“The skeptics have no philosophy of life because they have no philosophy of death.” —G.K. chesterton

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Volume 17 Number 1, September/October 2013

Tremendous Trifles 2 Fancies Versus Fads 17 Jack and the Giant Apple by Kelsey MacIntyre Editorial 3 It’s Time We Demanded More The Detection Club 34 Lunacy & Letters 4 By Chris Chan Knife Fight Chesterton University 27 by James G. Bruen Jr. FEATURES Pieces of a Puzzle Straws in the Wind 6 BY DALE AHLQUIST Reviews The Heretic The Flying Inn 28 By G.K. Chesterton Murdoch Mysteries 33 Black Widow Spiders Reviewed by Chris Chan Miscellany Of Men 10 by David Beresford Book Reviews 36 Chestertonian Troubadour The Flying Stars 29 by David Paul Deavel The Party Line Sainthood for Frances Reviewed by Chris Chan Conference Report 12 & Gilbert? A Beacon of Light in These by Nancy Carpentier Brown Peace, They Say Reviewed by Chris Chan New Dark Ages’ Varied Types 30 by Sean P. Dailey & Fear of Film 40 Nancy Carpentier Brown Cheers! by Victoria Darkey The Scarlet Pimpernel The Signature of Man 41 Reviewed by Chris Chan Jacob Epstein’s Ecce Homo All I Survey 31 by G.K. Chesterton Poiesis by David W. Fagerberg Essays Chesterton’s Mail Bag 47 All is Grist 18 Movies, Spirits, and Liberty Hills Half Heard 43 From Kerouac to Chesterton Modernity’s Desire for Gray Smoke Letter to America 48 by Art Livingston from St. Peter’s Thought for the Thoughtless The Distributist 44 by Brian C. Potts by G.K. Chesterton Cultural “Fundies” The Christ-like Francis by Richard Aleman by Colin Powell Columns Friendly Facing Schall on Chesterton 8 FICTION by Joe Campbell On the “Prefatory Note” to Tales of the Short Bow 24 The Mystery of Heating Contractor Watson’s Luncheon by James V. Schall S.J. by James G. Bruen Jr. by Sean Fitzpatrick

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Senior Writer: Art Livingston Contributing Editors: Richard Aleman, David Beresford, James G. Bruen Jr., Nancy Carpentier Brown, Joe Campbell, John C. Chalberg, Christopher Chan, David Paul Deavel, David W. Fagerberg, Art Livingston, Robert Moore-Jumonville, James V. Schall SJ “News with Views” Editors: Nathan Allen, Mark Pilon, Larry Pavlicek, Joseph Grabowski, Leo Schwartz Subscriptions: (See Coupon Page 4) Credit Card Orders: call 1-800-343- 2425 or fax 1-270-325-3091 Letters and Articles: Gilbert Magazine, American Chesterton Society, 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, Minneapolis, MN 55437 editor@ gilbertmagazine.com www.gilbertmagazine.com Letters to the editor may be edited for length or clarity.

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The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 1 Tremendous Trifles

by Sean P. Daley

he American Chesterton Society 2013 histo- on the HHS Mandate, writes, “In an email to LifeSiteNews, ry-making conference is, well, history, but you Cardinal Newman Society spokesman Adam Wilson also can enjoy the wisdom of the speakers—or relive criticized the university’s choice to accept the Obama ad- it, if you were there—by ordering recordings of the ministration’s accomodation. Wilson quoted Catholic author talks. They’re available in three formats: VD Ds, CDs, G.K. Chesterton, who wrote, ‘A dead thing goes with the stream, or as digital downloads, from chesterton.org. For but only a living thing can go against it.’” I agree, and I also urge DVDs, a bundle of all twelve talks is $120, or $12 for everyone, if you haven’t yet, to read the book that contains that individualT copies. Individual CDs are $6, or $50 for all. Digital quote, The Everlasting Man. downloads are $5.99 each (and $1.99 for previous conferences). • Parting Trifle: In a post in July on the website pjmedia. Shipping and handling fees for the hard copies are on the website. com,• Dave Swindle writes, “I’ve decided to read more G.K. Chesterton. Here’s an excerpt from page 3 of Eugenics And • Seven weeks after Dale Ahlquist announced that Bishop Other Evils, a book first published in 1922: Peter• Doyle of the Diocese of Northampton was “seeing a suit- able cleric” to investigate whether Chesterton’s personal holiness There exists to-day a scheme of action, a school of thought, as merited petitioning the Holy See to open his cause for sainthood, collective and unmistakable as any of those by whose grouping Bishop Doyle did just that, announcing on September 19 the alone we can make any outline of history. It is as firm a fact as appointment of Canon John Udris to undertake the task. For the Oxford Movement, or the Puritans of the Long Parliament; or more information and to help in any way, please contact the ACS. the Jansenists; or the Jesuits. It is a thing that can be pointed out; • ACS President Dale Ahlquist is now, finally, on Wikipedia, it is a thing that can be discussed; and it is a thing that can still at wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Ahlquist.• The article covers, among be destroyed. It is called for convenience “Eugenics”; and that it other things, his upbringing, his conversion to the Catholic ought to be destroyed I propose to prove in the pages that follow. Church, a bibliography of books that Dale has written and I know that it means very different things to different people; but edited, and of course the founding of the American Chesterton that is only because evil always takes advantage of ambiguity. I Society. Look for upcoming Wikipedia articles on the ACS and know it is praised with high professions of idealism and benev- Gilbert. And kudos to ACS executive director Richard Aleman olence; with silver-tongued rhetoric about purer motherhood for writing the article on Dale. and a happier posterity. But that is only because evil is always flattered, as the Furies were called “The Gracious Ones.” I know ••Have we mentioned that Gilbert contributor James G. that it numbers many disciples whose intentions are entirely in- Bruen Jr. is available on Amazon.com? As this issue goes to nocent and humane; and who would be sincerely astonished at press, he has placed another e-book on Amazon, a collection my describing it as I do. But that is only because evil always wins of more of his short fiction, previously published inGilbert : The through the strength of its splendid dupes. Absence of —six cozy short mystery stories featur- ing Father Paul Petersen, a priest at St. Patrick’s in the City in Washington, D.C. James’ other e-books are Speed Bump; The Christmas Stamp; Impossible Possibilities; and, The Academic Chesterton did something he rarely did. He Exercise. To download the books, go to Amazon.com and do a 100 said “I told you so.” He understood that the search for James’ name. years ago man who says “I told you so” is “commonly represented as an irritating person.” And yet, • James isn’t the only Gilbert contributor branching out. Grettelyn• Nypaver is the featured soloist on a new CD of liturgi- “justice is hardly done to his peculiar position. He has to cal music, Songs for the Eucharist Ancient and New, by the Schola point out another’s failure in proof of his own conviction, Cantorum of Holy Family. Grettelyn writes, “It’s part Gregorian because there is often no other proof of it.” And what was chant, part Renaissance polyphony, and part Baroque. There it that he had said that had been proved right? Writing in are even a few more modern pieces on it that are really lovely. the New Witness in October of 1913, he told how he had The neat thing about the CD is that it’s entirely high school girls earlier warned that the failure of democracy would be singing (except my sister and I), so it’s a really pure sound.” “mostly due to a priggish imperviousness to the instincts Recorded at St. Vincent Basilica in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the of the sexes and the institution of the family.” If he saw album is available from Amazon.com and iTunes. this prediction already being proved right one hundred • And, in LifeSiteNews, Kirsten Anderson, commenting on years ago, imagine what he would say today. Georgetown• University caving to the Obama administration

