which is evil, since so much mutability what brings the real into reality: The ought, in time, to pass away. highly artificial confessional rite brings Praxiteles’ marble faun is a reverse the Protestant Hilda to peace. A statue’s image of Rome, as is Donatello, that benediction brings hope to a pair of statue’s living embodiment, since it is beleaguered lovers. Throughout the through an encounter with the work, book, paintings, statues, and buildings hewn out of the dead block of marble, reflect, oppose, and bring about the that the group of friends first encounter main character’s various states of mind. Donatello’s faunish, lively, past-less, The images that seems to vivify, to truly memory-less nature. Donatello is a kind represent in the minds of the young artists of Rousseauian Adam, led into a sinful the substance of eternal things, amid the knowledge of evil by his love for Miriam, squalid wasteland of a ruinous past. a beautiful woman whose origins are as Yet only in their aesthetic experiences inexplicable as those of Eve herself. By do Hilda and Kenyon allow the unity knowing himself in the present with By Michael Yost ’18 of the symbol and the thing symbolized. reference to the past, by moving beyond The reader who finds himself They shy away from the Roman Church, the boundary of the moment and into wandering through the winding passages whose value as an image of the mystical the painful realm of memory, Donatello and prospects of this book will find much body seems at odds with its historical undergoes a crisis of personality, emerging to catch his eye and much to wonder reality. Kenyon, an epitome of Protestant as a higher, more human person, not at. As Hawthorne allows his audience rationality, says of the Church that “the only capable of both good and evil but of to meander (and sometimes to stumble) exceeding ingenuity of the system stamps remorse and penitence. His knowledge, across the famous wreckages of Rome, it as the contrivance of man, or some once a curse, brings with it the capacity he meanwhile sweeps across the wide worse author, not an emanation of the for height and depth; in a word, the and jumbled array of human dilemmas broad and simple wisdom from on high”. capacity for nobility, for overcoming. Out which that infamous city contains within Hawthorne recognizes this disparity of the dead marble of Praxiteles leaps a itself. Hawthorne’s dialectical style allows in his repeated condemnations of Rome. living faun, who sins and stands in need Rome to question herself and, at the Rome, for Hawthorne, is a monster. She of penance and reconciliation, happy, in same time, to question us, but the author is a broken image of a once living glory, the end, because of his happy fault. does not give an explicit answer to this a dead carcass on which only scavengers question. Much remains hidden, even and parasites can sustain life. This is the as the romance reaches its close. Yet the Rome of history and of death. But in her reader will find himself, again and again, world of art and imagination, the friends glancing sideways at the book, like a find transcendence in both statue and tourist in a museum, trying to catch the symbol. still, single point that must exist within In Rome, the eternal city and the city the work, binding all together, allowing of living death, Hawthorne chooses to tell nothing to be lost. his tale of sin and reconciliation and to As one glances, one must speak with work these contrarieties around the image the work in its own language—the of the marble faun. Kenyon, the foremost language of the artists filling its pages, male character, is a “man of marble”. As a who are all busily interpreting, seeing, and sculptor, his art is repeatedly criticised by re-creating the world in their own images the fiery, beautiful Miriam for it’s coldness, on their Italian tour, with the spectre its lifelessness, and above all, its inability of New England looming behind their to pass away. By Miriam’s account, in his conscious thoughts all the while. Hilda, effort to preserve the beauty of life forever, Kenyon, Miriam, and even the simple- he merely adds to the receipt of the minded (but aptly-named) Donatello world’s ruins. Here we have a repetition speak the language of imagination. Art, of the image of living death. Hawthorne 6 www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu Wisdom and Creativity

In a flash, we had a vision of Catholic A result of the wall of separation that education: an education which would Adler built between activities such as neither turn away from work and learning Latin or reading Shakespeare, on activity or leisure and contemplation, the one hand, and naturalistic drawing but would keep them unified—as Christ or carpentry, on the other, was that it led Himself had. As His early disciples most proponents to the conclusion that had. As the Benedictine architects of liberal education could not be one in Catholic education had. This unity of which men and women were formed in craftsmanship and learning was possible and for virtue. How could an art justified only because of God’s revelation to in itself and free from other purposes and the Jews and Christians: God himself ends remain free if things like character, was a craftsman. God Himself was virtue, or self-mastery were involved? constantly contemplating His creation. However, a careful reexamination of And most intriguing, God called man great writers of the Western tradition to imitate Him and participate in both revealed to us the extent to which they contemplating and making. recognized not only the compatibility of, Under such encouragement, we but the need for, unifying the theoretical With a desire to address weaknesses began to reconsider aspects of medieval and practical. Cicero speaks of this common to young people in our culture, civilization and examples of how in blending in works like On Duties. Hugh in 2009 the teachers and administrators a single community intellectual and of St. Victor draws together all the arts at Thomas More College of Liberal spiritual exploration was brought for consideration. And Aristotle—the Arts reconsidered the nature of the together with work and craftsmanship. writer Adler most commonly cites in his academic curriculum and the student The monasteries provided a solid defense of the utter separation of liberal life. To an outside observer, most of example, but an American liberal arts and servile—emphatically advocates that the developments would likely appear college is more akin to an entire small for the student and scholar, theory and modest. One, however, was not. It was bold. Though it occupies only a small city, and with that image, we struck practice must be joined, even while he portion of the credit hours expected with upon the idea of the Guild. maintains a theoretical distinction in the the curriculum, it is a clear statement One of the concerns that vexed arts. about the crisis in modern education those of us who had been educated In his formal consideration of and one way to find encouragement in Great Books colleges was that our education at the end of the The Politics, and strength in the Catholic educational endeavor seemed not in accord with Aristotle states that a purely liberal arts tradition. the intellectual tradition. After all, education, free from practical experience, The classical world fashioned an the architects of the twentieth-century or an education myopically focused on understanding of the liberal arts, but the creation of Great Books schools seemed ancient gentlemen who studied those arts consistently to speak against any looked down upon those who worked blending of liberal studies with either with their bodies. The Hebrew tradition the fine arts (e.g., painting) or the was different. Teachers and wise men mechanical arts (e.g., wood-working). practiced handcraft—St. Paul and Our The iconic figure Mortimer Adler and Lord both exemplify this traditions. The his followers were regularly saying things distinction springs from a fundamental like, “Liberal education is education for difference between the pagan and leisure; it is general in characteristic; it Christian understanding of God. is for an intrinsic and not an extrinsic Through revelation we know that God end; and as compared with vocational is a creator who works in history and training, which is the education of slaves with the material world. The monastic and workers, liberal education is the founders of Catholic education, while education of free men.” Adler and other preserving the learning of the Graeco- proponents of the Great Books regularly Roman world, created a culture in which conjured up Aristotle, St. Thomas devotion to the word was integrated to Aquinas, and Blessed John Henry the dedication to work. Newman as authorities on the matter. Spring 2019 7 Wisdom and Creativity

avoiding useful arts and perfecting only knowledge of the liberal arts, will “degrade the mind.” In his view, a good education must find the balance between the theoretical, the useful, and that which will form student in virtue. Aristotle admitted to being puzzled as to how one finds the balance. Would that Aristotle had encountered Christ. The educational program and community life at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts purposes to bring the three into balance: the traditional liberal arts, the useful arts, and an education for virtue. Our guild program plays an important part in achieving this balance Inspired by these origins, Thomas The guilds are a forum in which by providing an encounter with Catholic More College intends that the guilds the virtues are taught through hands- tradition, an occasion for growth in enable students to gain practical on experience. A hammer blow to the the virtues (particularly humility and skills and experience in areas such as thumb, singing an off-key pitch: these prudence), and an opportunity to woodworking, sacred art, folk art, teach humility in a bodily way. The serve and delight both those within the and music. The College’s guilds derive lessons learned through the guilds can be College and in the surrounding area with their spirit from those earlier voluntary applied to any aspect of daily life, even if the results of the Guild art. communities of men and women who one does not pursue woodworking, art, Catholic guilds in their earliest form advanced their trades and arts while music, or gardening as a career. Through had developed out of man’s natural responding to the needs of their local the experience provided by the guilds, spirit of association. Guided explicitly communities. students come to understand what is by Church teachings, guilds encouraged Each guild meets for a few hours every meant by a living tradition. a corporate enactment of charity and week and is taught by someone devoted The core principles of an art come political prudence. They were fraternal to perfecting the skills of his or her trade, alive and can be passed down. This benefit societies, religious associations, if not already a master. Students are orderly and personal participation and civil organizations, as well as educational required to meet a series of benchmarks knowledge is at the heart of tradition. alliances. throughout the year so that their The Thomas More College Guilds performance can be measured—whether contribute to the development of the that is the perfection of a dovetail joint, student, the life of the College, and the correct reading of plain notes, or the common good. Each guild instills a the memorization and performance of a spirit of cooperation, prayer, and service. dozen folk tunes. Service to the community is as simple For many students the guilds are as singing to the elderly in nursing a welcome and relaxing break from homes, taking on construction projects their studies. This is to be expected; in one’s parish, and baking bread for the participation in them is meant to be homeless. enjoyable. However, the guilds offer Through habitual consideration of more than simple recreation. Each the end to which the guilds' activities guild offers practical experience that is are directed, students will understand integrated with the College’s academic how work, paid or unpaid, can be curriculum. One objective is to directed towards the common good. demonstrate our belief that a Catholic The old Roman virtue of labor comes liberal education need not, in fact should alive! Through their twin labors—both not, divide what is contemplative from intellectual and practical—our students what is practical, what is beautiful from creatively engage the wider culture and what is useful. serve as agents of its transformation.