2 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Editorial

G.K. Chesterton: Servant of God? t. G.K. Chesterton. Is it really that outland- As Chesterton says, “First he challenged me to find a ish? Maybe to some. But when American black swan, and then he ruled out all my swans because Chesterton Society President Dale Ahlquist they were black.” made his now-famous announcement on the Most of us agree that Chesterton was brilliant. But first night of the Chesterton Conference in as we have said before, brilliance alone does not explain August, the hundreds of attendees didn’t think his insight. It does not explain how his writing enkindles Sso. They wept and shouted for joy. The official process hearts and fires the intellect, bringing so many people to hasn’t even begun yet, and it may be many years before God. Scholars here and in England are researching the Chesterton is—God willing—declared even a Servant of details of Chesterton’s prayer life, but all indications are God. But to have gotten even this far is extraordinary, that he was always in prayer. He was always in the pres- given all the obstacles. ence of God, every bit as much as St. Joseph and St. Mary. Don’t get us wrong. We like that Chesterton is contro- And Chesterton, cigar and all, was a mystic. His mystical versial. Saints usually are. Chesterton was controversial connection is demonstrated in his boundless thankful- for many reasons. Only two controversies, however, seem ness to God for the gift of life and the wonder of creation: to have gained the most attention in the wake of the an- You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before nouncement. The first, which we may call the external the concert and the opera, And grace before the play and objection, is the lie that Chesterton was an anti-Sem- pantomime, and grace before I open a book, And grace ite. This is easily dealt with, and we have dealt with it before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, before—we devoted an entire issue to it in 2008—and walking, playing, dancing And grace before I dip the pen no doubt we will deal with it again. As Dale Ahlquist in the ink. has written, “There are only two kinds of people who accuse Chesterton of being anti-Semitic: those who don’t And he was a mystic who understood, at a deeply know any better and those who do. There is no excuse theological level, that “you cannot evade the issue of for either one.” God.” Thus, his lament for Peter Pan’s sad compromise The second objection is internal. Being internal, it is at the end of the play: more subtle. Getting a lot of play in the media, it boils He might have chosen love, with the inevitable result of down to this: that Chesterton is not a saint because, well, love, which is incarnation, and the inevitable result of in- he’s not a saint. He was a journalist. He wasn’t a monk. He carnation, which is crucifixion. drank in taverns and smoked cigars. He was married and he was fat. And as one incredulous friend riposted when I And Chesterton was a mystic because the chief char- told him the news, “What miracles did he ever perform?” acteristic of his life was love, and what he wrote about In what way, we ask, are taverns, cigars, and jour- St. Francis in his biography of that saint may easily be nalism incompatible with sanctity? Is marriage not a said of himself: sacrament? Were there no other fat saints? To be fair, a He was a Lover. He was a lover of God and he was really three-hundred-pound, cigar smoking journalist is not and truly a lover of men; possibly a much rarer mystical most people’s idea of what a saint should look like. But it vocation.... But as St. Francis did not love humanity but reveals a woeful lack of understanding of sanctity when men, so he did not love Christianity, but Christ. we think that holiness is confined to monks or nuns living austere lives, their days filled with prayer and penance, G.K. Chesterton’s monk’s cell was the office. His habit with the occasional levitation or stigmata thrown in for was his cape and his crumpled hat and his swordstick. To good measure. say that sanctity for a layman is different from sanctity Gilbert in no way wishes to belittle these outward for a consecrated religious merely recognizes the dis- signs of holiness. On the contrary, we celebrate them, as tinctions between these two states of life. And to argue did Chesterton. But people have got to break away from that a layman cannot be a saint is to be saddled with a the idea that the life of a consecrated religious is the only deplorable clericalism. path to sanctity. Were not St. Thomas More and King St. Finally, Chesterton, like St. Joseph, was a married Louis IX laymen? For that matter did not St. Joseph work man. And like St. Joseph, we think the woman that a trade and the Blessed Virgin keep a home? “But those Chesterton was married to was also a saint. other people, well, they were saints!” —Sean P. Dailey for the editorial board of Gilbert

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 3 Lunacy & Letters Extramarital affairs do not lead to lasting happiness, but instead they lead to emo- from Gilbert Readers tional devastation, guilt, and self-loathing. The vigilante slaying of a pervert and killer leaves permanent scars on his exe- cutioners. The few characters to get away with certain crimes seem poised to get their comeuppance in future seasons. Additionally, while many television series portray abortion as an ultimately harm- less procedure that leaves women in far just read the review by Chris Chan, advisory will excuse the fact that we should less discomfort than a root canal, Copper “This Copper is Golden,” in the not be watching, let alone promoting as depicts abortion as the cause of severe May/June, 2013, issue and I am “marvelously entertaining,” so vulgar a pro- distress and pain for women, and indeed, appalled that the BBC show was gram. We know that G.K. Chesterton had an abortion (as well as an extramarital considered “golden” and “marvel- a great respect for women and he certainly affair) cause the mental breakdown of ously entertaining.” After reading would not approve of a show where women one woman. In most cases on Copper, the the review to my wife, we watched are continuously degraded. wages of sin are death—literally. the trailer and saw in about one minute’s We have always enjoyed Chris Chan’s As for the fact that good art can come I from scandalous topics, I can do no better time a very immodestly dressed woman, articles, and we look forward to better an apparent rape scene depicting violence ones. Thank you. than to quote Chesterton on Shaw, where against a woman on a bed, a father talking Mr. and Mrs. Mark J. Hazel Chesterton addresses his good friend and frequent ideological sparring partner’s lowly about his wife to his son, who then Rapid City, Soiuth Dakota tried to strangle his father, followed by prostitution-themed play: another very immodestly dressed woman, Chris Chan replies: I stand by my posi- Of the plays collected in this book I have who came running into the room. tive review of the first season of Copper. kept Mrs. Warren’s Profession to the last, The main character adulterously visits Yes, it does frequently depict sex and vi- because, fine as it is, it is even finer and Eva, who is the proprietress of a “wildly olence onscreen, but I contend that this more important because of its fate, which successful” tavern and brothel—when he is is not cheap exploitation for the sake of was to rouse a long and serious storm and not looking for his missing wife. What kind shallow titillation, but instead that the to be vetoed by the Censor of Plays. I say of entertainment is this and why is it being show is a brutally realistic portrayal of the that this drama is most important because promoted in Gilbert? Have we become so wages of sin. If some people don’t want to of the quarrel that came out of it. If I were desensitized by immorality that even a lot watch this explicit content on television, I speaking of some mere artist this might be of poison in our cake is no longer a prob- don’t blame them. But despite its content, an insult. But there are high and heroic lem for us? Pornography is from the evil Copper is a show with a strong moral core, things in Bernard Shaw; and one of the one and “it should not be argued with,” and a quality crime show. highest and most heroic is this, that he as G.K. Chesterton said. It should be The characters’ misdeeds largely fail to certainly cares much more for a quarrel “stomped on with one’s foot.” No content bring them any lasting happiness or profit. than for a play.”

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As repugnant as Chesterton found Now, some of that is up to your lead- In Centesimus Annus he declares, “the some of Shaw’s religious, social, and po- ers. As someone who knows firsthand Church has no models to present; litical beliefs, he never wavered from his how politics can encourage division models that are real and truly effective affection for the man or his respect for and discourage cooperation, I admire can only arise within the framework of the man’s creative work. The best way to the Northern Ireland Executive and different historical situations.” These address bad or immoral work is not to the Northern Ireland Assembly all the words may be common knowledge to ignore, but to criticize it and produce al- more for making power-sharing work. more seasoned Chestertonians, however ternative art. That’s not easy to do. It requires com- they remind me of the simple fact that Yours, promise, and it requires absorbing some Distributism stems from the Church’s Chris Chan pain from your own side. I applaud social teaching and not the other way Milwaukee, Wisconsin them for taking responsibility for law around. Often I would pain myself in enforcement and for justice, and I com- trying to be agrarian as possible, or mend their effort to “Building a United accuse big businesses as corrupt if they Community”—important next steps were not cooperatives—although such his week I received Gilbert. I have along your transformational journey. practices are wholesome and generally in already read through it—I absolute- Because issues like segregated schools line with Catholic social teaching, other ly love it! Thanks so much for all and housing, lack of jobs and opportuni- equally legitimate methods, varying ac- T you are doing over there to make ty—symbols of history that are a source cording to cultures and generations, may the ideas of GK Chesterton come to life. of pride for some and pain for others— be employed. Surely the social problems One of the articles on education has these are not tangential to peace; they’re and conditions of our present day large inspired me to begin studying some of the essential to it. If towns remain divid- nation-states were unimaginable in me- classics. I have a copy of Plato’s Republic ed—if Catholics have their schools and dieval Europe; their methods, including sitting next to me here on my reading buildings, and Protestants have theirs— the guild system, may not work so well in table. I was wondering if there was a good if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if ours. Not all industries are intrinsically commentary, or course you might suggest fear or resentment are allowed to harden, evil just because they do not conform to as I begin to study. Thanks so much! that encourages division. It discourages this standard, as I once believed. Joshua Noote cooperation. The universality of the Church’s social Slidell, Louisiana principles reflects the universality of the Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/ Do readers have any suggestions? Send them Gospel: Christ’s message is meant for st/english/texttrans/2013/06/20130617276442. to [email protected]. –Ed. all nations and all times. I am remind- html#ixzz2dawWXHJs ed of Chesterton’s book on St. Francis, Marie Cotter in which he wrote: “the casket that was Kings Park, New York locked in Palestine can be unlocked in hank you for your excellent, edi- Umbria; for the Church is the Keeper of fying magazine, however, I must the keys.” The Church’s teaching radiat- take issue with your most recent ing from Christ’s message, i.e., human T editorial. Although I agree with es to “Mark Twain”, but only two fath- dignity and concern for the poor, must the views on education expressed in the oms rather than ten (Gilbert, July/ be applied to every people of every age— essay, I believe you are over-reacting to August, 2013, p.8). We’re talking river my primary error was confusing the lock President Obama’s remarks. At the time Yboats here, not modern day oceanic for the key; I mistook some Distributist of the speech, I read and heard (on talk mega-tankers. The dangerous river depth ideas as the standard for Catholic social radio) that he “attacked” Catholic edu- to the shifting Mississippi sand bars was teaching. I now realize that the social cation, so I sought out the speech to see twelve feet, not sixty. teaching, or the key, is transferred what was actually said. Peter Beaulieu from culture to culture and era to era. The relevant section is copied below. Seattle, Washington Subsidiarity does not necessarily mean It’s a stupid, inconsiderate statement, to every business must be a co-op; neither be sure, but not shocking. It’s a passing must every steward of nature be a farmer. remark. hile reading a book about These words of Blessed John Paul cured Moreover, do you really think he Catholic social teaching and my myopia; once I could not see the pro- wholeheartedly believes everything he the theology of business I came verbial forest through the trees; now a reads? He simply reads what’s put in front W across two quotes by Blessed vast forest, stemming from that first fruit of him. His views may be similar, but who John Paul II. “The Church’s social doc- which hung from a tree, stretches before knows what he really thinks? I think he’s an trine,” he wrote in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, me and continues to expand beyond sight empty suit. The point is, we (conservative “is not a ‘third way’ between liberal capi- into the horizon. Catholics) lose credibility when we make talism and Marxist collectivism, nor even mountains out of molehills. a possible alternative to other solutions Sean Mallen less radically opposed to one another.” Coconut Creek, Florida