Article originally published in Regina Magazine in October 2015. 8 www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu Spring 2019 9 10 www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu Orestes Brownson: The American Republic Treasures from the Library

American Republic has gone in and out was a period of time where books were of print and in and out of awareness. rebound in “library binding,” stripped At its time, it was considered one of the of their original spine and cover, and most complete reviews of the American chopped down to fit the robust boring Constitution. binding that still looks untouched, even One would not describe Brownson as 50 or 60 years later. As the field moved being from the same school of thought away from rebinding, spine repair was as the Founders, however. For one in its infancy, and that looks to be the thing, Brownson had the advantage of time when our volume needed some time—100 years of actual governance. attention. The original spine is fully For another, The American Republic covered with thick, sticky blue tape. was written after his conversion to Think of painter’s tape but as robust as By Alexis Rohlfing’08, Librarian Catholicism, and all the thought duct tape. At that point in time, the that went with moving through his focus was on keeping books together, in I have been known, from time to previous viewpoints. Natural law is an a very literal sense. It was practical and time, to wander through the stacks of important underpinning for Brownson, cheap and nigh on irreversible. our small but interesting rare books and he acknowledges the influence of By the time I went through library room on a whim. Even three years Greece and Rome while viewing the school, the focus was on preservation into the digitization of our catalog, the Constitution as a move toward perfecting with a defined point of failure—20 or actual books we have in our possession the underlying principles. 30 years out – to allow for reevaluation sometimes comes as a surprise. Between Now this book is interesting, and it’s using a new techniques that had cropped the hodgepodge of Excel spreadsheets important…and this particular copy is up. There are now ways of directly and the out of date card catalog, there not as charming as some of our other replacing a spine, splicing in end paper, remains plenty of room for serendipity. highlights. The thing with books, of and generally helping the book along. And so I took myself downstairs course, is that they are meant to be If only these were options! At this when the time came to find another read and pondered and discussed and point, we have to wait for tape failure, interesting piece to share with you all. borrowed. There is a certain wear and because pulling the tape off will damage I found several, as I invariably do, but tear that goes along with this. We aren’t our volume further. We can’t fault the this semester we’re highlighting just the first owners of this book, though librarians of the past too much, though. one book: Orestes Brownson’s American with a publication date of 1865, this After all, it may not be pretty, but the Republic. should not surprise you. There are marks book is still with us. And someday, we’ll Orestes Brownson, as a reminder, was from at least one other library, but the get a peek at the spine. Hopefully, there a New England boy. Raised a Calvinist, big stand-out is the spine. is enough there to reattach it. Even he filtered through the Presbyterians, Let’s take a moment to examine if there’s not, the boards are in good Unitarians, and the Transcendental library preservation. Preservation is repair, and the paper hasn’t gone brittle. movement before converting to an ever-evolving discipline, and it’s a Fortunately for us, books from the late Catholicism. He wrote prolifically, both blend of art and science in unexpected 1800s have a habit of holding up, and in long form books and in periodicals. ways. The theory behind preservation this one should follow suit, tape and all. His writings spanned literature, has changed over time as well. There philosophy, and political thought. The book we’re looking at, The American Republic, is Brownson’s attempt to analyze the development of American political thought. The American Republic was published in 1865, a culmination and reexamination of Brownson’s thoughts on the structure of American government. Brownson writes as a Catholic and as a New Englander and was a leading thinker in his day. The Spring 2019 11 America’s British Culture as an Inheritance? attest, the legacy of English culture is The poem continues with the weary “I” one steeped in a civilized, Christian returning to the feet of the Virgin, the imagination. An English inheritance very vessel of the Infinite. is a Christian inheritance. But this What is remarkable for our purposes declaration is a peculiar one, and we here is that Adams has the character “I” find ourselves, like the unconverted John establish civilization as well as work to Henry Newman, defensive of our mother destroy it. Oddly, both actions make yet apprehensive about our patrimony— for his inheritance. In the wake of his at once a believer and a critic. For the rejection of tradition, Adams concludes English inheritance, as all European his poem by repeating his pedigree— inheritance, is an expression of Western Byzantium, Abailard, Saint Bernard, etc. Christian culture marred by both the This repetition of verse makes possible Enlightenment and the Reformation the final act: falling to the Virgin’s feet and all of their disordered intellectual and confessing the Incarnation. In and practical consequences. Yet this Boston-born Adams’s case, his deference By Dr. Sara Kitzinger, Teaching Fellow is the English story, the New England to the wisdom of the past placed the story, our story. How can this modern, gravity of its errors in relief. The What an extraordinary relief it is to muddied chronicle constitute anything resulting contrast propels him toward know that society does not begin and end like Burke’s “inheritance”? authority not of his making. with the immediate desires of you or me. I have found one of the most The tragedy of his story isn’t denied; Edmund Burke was at pains to remind discerning ruminations on our diverse it is interrupted, redeemed by making France of the noble repercussions of this English inheritance is Henry Adams’s present more than just the past—Adams simple fact. Burke’s Reflections on the poem, Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres, returns to the wise, to all which proclaim Revolution in France sounded an alarm written in 1901. Adams, the great the limitations, promise, and end of our that delivered all the majesty and civility grandson of President John Adams, human nature. As to inheritance: Adams of the ancient peoples of the West. In begins with a plea for help from the returns to the wise because of the errors, his rebuttal of an individual-rights-based Virgin and begs her to remember him but only because all the while the truth polity, he declared society—the political who “prayed for grace in vain/ Seven was “handed down, to us and from us…” community and its culture—was an hundred years ago”. He then makes order of beneficence. All those things present the ancient inheritance of the that allowed for the flourishing of men, West. His character, “I”, is “an English body and soul, were sustained not by scholar of a Norman name”, who also “the rights of man”, but through time by proclaims: the custom of inheritance. For Burke, one’s inheritance must involve deference “When your Byzantine portal was still young to the wisdom of the past. Cultural I prayed there with my master Abailard; inheritance is thereby the way in which When Ave Maris Stella was first sung civilization endures. I helped to sing it here with Saint Bernard.” I join Russell Kirk’s conclusion that when contemplating our own cultural This “I”, residing in Christendom’s inheritance, it is undeniably “America’s tradition of learning and civility, then British Culture” that we encounter. forsakes it and embarks upon a new As Kirk noted some twenty years ago quest for knowledge and dominion of in his volume of the same name, “In “the Infinite”: language and literature, Virginia and Massachusetts…transplanted England “Crossing the hostile sea, our greedy band to the eastern shore of America. Almost Saw rising hills and forests in the blue; four centuries later, that language and Our father’s kingdom in the promised land! that literature remain the footing for –We seized it, and dethroned the father too.” the culture of some two hundred and eighty million North Americans.” As The “I” then enters Adams’s own anyone familiar with Bede’s Ecclesiastical steely, atomic age and finds the modern History, King Edward the Confessor, Dynamo answers not the mystery of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, or the Infinite, but instead “his life-blood Oxford Oratory, Oxford, England John Winthrop’s “City on A Hill” can anoints / Me–the dead Atom-King!”. 12 www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu The Paradox of Place (Continued from page 1)

hardly idyllic, feeling very keenly the loveliness of the “chimney-smoke,” the embankment, under the span of the absence of his native place, coupled with “little town,” the “small gardens,” the bridge, he looked everywhere but found the frustrations of living in sixteenth- “plain, secluded home,” the “quiet Loire, nothing. century Rome. and the “Zephyrs of Anjou.” In his looking, he aroused the This Roman exile produced one of his But du Bellay had to go to Rome to attention of a Gendarme who was best poems, Heureux Qui Comme Ulysse, find that out. guarding the bridge and palace. The which superbly expresses the happiness And so it is that students from the Gendarme asked him what he was up to. of returning home after a long absence. Thomas More College of Liberal Arts Isaac told him the story about the One of the best translations of this leave home, all that is familiar, their dream and the pot of gold. poem is by the American poet, Richard family and classmates and make their The gendarme laughed and said, Wilbur: pilgrimage to Rome