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 5 Straws in the Wind means picking and choosing as my imagi- nary man picked out bits of Mr. Robinson’s An Essay by G.K. Chesterton letter. But there is a quality about the picking and choosing of , and es- pecially of the great heresiarchs, which has not always been adequately noted. The mystery of Mohammed or Luther or Calvin, or any of the great founders of he- retical systems, has always been this; first, that they accepted the idea of a Divine system as already established; then that they doubted and then denied that the old The Heretic system was Divine; and, third and most By G.K. Chesterton amazing of all, that they never doubted for a moment the one doctrine which they had chosen to accept in a system that they t least on the human side of the This attitude is not rational, because it denied, and never seemed to dream that transaction, the test and turn- is not relevant to the very nature of a mes- anybody could ever venture to deny that. ing point of conversion is so sage, whether the message be the most Such a heresiarch was his own wit- entirely rational, and even ra- trivial or the most tremendous. It is log- ness to the fact that a man could deny a tionalistic, that we are tempted ical to doubt a messenger, or dismiss a thousand things that had been counted to impatience with the irratio- messenger, or deny that the messenger is Divine. But he does not seem to have ex- Anality with which it is discussed outside. a messenger at all. But it is not logical to pected anybody to deny any particular It is a question of whether a certain mes- ask any messenger to alter his message. thing which he happened to refrain from senger is or is not what he claims to be. This basic logic, the bare bones of the denying. If he had saved any one relic out It is not a question of whether the argument, is so familiar to us that we are of the riot and destruction, he seems to message is exactly what we should expect tempted to irritation, as I say, when we have as that everybody till the end of the it to be; it is not the point that there is find how very uncommon this common world would always save that one object nothing in it to surprise us, or nothing sense is in the contemporary crowd. in any riot and any destruction. This is in it to puzzle us, or nothing in it that we But there is a more subtle and sympa- the eccentricity which distinguishes the should have put differently ourselves. It is thetic view of the whole matter, and there original heretic from the skeptic or even not a question of whether we might have are finer degrees and shades of meaning the rather inconsistent critic. It is the fa- sent another message; it is a question of than can be found in such a simplified naticism with which he affirms the one who did send this message. syllogism. Even among those who reject thing that he does not deny. A man brings me a note or a verbal the message, and among those who reject His place in the parable above sug- communication from my friend Robinson, odd scraps of it, there are very various gested is not that of the man who rejects asking me to meet him at the sixth lamp types, and some rather strange and baf- the messenger, or accepts the messen- post opposite the house with the holly- fling types. Only one of them need be ger, or even makes fancy alterations in hocks in a street in Hungerford; and it is picked out, in this particular practical the message. He is the man who fixes on quite rational for me to doubt, on general sense, as the heretic. one feature in the messenger’s story, and grounds, whether the messenger comes I am not of course using any of these makes that, not only more important than from my friend Robinson at all. He may words in the authoritative sense of theolog- the rest, but more important than any- be cadging for a drink, or luring me into a ical science, in which they would probably thing and everything. He will turn against den of thieves, or merely playing a practi- cover many things in theological defini- everything else, contradicting and curs- cal joke and making me an April fool. But tion, which I am only considering in their ing to any extent. He will profess to avoid it is not rational in me to accept the mes- psychological variety. And in this practical Hungerford as if it were hell. He will tear sage as genuine, and really coming from my sense, there is one type of human being up all hollyhocks everywhere, as if they friend, and really making an appointment, in history who may with special exacti- were a poisonous weed or a plantation of and then to say to the messenger, “Don’t tude be called the heretic. He is not, for upas. But the sixth lamp post is not only you think we could make it a house with instance, the same type as the bigot; though fixed but sacred; a lamp to guide all our sunflowers instead of hollyhocks, because it will most often be found that a bigotry is feet, a light that lighteth every man that hollyhocks are not my favorite flower?” Or, the corpse or fossil of a dead heresy. He is cometh into the world. “Let’s alter the sixth lamp post to the sev- something utterly different from the mere This is not an exaggeration, touching enth because seven is such a lucky number.” unconverted heathen; and he is very nearly the history of heresy. For instance, the Or, “I can’t imagine why he should be going the opposite of the agnostic or the skeptic. Puritans treated the seventh day exact- to Hungerford, and for my part I shall go The queer thing about the heretic is ly like the sixth lamp post. In a hundred and wait for him in Hampstead.” this. We all know that heresy actually other ways they set themselves to starve

6 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Straws in the Wind and stunt and discolor nearly all kinds of for which he is fanatical in the system Christianity was Christian. In modern ritual or religious pageantry. about which he is skeptical. times we are surrounded with a new and Through the remains of their prejudice, Now there are not only numberless more ignorant class of heretics, who know thousands of modern men are still haunt- examples of this contradiction in former so little history that they do not know ed with that one bit of thoroughly bad times; but there is an even more con- even their own history; or the history psychology and educational theory; the tradictory form of the contradiction in of their own ideas. At bottom, howev- notion that all ceremonial is meaningless modern times; about which I may attempt er, they proceed upon the same strange or deadening or dangerous to sincerity. to write something here on a later occa- principle, both in relation to the things They managed to hold this in spite of their sion. But it will be best to conclude here they believe and the things they do not devotion to the Old Testament, which is upon the clearer and more virile religious believe. They do not know where their stuffed full of ceremonial. And yet they errors of which the Puritanism of the sev- own belief came from; and they certainly froze hard into a fanatical concentration enteenth century was perhaps the last. do not know where their own unbelief is on the Sabbath. It was a particular part, The Calvinist was ready to kill going next. But they are so amusing as to not only of the Christian tradition, but of three-quarters of Christianity and to die require separate treatment. the peculiarly complicated and ritualistic for the last quarter. But at least he did From America, December 14, 1935 Jewish law. And they ultimately produced know that his one favorite fragment of the Scottish Sabbath, which was consider- ably more gloomy than the Jewish Sabbath. Chesterton for Today But the odd thing is that it never seems ✦ ✦ I should naturally be inspired to sympathy to have struck them that men might deny with the ideal of turning all the rising generation into good citizens, if I could the Sabbath as they denied the Sacrament. believe that what we call education really was turning them into good citizens, Nor is this merely a question of the tre- or into any kind of citizens. (New Witness, Dec. 27, 1918) mendous tradition of the Sacrament in ✦ ✦ On most political platforms, in most newspapers and magazines, I observe the story of Christendom. It would arise that there are at present only two ideas, either to avoid controversy or to con- in any case from the actual position of the duct it by mere bluff and noise. (Daily News, Dec. 12, 1908) Sabbath in the story of Jesus of Nazareth; the most direct and simplified appeal to ✦ ✦ If Christian ideals have been soiled in the course of eighteen centuries, the story in the New Testament. Liberal ideals have been even more soiled in the course of one century. (New It would be much easier to make a Witness, Feb. 10, 1922) primitive Gospel attack on the thing they ✦ ✦ It is only people who do not believe in Christianity who take it for granted. retained than on the things they reject- (Daily News, Jan. 11, 1908) ed. There is really no evidence whatever that Jesus Christ disapproved of ritualism. ✦ ✦ The very last thing that modern Socialism is, is secular. Its one enthusiasm He always referred to the services of the is really a religious enthusiasm—or, if you will, an enthusiasm against a reli- temple, which were enormously ritualis- gion. (Illustrated London News, May 16, 1914) tic, as the normal national religious duty ✦ ✦ To control family life, for instance, you must have at least one police spy of His people. He introduced the ordinary for every family. Police spies are now a minority (though I fear an increasing official offerings and presentations into minority) because it has hitherto been calculated—and not, perhaps, with too His parables, and always in a good sense. rosy an optimism—that criminals will be a minority. Once make a thing which The one and only Jewish institution any man may do a crime, and every man must have a “shadowing” detective as which He might be represented as quarrel- every man has a shadow. Yet this is precisely the preposterous end to which are ing with was the Sabbath. Nobody accused directed most modern projects of “social reform” which select things like drink, Him of denouncing the sacrifices or the diet, hygiene, and sexual selection. If men cannot govern themselves in these seven-branched candlestick; people did things separately, it is physically impossible for them to govern themselves in accuse Him of blaspheming the Sabbath. these things collectively. It not only means publicity instead of privacy; it means And yet, by some huge unnatural upheaval every man in his public capacity being in charge of every other man in his pri- and inversion, these typical heretics man- vate capacity. It not only means washing dirty linen in public; it means all of aged to terrorize whole nations with a blind us living by taking in each other’s washing. (Illustrated London News, June 9, 1917) idolatry of the old Jewish Sabbath; when they themselves were frightened of light- ✦ ✦ We have lost the power to control things, largely because we have lost the ing a candle and hated even the shadow, or power to oversee them; that is, to see them as a whole. The economic disas- mystical repetition, of a sacrifice. ters we suffer are largely due to the operations having grown too large even This is only one historical example; for the operators. (Illustrated London News, Oct. 31, 1931) there are hundreds in history. The point ✦ ✦ Nobody realizes (or anyhow admits) that our mechanical civilization is on is that the heretic is a fanatic about one the verge of the abyss. (G.K.’s Weekly, Jan. 7, 1928) thing, and a skeptic about a hundred things. And yet he always finds the thing

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 7 Schall on Chesterton just another myth retold in another way, but revealing nothing substantially dif- Timely Essays on Chesterton’s Timeless Paradoxes ferent from what can be found in the classical myths. If we say that “Christ stands side by side with other myths and that his reli- gion side by side with other religions,” what we are actually doing is to repeat “a very stale formula contradicted by a very striking fact.” What Chesterton was saying was this: the stale formula did not cover the striking fact. The “strik- On the “Prefatory Note” to ing fact” is that Christ is not like other myths and His religion is not like other The Everlasting Man religions. The Everlasting Man is a book by James V. Schall S.J. that shows, step by step, this difference. Thus, we cannot pass off Christ as a myth, or His religion as like other reli- Chesterton’s The Ever- properly what was being maintained. A gions. No other religion maintains that lasting Man (1925) world of specialists is likely to be a de- God is triune, or that one of the Persons has a twenty-two line ranged world because no first principles became man. Everything that Christ did “note” that he added are recognized in the minds of the ordi- can only be explained on the basis of to explain to read- nary citizens. validity of His identifying Himself with ers the nature of this This book, which deals with the His Father who sent Him. He is not the GKrather amazing book. He did not want “chief event of [his] own life,” Chesterton Father, but the Word who is God. to be “misunderstood.” Chesterton tells says, is “historical,” not “theological.” But The title of Chesterton’s book is pre- us that he “makes no claim to learning.” he adds: “It is impossible, I hope, for any cisely The Everlasting Man, not Man It is of some consolation that one of the Catholic to write any book on any sub- the Mortal. Once man appeared on most insightful men who ever wrote had ject, above all on this subject, without this planet, he did not change. Or as no great academic credentials. There may Chesterton put it, an ape did not begin be a connection. the drawings in the early caves and a Chesterton tells in this book that he man came along to finish it. The origin is dealing with “matters known to all.” No other religion maintains of man is not within this world. Man is This caveat does not mean that he was that God is triune, or that one an “image.” He is the “image” of God, but not aware of what the scholars were he is not God. But Christ is the Word of saying. Indeed, that is the whole point of the Persons became man. God and also God but not the Father or of the book. Scholars themselves finally the Spirit. It is God the Son who came have to come to a point wherein what to dwell amongst us. He is the true “ev- they argue is evidently coherent or not. If showing that he is a Catholic.” If we erlasting man” in whose image we are it is not, their argument, no matter how succeed in completely hiding from the created, each of us. erudite, will reveal striking contradic- reader of our books that we are Catholic, So the account of the “everlasting tions that no reasonable man could hold. it means simply that we are not really man” shows not that man is just anoth- To confirm the validity of Catholic. To be Catholic means to have er myth, but the astounding fact that the Chesterton’s approach, he cites his friend a view of the world and oneself that things described in the account of His and antagonist, H.G. Wells. Wells, it reveals certain ultimate positions that life really happened. They are not ex- seems, had “defended the reasonable separate one from everyone else who plained by the other myths. The myths right of the amateur to do what he can lacks them. are not all wrong, but they never come with the facts which the specialists pro- The central theme of The Everlasting to terms with the uniqueness and au- vide.” In a sense, this capacity to evaluate Man is almost exactly the same as that of thority of the Man who was Christ. He the experts was one of the main purpos- Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth, namely, came to reveal to us what we are and es of a liberal education. that Christ, in His words and deeds, was what is our destiny. It is eternal, everlast- As formal higher education became who He said that He was. Chesterton’s ing life. We are not unreal. We are not specialized and research oriented, even book, written of course long before reabsorbed into the cosmos or into one the learned tended to lose their common Benedict’s, deals not so much with another. We are precisely beings whose sense. Students were never given what Protestants but with Pagans. But it also end is everlasting life. This is no myth, Dorothy Sayers called “the lost tools deals with scholars who maintain that but a fact. This is why The Everlasting of learning” with which to evaluate the story of Christ is to be classified as Man was written.

8 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 hy does hockey have so many rules? do we still need to have penalty box- W es? Can’t we get rid of offside? And why is practice so important? What’s the big deal with the Commissioner? And coaches? And refer- ees? Why can’t they just let us play? Anyone involved in hockey – players, parents, fans – would never take any of these questions seri- ously. Without the rules, there would be no hockey. And without the drills there would be no thrills. And yet Catholics ask similar questions about the Church all the time. Why does the Church have so many rules? Why do we have to go to confes- sion? Why do we need priests? And what’s the big deal with the ? Why does the faith have to be so difficult? Can’t we just play? if you have ever needed help explaining the faith to your children, your friends and family, or even your foes, this is your new playbook. The Catechism of Hockey is one of the most unlikely, but effective Catholic resources for the new evangelization.

Member Price: $11.95 Or Mail to: 4117 Pebblebrook Circle Regular Price: $14.95 Minneapolis, MN 55437 Order online at Or call TOLL FREE: www.chesterton.org 800-343-2425 ACS BookS www.chesterton.org

“Don’t let the title of this book fool you. Its purpose is a most serious “As a bishop and a hockey player, I am grateful for this contribution one—the communication of the timeless truths of our Catholic Faith which I pray will be an effective tool in helping people to grow in a using images that are compelling to the man or woman of today.” deeper appreciation for the Catholic faith.” The Most Reverend The Most Reverend John C. niensTedT Archbishop ThoMAs John PAPRoCki of saint Paul and Minneapolis Bishop of springfield in illinois

“Life is hockey? Maybe. The path to greatness is the same for both the “This book is enjoyable and should be an inspiration to those involved NHL and your soul and this book will lead you there.” in the game of hockey. Herbie would have been humbled by bringing BRiAn Bonin hockey into the realm of spirituality.” 1996 hobey Baker Award Winner PATTi BRooks, wife of the late herb Brooks, Coach of 1980 UsA Men’s olympic hockey Team

Promo.indd 1 8/8/13 2:19 PM MISCELLANY OF MEn up an appointment for Rich to go to Confession to Fr. Paul Coakley who is now Archbishop Coakley of Oklahoma City. He was going to make his profession of Faith at the 7 pm Mass on September 21 at the Newman Center at Wichita State University where I was chaplain for sev- eral years.