in their sophomore "Dear man, there is no pot of gold here, year to discover something of great value that I can assure you. Though, it is odd: Happy the Man about the place they left. I had a similar dream, that if I went to Happy the man who, journeying far and wide Fortunate are those that leave. Blessed Krakow and looked behind the wood As Jason or Ulysses did, can then are those upon their return. stove of an old Jewish baker, I would find Turn homeward, seasoned in the ways of men, Coda: a pot of gold." And claim his own, and there in peace abide! Another literary work from another Isaac left disappointed and puzzled. time, place, and tradition which draws When he got back home to Krakow, When shall I see the chimney-smoke divide a similar moral is a certain Yiddish he looked behind the wood stove, lifted The sky above my little town: ah, when folktale. There are a number of versions, up the floorboards, and what did he find Stroll the small gardens of that house again but basically it goes like this: but a pot of gold. Which is my realm and crown, and more beside? Centuries ago, there was an old Jewish So there you have it. baker named Isaac ben Yakil who lived To me the story is less about the Better I love the plain, secluded home in Krakow. He kept having a certain dream and the gold than it is the wood My fathers built, than bold façades of Rome; dream. He would dream that if he made stove and the journey. Slate pleases me as marble cannot do; a journey to Prague, and if he looked Thus one must have to leave home under the Charles Bridge at the foot of to get a better perspective and clearer Better than Tiber's flood my quiet Loire, the palace, he would find a pot of gold. understanding of what is in front of Those little hills than these, and dearer far At first he paid no attention to the them. Than great sea winds the zephyrs of Anjou. dream, but finally he thought that he One's treasure is at home, where the had to act on it. hearth is, but you have to leave home to Another fine translation of this poem So he made the long journey to find that out. was done by G.K. Chesterton. And Prague. Hilaire Belloc wrote a fine commentary Isaac found the Charles Bridge and on the poem in his Avril: Being Essays on went there at night to look for the “Biglietto andata e ritorno” the Poetry of the French Renaissance. pot of gold. He looked all around the So this poem has a very good pedigree. The poem begins with what is called a macarism. "Macarism" comes from the Greek for beatitude, an expression of happiness. Some of the most famous and most paradoxical macarisms in the Christian tradition are the Beatitudes from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. In the context of the poem by du Bellay, the answer to the question of what makes you happy, what makes you blessed in life is this: returning home. What becomes apparent to him is the Spring 2019 13 Please tear out this page at the perforation and use this icon of St. Thomas More and his Psalm of Detachment to keep Thomas More College of Liberal Arts's faculty, staff, and community in your prayers. staff, and community in College of Liberal Arts's faculty, More Detachment to keep Thomas Psalm of and his More Thomas tear out this page at the perforationPlease and use this icon of St. Please tear out this page at the perforation and use this icon of St. Thomas More and his Psalm of Detachment to keep Thomas More College of Liberal Arts's faculty, staff, and community in your prayers. staff, and community in College of Liberal Arts's faculty, More Detachment to keep Thomas Psalm of and his More Thomas tear out this page at the perforationPlease and use this icon of St. 14 www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu

Psalm of Detachment Please tear out this page at the perforation and use this icon of St. Thomas More and his Psalm of Detachment to keep Thomas More College of Liberal Arts's faculty, staff, and community in your prayers. your in community and staff, Liberal of faculty, Arts's College More Thomas keep to Detachment of Psalm his and More Thomas St. of icon this perforation use the and at page this out tear Please prayers. your in community and staff, Liberal of faculty, Arts's College More Thomas keep to Detachment of Psalm his and More Thomas St. of icon this perforation use the and at page this out tear Please Spring 2019 15

On Manchester Street by Dr. Anthony Esolen The Men and Women Our Culture Makes