A Presbyterian friend later told Fr. Matt that Mullins had decided at the last Chestertonian Troubadour minute that he wanted to be received on October 4, the feast day of Francis of (1955–1997) Assisi. As Protestant friends of his pointed out, Mullins could be a little impetuous, by David Paul Deavel so he might not have gone through with it ultimately. But it seems likely, given his discussions with Fr. McGuiness and was a casual fan of his, but had others, and the fact that he had set a date always enjoyed his music. It seemed for his reception, that this time he was different from most other Christian serious. Contemporary Music (CCM) Of course nobody would have guessed that I had heard. It was somehow all this from the beginning. Life has a way more real than the standard im- of almost, but not quite, making sense Iitation-rock bands that were and are to us. Mullins had learned this from one popular. It was often acoustic and had of his favorite writers, Chesterton. And elements of Irish music, including the he had not shied away from the strange use of dulcimer, Irish tin whistle, and things to which God calls those who other exotic instruments. And the lyrics receive him. Instead, he had embraced were excellent: “” and them. “Step By Step” seemed to be written by Richard Wayne Mullins was born in a guy who didn’t just know a few Bible Richmond, Indiana to a tree farmer and passages but actually tried to live in the his Quaker wife. He had two brothers world of the Bible. But I was, as I said, a and two sisters. Mullins learned to sing casual fan. So I was blown away when wonderful. I told him that he had gone four-part harmony from his grandmother I was told after his fatal September 20, through RCIA so that all he needed to and studied piano with a Quaker teacher. 1997, car accident that Richard Wayne do was to go to Confession and to make He was baptized in the third grade and Mullins was on his way to being received a public Profession of Faith. I also re- joked that he loved going to church so into the . The 41-year- member saying, “We’ve talked about much because he was never good at bas- old Evangelical fan of St. Francis of Assisi everything; you can go to Confession ketball, and Hoosier men didn’t like to and G.K. Chesterton had been drifting with me.” And he said, “Ah, no, we hav- sing, except in church. that way for a long time, but something en’t...” So, I said, “No problem, I’ll hook As a teenager Mullins joined a trav- was different this time. you up with another priest friend.” I set eling church music group, and later After a long game of phone tag Mullins had finally contacted Fr. Matt McGuiness, with whom he had done a In his preface to Back to Methuselah, George Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults Bernard Shaw, trying to describe Chesterton’s (RCIA) program five years before in appearance, was driven to compare him to preparation to enter the Church. He Gulliver as seen by the Liliputians and to note had never quite been able to take the his resemblance to Honore de Balzac. “He is plunge, but this time he was serious. Fr. our Quinbus Flestrin, the young Man Mountain,” McGuinness recounted that conversation: Shaw wrote, “a large, abounding, gigantically cherubic person who is not only large in body “Fr. Matt, this may sound strange, but I and mind beyond all decency, but seems to be growing HAVE TO RECEIVE THE BODY AND BLOOD larger as you look at him, ‘swellin wisibly’ as Tony Weller puts it.” OF CHRIST.” I told him that it didn’t sound strange at all but that it sounded

10 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 MISCELLANY OF MEn

attended Cincinnati Bible College, work- Mullins hadn’t become anti-Prot- Chesterton’s most famous book, should ing in a parking garage to pay his bills. estant, but like Chesterton he had have as its most memorable lines a mash- After some time as a music director at a discovered the Church, even if the car up of Orthodoxy and St. Paul himself: Methodist church in Kentucky, he made accident that ended his life prevented And I believe what I believe is what makes his way to Nashville in the early eighties him from entering it fully. It should be me what I am I did not make it for it is to put his musical ambitions to the test. no surprise that his song, “Creed,” which making me. It is the very truth of God He had been engaged after a ten-year re- brings out the dynamic qualities of the and not the invention of any man. lationship, and he first made it big when Apostles’ Creed in a way quite similar to recorded his song “Doubly Good to You,” a song written for Mullins’s ✦ ✦ I could never mix in the common murmur of that rising own wedding. But the woman broke it off. Monogamy generation against monogamy, because no restriction on sex Mullins wrote most of his songs seemed so odd and unexpected as sex itself. To complain that I could only with a childhood friend, David Strasser, be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once. (“The known as “Beaker.” He and Beaker moved Ethics of Elfland,” Orthodoxy) to Wichita, Kansas in 1988 to escape Nashville and attend . ✦ ✦ I believe in monogamy as the one complete adventure of man. (Daily News, There he met Mitch McVicker, with whom Oct. 28, 1905) he collaborated and then moved to New ✦ ✦ If marriage had not existed, it would have been necessary for artists to Mexico where they lived on a Navajo invent it. If ever monogamy is abandoned in practice, it will linger in legend reservation until his death. Mullins, at- and in literature. (Illustrated London News, July 15, 1922) tracted so strongly to St. Francis, had begun, with Beaker, a ministry intended ✦ ✦ Lovers do not only desire love; they desire marriage. The root of legal mo- to mentor young Christian men and called nogamy does not lie (as Shaw and his friends are forever drearily asserting) it the “Kid Brothers of St. Frank.” Wanting in the fact that the man is a mere tyrant and the woman a mere slave. It lies to do something more than just use the in the fact that if their love for each other is the noblest and freest love con- name, Mullins made the distinctly non- ceivable, it can only find its heroic expression in both becoming slaves. (“The CCM move of having his salary paid to his Philosopher,” George Bernard Shaw) church, which then disbursed his money ✦ ✦ Lovers laboriously chip their initials on a tree or a rock in a sort of mono- to Compassion International (an interna- gram of monogamy. (“The Story of the Vow,” The Superstition of Divorce) tional ministry to poor children), its own ministries, and paid Mullins the average ✦ ✦ All the things that make monogamy a success are in their nature undramatic salary in America ($24,000/year). In New things, the silent growth of an instinctive confidence, the common wounds Mexico Mullins continued this way of pov- and victories, the accumulation of customs, the rich maturing of old jokes. erty while teaching music to reservation (“The Philosopher,” George Bernard Shaw) children. Despite objections, Mullins at- ✦ ✦ The obvious thing to protect the tended daily Mass on the reservation for ideal of marriage is the Christian several years before his death. religion. The working classes of Mullins’s attraction to Catholicism this country have been very much had been coming for a long time. A cut off from Christianity. I do not friend from Cincinnati Bible College days, dream of denying, indeed I should Catholic convert and theologian Kenneth take every opportunity of affirming, Craycraft, testified that Mullins always that monogamy and its domestic re- carried around books by C.S. Lewis and sponsibilities can be defended on G.K. Chesterton. His attraction was not rational—apart from religious— just to a generic St. Francis, either. His grounds. But a religion is the later albums, like 1993’s A Liturgy, a practical protection of any moral Legacy, and , whose idea which has to be popular and parts were organized according to the which has to be pugnacious. And order of the Mass, bespoke a deeply our ideal, if it is to survive, will have Catholic sensibility. When producers to be both. (“The End of the Household scrambled them, Mullins was reportedly Gods,” Eugenics and Other Evils) very upset. One friend called the Catholic imagery of his last two albums “over the ✦ ✦ The world will always return to top.” His song “Screen Door” included the monogamy. (“The Professor Explains,” following lines, “It’s about as useless as/A ) screen door on a submarine.” The subject? “Faith without works, baby.”

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 11 Conference Report an important update. –Ed.) And it was against a glowing horizon of friend- The 32nd Annual Chesterton Conference ship, inquiry, and thanksgiving that the rton te So conference unwound itself that first week- es l h u C t end in August at Assumption College in i e o

n

h Worcester (pronounced “Woostuh,” we T

E nd d e s u 32 l were told at every turn). Dale set the tone c E a t g io in n th in more ways than one in his opening talk, , E y co ver nomics & E which was principally on education, but which touched on many subjects, since education, properly understood, touch- ‘A Beacon of Light in es on everything—and everything else. When understood from a Chestertonian perspective, education is not just a matter These New Dark Ages’ of public school vs. private school, or in- by Sean P. Dailey and Nancy Carpentier Brown stitutional schooling vs. homeschooling. And, “Most of the private schools are no better,” Dale said. ORCESTER, Mass.—The As Dale revealed at the end of his “They essentially use the same system; annual G.K. Chesterton opening talk—and as has been repeat- the same fragmented, compartmental- Conference is a mix of ed now on the ACS Web page, on our ized approach to education as the public joy and revelation, of Facebook page, and dozens of other schools do.... Religion is simply one more discussion and chal- places on the Internet—Bishop Peter subject taught among many, all of them lenging lectures. It’s Doyle of Northampton, England, had separated from the others. We don’t teach more than a mix, it’s given permission to state that he “is sym- the whole truth of things, and the result of Wa blend. At its best, it’s a marriage—a pathetic to our wishes and is seeking a this broken, fragmented, incomplete edu- gay marriage in the classic and proper suitable cleric to begin an investigation cation is a broken world: a broken society, sense. This year, the conference even had into the potential for opening a cause for broken families, broken babies, broken an actual marriage, at the closing Mass, [G.K.] Chesterton.” lives. Just look around.” but not even that could eclipse the joy It does not mean that Chesterton’s We did look around, especially the from the startling revelation with which cause for sainthood has been opened. older ones, and realized he was right. American Chesterton Society President It does mean, however, that the cause is And what does our “broken, frag- Dale Ahlquist opened the conference. definitely on the horizon (See pg. 2 for mented, incomplete education” produce?

Dale Ahlquist, Karen O’Brien, Kevin O’Brien, and Chuck Chalberg share a laugh G.K. Chesterton (Chuck Chalberg) lectures on Eugenics

12 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Conference Report

Past winners, Outline of Sanity Award

1998 Quentin Hietpas, University of St. Thomas 1999 Hayward Cirker, Dover Publications 2000 The Rockford Institute 2001 Ralph McInerny, University of Notre Dame 2002 Race Mathews, Author and Diplomat 2003 Joseph Pearce, Author 2004 Robert Royal, Author 2005 John Sharpe, IHS Press 2006 Mark and Louise Zwick, The Man in Black, Richard Aleman, flanked by Emily de Rotstein (l) and Vicki Darkey (r) Houston Catholic Worker 2007 Dawn Eden, Author Incomplete thinkers, Dale said, who are though there may be such things like ill equipped for battle. “The enemy is the secular instruction. That which is not 2008 William Oddie, Author devil, and he is always leading men into spiritual is not educational.” 2009 Michael Perry, error, and we are fighting unprepared Dale slaughtered a lot of sacred cows Editor and Publisher because we are not complete thinkers.” that night, while the hundreds listening 2010 Regina Doman, Author Quoting Chesterton, Dale added, “There tried to take it in. G.K. Chesterton him- is no such thing as secular education, self followed Dale—or rather, John C. 2012 Ralph Woods, “Chuck” Chalberg, playing Chesterton, Baylor University 2013 Outline of Sanity Award Winner—Peter Kreeft

Dale & Peter Kreeft Kurt Griffen and Grettelyn Nypaver prepare to sing at the closing banquet.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 13 Conference Report followed Dale—addressing two things: “Eugenics, and the evil of Eugenics.” It was a lot more to take in, and more than a few people asked, “What book of Chesterton’s is that from? It sounds like it was written today,” only to find out that Chuck’s “script” was written more than a hundred years ago, and is from Chesterton’s book, Eugenics and Other Evils. Not a few listeners added this book to their list of must-reads. The weekend was just getting started, as they say. Friday saw six more lengthy talks, plus one play, a staging of Peter Kreeft’s book, Socrates Meets Jesus, by Theatre of the Word, Inc.,which followed Peter Kreeft’s talk on “The Philosophy of G.K. Chesterton.” Also speaking Friday Kevin O’Brien, Dave Treadway, and Maria Romine of Theatre of the were Worcester resident James Woodruff, Word Inc. perform Peter Keeft’s Socrates Meets Jesus on “Chesterton and Macaulay” and South Carolina resident—and London native— Christian beverages each night until long Joseph Pearce on “Chesterton and the past midnight. The nightly “afterglows” Past winners, Lifetime Hobbit.” have become a famous feature of the Achievement Award William E. Fahey took us all on a jour- annual conferences and you never know ney “through the neglected works of the what may happen at them. For instance, 1998 Frank Petta Chester-Belloc,” while conference veteran confusion over lodgings in the excellent speakers Robert Moore-Jumonville and Assumption dorms—a recurring hiccup 1999 Ian Boyd, O.S.B. Carl Hasler spoke of “The Spirituality of all weekend—started during the first 2000 Aidan Mackey Place in G.K. Chesterton” and “Chesterton night’s afterglow, when two women com- 2001 John Peterson and Wendell Berry,” respectively. plained that a man had also been assigned 2002 Joseph Fessio, S.J. Listening is thirsty work. Fortunately, to their room. the listeners were Chestertonians, who Naturally, they felt awkward about 2003 Peter Milward, S.J. eagerly quenched their thirsts with this. They told conference organizers they 2004 Denis Conlon 2005 James Schall, S.J. 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner—Peter Floriani 2006 Geir Hasnes 2012 Pasquale Accardo

wanted to switch rooms. They were told they could switch the next day. At one point they returned to their room to find a man asleep on the couch in the living room. Upon noticing that the man was Joseph Pearce, they weren’t so sure they wanted to switch rooms. Although they did. They later told people they passed up the opportunity to sleep with Joseph Pearce. Joseph Pearce himself arrived in the middle of the first night’s afterglow, thirsty for beer. He asked me (Sean) for a home brew, but when I went to my cooler to fetch one, they’d all been taken. I was crestfallen. Joseph was even more crest- Peter Floriani is overwhelmed at receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award fallen. Bad as that inconvenience was, it still wasn’t enough to qualify us as joint

14 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Conference Report

Ahlquist read the readings, and then the priest proclaimed the Gospel and gave an eloquent sermon that ended, prophet- ically, on the word marriage, which he emphasized. Then to the congregation’s complete surprise, he announced that we had been invited to a wedding. The couple were called forth, Miki Tracey and Joey Odendahl. Miki Tracey is a longtime associate of the American Chesterton Society and is probably most famous for bringing the Petta wine to the confer- ences, having inherited the recipe from the late Frank and Ann Petta, founders of the Midwest Chesterton Society who were instrumental in starting the earliest Chesterton conferences. Joey Odendahl is well-known to Chestertonians as the screenwriter, producer and director of the movie, Miky Tracy and Joey Odendahl go all-out for the coveted Inconvenience Award , based on Chesterton’s novel. But few knew the developing relationship winners of the annual Inconvenience a link between Chesterton and Eastern between Miki and Joey until that Saturday Award (more on the winners later, and Orthodoxy. Saturday of the Chesterton evening during Mass. yes, there were joint winners this year). conference is always a bittersweet day. The wedding was beautiful, and how And Joseph was not completely inconve- It’s an ending, a closing of what for many blessed and honored the congregation nienced as we still managed to find him attendees has become also an annual re- felt to be attending a surprise wedding. a beer. union, not only with Chesterton, but with And not only that, but afterward, the clos- Friday started early, opening with old friends. But for two people, it was a ing banquet became a surprise wedding Woodruff’s talk, followed by Fahey, who beginning. reception. The bride and groom were greeted everyone with a hearty “Salvete Saturday evening Mass at Assump­ glowing with happiness as their family, amici!” “Hail, friends!” Those hoping that tion’s Chapel of the Holy Spirit began friends, and fans surrounded them, want- Dr. Fahey might be brief may have been as any typical Mass (not that there’s ing pictures, hugs, and autographs—and disappointed when he said, “This is after anything typical about Holy Mass). also Miki’s big carboy of Petta Wine, when all a Chesterton conference, and a rotund instructor Julian the wine ran out during the banquet. and rambling talk is perhaps fitting.” If there were groans, however, they were drowned out by the chuckles. Groans did greet Dale’s plea that es- tablished, for the first time, a restriction on subject matter for the annual clerihew contest: “Don’t submit any Obama cleri- hews. There are a lot of words that rhyme with Obama; a lot of Obama clerihews have been submitted over the years. None of them ever win. You just can’t parody that.” The winning clerihews are on page 16. Saturday, Kerry MacArthur explained how Chesterton invented postmodern literature, and Pasquale Accardo re- vealed to everyone what Shakespeare’s most Catholic play is—A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for those who weren’t there. Concluding the conference, Aaron Richard Aleman, Brian Lester, Joe Grabowski, William Fahey, and Friar struggled, not unsuccessfully, to find Carl Hasler get an early start on Friday night’s afterglow

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 15 Conference Report

And, because marriage is, in many ways a layman, and “as the Second Vatican said. He is “a beacon of light in these an inconvenience, and a grand and holy Council clearly and rightly understood, new dark ages.” adventure, Dale’s wedding gift to Miki it’s the laity who will play a fundamen- Chestertonians are flawed sinners, and Joey was the annual Inconvenience tal role in in bringing the Gospel to the same as everyone else. But they carry that Award. modern world.” Why is Chesterton, the light with them wherever they go. The Dale said, in his opening talk, that 300-pound, cigar-smoking journalist, a light of Chesterton will light the campus G.K Chesterton is the key to the New key figure in fulfilling the mandate of of the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Evangelization that Bl. Pope John Paul II Vatican II? Because he is not “a mere Mundelein, Illinois, for the 2014 Chesterton called for. For one thing, Chesterton was prophet preaching destruction,” Dale Conference. We hope to see you all there.