“Therefore all I desire to do is to beautiful bronze relief. She is beautiful That may lead us to ask, “What bid you pause – pause, and think, and and grave at once. would these two people be like, if they consider the arguments of the leaders It may be fitting to consider Mrs. lived now?” I am afraid you might as of the ‘movement,’ without passion, Van Rensselaer and Saint-Gaudens well ask, “What kind of orator would without prepossession, and without that together, because he too became, all too Henry Clay make, if he were in our foolish vanity of would-be imitation of quickly, something of a lost cause. It’s senate?” Or “What kind of missionary men which means a great lack of true hard to imagine how that could be. If would David Livingstone make, in feminine pride. But above all do not be you go to Lincoln Park in Chicago, that the current Anglican Church?” The tempted to say, ‘We women must look will be Saint-Gaudens’ colossal bronze questions almost have no meaning. We out for ourselves and our own interests.’ statue you will see of Lincoln the young have no orators, so there would be no It is a slander upon the men of America lawyer. If you go to Dublin, that will Clay. We have no explorer-missionaries, to say this – upon those men who have be Saint-Gaudens’ monumental tribute so there would be no Dr. Livingstone. so cordially helped us to become the to the Irish patriot Parnell. If you go Saint-Gaudens, who knows, might most highly considered women in the to the cathedral of Edinburgh, you may be crafting computerized images for world. And it is a defiance of the laws of see Saint-Gaudens’ medallion of that Hollywood. And Mrs. Van Rensselaer? nature and of common sense to declare favorite son of the Scots, Robert Louis The thousand cultural influences that that the best interests of the sexes are Stevenson. Saint-Gaudens took his went toward making up a woman of separable. To declare this is to give men leads from the classical and Renaissance such breadth of vision, so grateful to the an excuse, a temptation – nay, a veritable past, though no one would mistake male sex, so astutely and gently critical right – to say, ‘Then we must also look him for any other than a firmly-placed of her own, so appreciative of the past, so out for ourselves and our own special artist brought up on this soil. Similarly, loyal to her nation, so difficult to move interests.’ Do you think that our country Mrs. Van Rensselaer, much as she wrote with specious arguments or with flights would fare better if our men said this, or about and learned from such places as of political passion – those thousand that its women would fare better?” Salisbury, Gloucester, and Durham, was influences no longer exist. From Should We Ask for the a woman of New York and New England If we are to evaluate a culture Suffrage? (1894), by Mariana Griswold and was as American as the women she according to the men and women it van Rensselaer (Mrs. Schuyler van opposed, whose leaders could not match makes, how would ours fare? Rensselaer). her in grace and penetration of the It is sometimes instructive to intellect. revisit the arguments in a losing cause, Modernism came and swept all especially when, as in the case above, before it as quick and as destructive as people have forgotten that there ever a hurricane. Here we have Theodore were any sensible arguments at all. Roosevelt commissioning Saint- Mrs. Van Rensselaer was nobody’s fool. Gaudens to cast the “Walking Liberty” Someday soon I should take my students gold double eagle, and a heartbeat of on a trip to the studio of her friend, the culture later, we have Henry Moore Augustus Saint-Gaudens, up the road in casting amorphous bronze lumps and Cornish, New Hampshire. She was also calling it art. And as for Mrs. Van an important patron of his; her articles Rensselaer, who will have heard of her? on church architecture in England, The first woman to be invited into the Italy, and New England, written for American Institute of Architects; granted The Century Magazine, made her for a a doctorate in letters from Columbia; the long while the leading authority on the friend and fellow worker of the urban subject in the English-speaking world. reformer Jacob Riis; yet she was on the Saint-Gaudens sculpted her profile in a losing side, as was Saint-Gaudens. Please tear out this page at the perforation and use this icon of St. Thomas More and his Psalm of Detachment to keep Thomas More College of Liberal Arts's faculty, staff, and community in your prayers. your in community and staff, Liberal of faculty, Arts's College More Thomas keep to Detachment of Psalm his and More Thomas St. of icon this perforation use the and at page this out tear Please 16 www.ThomasMoreCollege.edu

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The Society Page

Left to right, top to bottom: Engagements: Theresa Scott ’16 and David Counts ’18; Micah Kurtz ’11 and Megan Faeth; Helena Fahey ’18 and Michael Davis. Weddings: Josh Perts ’18 and Nicole Liquori; Hannah (née Howard) ’16 and Haytham El Chaer; Annie (née Fagan) and Andrew Fagan, both ’18; Brigette (née Nelson) and Ryan Fagan, both Class of 2019. Babies: Daniel Gideon, son of Theresa (née Mazzarella)’18 and Peter Lajoie, Class of 2019. Achievements: Michael V. Dougherty ’95. Michael’s book “Correcting the Scholarly Record for Research Integrity: In the Aftermath of Plagiarism” was published as volume 6 in the series Research Ethics Forum by the publisher Springer; Sisters Cecilia ’15 and Emma Black released their debut album of folk music for children titled “Singsong Pennywhistle: Folk Music for Young Folks”. To share your alumni news and pictures in the next Communitas visit: https://thomasmorecollege.edu/alumni/communitas-submissions