Winners of the Clerihew Contest

Before Chesterton Mary Baker Eddy 3rd I am told that Dale Had a son who said he Thinks the conference is going wale. HM William Byrd and Thomas Tallis Was feeling a bit ill, What he doesn’t know Composed a couple of Graduales. But she wouldn’t give him a pill. Is O’Brien paid us to go. They wrote them for recusant ——Joe Grabowski, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ——Daniel Collins, Oneida, New York Catholic Masses Even though they knew that if she George Bernard Shaw I’ve been tempted by Betty Crocker, nd nd ever found out, Bloody Bess 2 Had just one flaw 2 You know, the cake mix hawker. would whoop their asses. That led him astray: But I really can’t wait, you see, ——Grettelyn Nypaver, Pittsburgh, He debated G.K. I have been secretly seeing Sara Lee. Pennsylvania ——John Peterson, Barrington, Illinois ——Joseph Breczinski, Newfoundland, New Jersey Charles Dickens Monsignor Ronald Knox st rd 1 Knew a plot thickens 3 Was fairly orthodox I appreciate the words of st When a man had strife But those protesting what he’d dish up William Fahey 1 With his wife. Would complain: “He’s a son of a bishop!” When he ought to say “him,” ——Joe Grabowski, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ——Jeanne and Lou Horvath, he doesn’t say “he.” Rochester, New York From his talk I took but one Domenikos Theotokopoulos, quote: nd 2 Far from the acropolis After Chesterton “It’s a quotation, not a quote.” Among the populace of Iberia won ——Keith Ohlendorf, ???? great fame, That poor Chalberg, Chuck HM Though they never could pro- Just hasn’t got the luck DIS- Narcissistic Tony Weiner HM* nounce his name. To write a better clerihew Follied though he’d never seen her, ——Archie Skemp, Minneapolis, Than the Horvaths, Jeanne and And thus authored his own fall. Minnesota Lou, do. All for something oh so…small. ——Jeanne and Lou Horvath, ——Maura Burns Watson, Rochester, New York Great Falls, Virginia Petty, grasping, Anne Boleyn 1st Never gave much thought to sin.

Falling early into Henry’s bed, Mean old Dale Ahlquist rd (*Dishonorable Mention) Silly girl! She lost her head. My poor little arm did twist 3 ——Maura Burns Watson, Great Falls, Virginia Until I wrote this clerihew (three-way tie) For you. Grand Prize During Chesterton ——Del Teeter, Waukeegan, Wisconsin Best of Show

H.G. Wells Has anyone ever seen Dale Ahlquist Sigmund Freud HM Learned that fiction sells, Dance a polka, a jig, or do the Twist? Is someone to avoid Although it’s still a mystery Just imagine if that’s what he did everyday! Unless you think yourself Oedipus Sex Why folks bought The Outline Let’s hope he sticks to promoting G.K.! . . . I mean Oedipus Rex of History. ——Sister Marie Vianney, Spokane, ——Per Hanson, St. Paul, Minnesota ——John Peterson, Barrington, Illinois Washington

16 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Fancies Versus Fads would be described, and the potential “The Englishman’s house is no longer his castle, nor is he king of the castle...his hut is candidates would have to describe how not his hut; his children are not his children; and democracy is dead.”—G.K. Chesterton they would deal with these situations. Issues such as crime and public safety would be addressed, and candidates would be compelled to elaborate upon It’s Time We Demanded More the social effects of their positions on by Chris Chan issues. Though candidates would not be punished for their specific position, failure to address a question thoroughly mericans of all political stripes denied a place on a ballot, and no write-in would cost a candidate valuable points. have been increasingly complain- votes for that person would be counted. Other relevant topics would also be ing about their elected officials included. This would require potential in recent years. There is not History and Culture candidates to spend large amounts of enough space here to explain all Candidates would be asked to answer ques- time becoming experts in the necessary the ways that government offi- tions about the history of the region they fields needed for leadership roles, and it Acials have disappointed the citizenry, but I represent, and details on previous holders would also leave documentary evidence would like to propose a remedy. To be an of their office. (Candidates for the presiden- of a candidate’s proficiency and opinions. elected official, you need a lust for power, cy or the U.S. Congress would be given an The oral examination would consist unshakeable confidence in your own abil- extensive test on both American and world of similar questions posed toward all of ities, support from your party’s bosses and history, politics, and culture.) Issues of de- the potential candidates. Performed in political allies, and large sums of cash, just mography and current events associated a game show style, this could be a lot to name a few essentials. What one doesn’t with the districts being represented would more entertaining than any of the de- need to be elected is proof that one actually be on the test. bates staged today. knows enough to be a leader. Candidates who failed the exam Students are constantly tested in order Geography would be given one chance at a retake. to advance in school, get into college, and Every potential candidate would have to Should a candidate fail twice, that person obtain an advanced degree. If you want a demonstrate that they know the basic ge- would be barred from running for public driver’s license, you need to take a written ography of the area they represent. For office (even a sitting president) until the test, a driving test, and an eye test. Want to example, governors and U.S. Senators next election. These tests would very be a doctor? A lawyer? A teacher? A taxi would be given a blank map of their state in length depending on the office. The driver? You’ll need to pass multiple tests. In divided into counties, and they would be mayoral candidacy for a small city, for the city of Milwaukee, if you want to serve required to fill in the name of every county example, might take a few hours; the in a civil service position, you must pass and identify the location of numerous tests for governors, congressmen, and “job knowledge tests.” Yet if you want to be major cities from a list. Since the results of senators might last for a couple of days; a mayor, governor, congressman, senator, every test would be made public, missing a and the test for the presidency could take or even president, you need only fill out question could potentially have some major a full week. If a candidate were caught some forms (someone else can do that for repercussions on a candidacy (“So, why cheating, all the money he raised for his you), and get enough people to sign your should the people of Outagamie County campaign would be donated to local candidacy petition. At no point do you ever vote for you to be their senator when charities, he would be banned from have to demonstrate to your constituency you can’t even identify them on a map?”) ever running for office again, and pos- that you know anything about economics, Candidates for federal office would have sibly a jail term might be thrown into law enforcement, the history of the area to identify nations from around the world the bargain. you represent, or even that you are func- and their capitals. The test would be crafted and admin- tionally literate. istrated by volunteers, citizens from a That is why I suggest that we institute a Economics wide variety of backgrounds and hold- series of qualifying exams that prospective Candidates should have to display a ing diverse political perspectives. These candidates must take before they can run basic knowledge of economic principles volunteers would swear never to run for for office. These would be lengthy examina- and fluency with the subject commensurate public office, and they could not be di- tions, consisting of both written and oral with an advanced college-level course. Test- rectly related to anybody taking the test. components. Every potential candidate, takers would be given a sample budget with Would this test solve all the prob- regardless of political party or incum- various expenses, and then they would be lems in the government? No. But, there bency, would be required to take this test compelled to slash a significant percentage is something very satisfying in seeing before every election. All scores and an- from that budget and justify the cuts. people with delusions of grandeur sweat swers would be released to the public. Any from stress, knowing that all the money test-taker who fails to score above a certain Essay Questions and power connections in the world can’t level (perhaps 75 or 80 percent) would be Various situations, crises, and conflicts help them—they’re on their own.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 17 All isIs Grist wear a brown tunic smelling of fish. Pope Benedict could wear the most spectacular —G.K. Chesterton “The mystery of life is the plainest part of it.” azure robes. And Pope Francis can wear a simple white cassock. But the Church cannot reverse her doctrines on faith and morals. She cannot say Christ is not God, because in fact Christ is God. She cannot approve abortion, because she cannot change the fact that the fetus is a human being, and the fact that the parents are rational crea- Modernity’s Desire for Gray tures capable of making good choices, and therefore are morally responsible for their actions. She cannot approve “gay mar- Smoke from St. Peter’s riage” because, as Dale Ahlquist put it in by Brian C. Potts Crisis Magazine, such a union is neither “gay” nor “marriage.” According to the principle of non-con- Chesterton marveled Thus Cassidy faults the Church for tradiction, a thing cannot both be and not at the contradicto- changing, and for not changing. be at the same time, in the same place, and ry attacks on the Some people demand the Church in the same manner. Procedures and forms Catholic Church. never alter her procedures or forms. Any are subject to time and place, and therefore Critics assail the deviation over time in the rubrics or styles they can generally change across different Church for her dec- is seen as evidence of illegitimacy, of dis- times and different places without violat- GKorations and glimmer. Yet critics also tance from Christ. ing the principal of non-contradiction. A rebuke the Church for her austerity and Yet some people demand the Church form can licitly be one way at one time gloom. The Church has too many feasts, change her substantive doctrines as often or place, and a different way at a different and too many fasts. The Church idealiz- as they no longer suit the tastes of the time or place. es women, but also disdains them. The majority. Insistence on truths regardless Faith and morals, however, are not sub- Church encourages too much meekness ject to time or place. Therefore they cannot and weakness, but also causes the blood- change without violating the principle of iest wars. The Church shuns science, but The main thrust of the article is non-contradiction. To be sure, doctrines also forbids superstition. Chesterton finally that the Church should change her on faith and morals can develop, but they realized the charges revealed more about cannot contradict what came before. the detractors, who thought any stick was doctrines, such as those regarding The whole point is that the Church good enough for beating the Church. marriage and abortion, and Pope teaches things that may contradict what- John Cassidy wields such contradic- ever a particular group of people happen tory sticks in “Smoke Signals,” published Francis should lead the way. to say it wants at a particular moment. in The New Yorker following the election This is a great thing. What good would of Pope Francis. The attacks are typical of popularity is seen as evidence of stub- it be to have a Church that merely of the times. bornness, and of distance from Christ. mirrored the majority’s whims? The ma- Cassidy begins by noting that several “Devout” is a bad word among moderns. jority’s whims were to eat the apple in the procedures in the Church have changed, Actually, the Church is quite the garden, to enslave the Israelites in Egypt, including the direction priests face, and opposite. to worship a chunk of gold in the desert, the languages priests use, during the Mass. She can change procedures and to recoil from fighting Goliath, and to Cassidy goes on to claim the Church forms as often as necessary. She can coin crucify Christ. chooses its Pope according to “traditions new names for timeless truths, such as The mission of the Church is often that emerged in the Middle Ages.” Whether “Trinity,” a word never used in the Bible. to resist majorities. The mission of the intended or not, the suggestion is that the She can instruct her priests to face God in Church is to change people, so they may process for selecting the pope is somehow the Tabernacle and speak primarily Latin, see God in heaven, and be satisfied. The impure, somehow unorthodox, somehow or to face the assembly and speak primar- mission of the Church is not to change illicitly different and changed. ily the vulgar tongue, while praying the herself, so people may continue to see The main thrust of the article, though, Mass. Or she can allow both forms. The only themselves, and continue to try to is that the Church should change her doc- 2013 conclave hearkened back to the satisfy only their basest desires. trines, such as those regarding marriage earliest days of the Church, and includ- Brian C. Potts is a husband, a father of seven, and abortion, and Pope Francis should ed changes made by Pope Benedict just and an attorney in South Bend, Indiana. lead the way. before he stepped down. Pope Peter could

18 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 All is Grist

eternal vocation of the Church; to love the The Christ-like Francis poor in the world and to bring man to his conscience, in the hopes of his conversion. by Colin Powell The Church will grow, the more it becomes like Christ, and adheres to its t may be rash to predict the future of by ridding it of the Latin Mass and certain principals of love, charity, compassion, our new Pontiff’s papacy; I am not one rituals is the same thing as thinking that and a true spirit of dialogue. Dialogue is for the art of predictions. But what has man is less of a man when he is wearing not bending Christian principles, nor is it startled me, is how both progressive no clothes. to be unwilling to explain them to those Christians and conservative Christians You see, both ideologies misunderstand who ask for an explanation. Dialogue with have taken up this art, and are seeking the entire point of the Church. The point the world, is to reach to the individual, Ito determine where the Pope will take the being that it transcends temporality; it is whether he or she be of any class or creed. Church. The problem lies with the fact that eternal. It lives and breathes upon the flesh Christ won so many to Himself, not be- both schools of thought begin with unclear and blood of Jesus, and is saturated and cause He bent to the whims of the crowd, notions of where the Church’s best times strengthened by his Word. These funda- which desired a social Savior; nor stood at- occurred. mentals never change. tached to the Jewish customs of old, which Pope Francis is no more a progressive never imagined a personal Savior. He won than Jesus was a social revolutionary; he people because He brought them to answer is no more a conservative than his prede- The conservative Christian the most fundamental yearnings of their cessor. Pope Francis is that rare breed of is just as deluded as the hearts. Rather, he showed them that He Christian who transcends human catego- alone was that answer. He won the indi- ries—precisely because they are human progressive, thinking that vidual out of the crowd. categories. Everyone on the nearest street the Church’s golden age was The actions of Pope Francis show that corner has an idea for where the Church he cares very little for the views of both pro- should go, and they never tire of telling behind itself, a distant dream gressives and conservatives, and wants very you what it is. It is no more courageous that needs awakening. much to live like Christ. Christ never fit a to merely hold opinion than it is to stand category, and every time he was forced into in place on the battle line when the com- So it should not mean anything mon- one, he showed that He was above catego- mander sounds for a charge. Courage is to umental for either school of thought, that ries. The social revolutionist was silenced live Christ; not to preach Him. Both the the Pope washed the feet of a Muslim, and when Jesus said to repay Caesar what was progressive-minded optimist and the con- broke from tradition by having Maundy Caesar’s; and God what was God’s. The tra- servative-minded nostalgic desire to preach Thursday Mass at a detention center. It ditionalist was silenced when Jesus picked a certain Christ to the world, and to mold is no more telling that the Pope is a rad- grains on the Sabbath. What Pope Francis his Church into a deformed shape. ical liberal because he will not live in the is showing us, is not only that he is not The progressive Christian deludes him- Papal apartments, than it shows that I am going to fit into our narrow views, but that self into thinking that the Church’s golden a Christian because I wear a cross around perhaps many Christians have not yet met age is yet to come, when gays will marry my neck. Pope Francis understands the the real Christ. and woman will be priests. The error of the progressive is that he goes along with the world. When one goes along with the way of the world, one stands opposed to the way of Christ. When one stands opposed to Christ, one does not serve man as he truly needs to be served. The progressive Friendly Facing is so caught up in this image of the Church by Joe Campbell that he loses sight of the image of man: man who is anything but free until he reckons with his sin. The Church is not a build- don’t usually shed tears over the our nativity on an outer wall for all to see. ing that stands alongside the world and demolition of a building. More pre- Much shyer than the building, I didn’t approves of it; it is a building that stands cisely, I don’t ever shed tears over the even display it on an inner garment for above the world and shows it how to rise demolition of a building. But I some- me to see. from its ashes. times feel sad about it. The boldness of the building pleased The conservative Christian is just as de- The demolition of the Legion me, especially as our shared date ap- luded as the progressive, thinking that the IHall in downtown Saskatoon especially peared in Arabic numbers. If it had been Church’s golden age was behind itself; a saddened me. We were born, the build- in Roman numerals, as many dates are, I distant dream that needs awakening. To be- ing and I, in the same year. Much bolder would not have realized what we had in lieve that the Church is less of the Church than I, the building displayed the year of common until well into my schooling, if

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 19 All is Grist ever. As it was, I knew as soon as I could of Columbus Hall. Today the Knights, I When I graduated from university, I count that I had been around as long as thought, tomorrow the Legion. retired from performing publicly as em- the Legion Hall. Contrary to conventional wisdom, to- ployment in radio and television news The building never let me forget it. morrow does indeed come. It came for encroached on my evenings. In the fol- Even as I aged and tried to distract at- me when we incorporated the orchestra lowing decade and a half, I am sorry to tention from my accumulating years, the as the Bop City Music Society and put on say, the Legion Hall and I grew apart, as building never let me forget it. But that Sunday jazz concerts financed by silver youthful friends often do. Although it still didn’t prevent my mourning its demise. I collections. The Legion Hall was one of reminded me of our advancing age when- had adopted the Legion Hall as a kind of the venues. ever I passed by, I wasn’t invited inside. mascot and stayed loyal to the end. A change in employment led to a re- When I learned in school that besides sumption of my part-time music career, an awkward number system, the early I boasted to my closest friends including performances at the Legion. Romans had many brave legions, I was I couldn’t help noticing that the build- delighted. I boasted to my closest friends that I had a brave legion too. ing was no longer as fashionable as it had that I had a brave legion, too. My delight My delight subsided somewhat once been. What’s more, it was deterio- subsided somewhat when they told me rating in subtle but detectable ways. I also that the Legion Hall was a watering hole when they told me that the couldn’t help noticing that on both counts for war veterans, many of whom were also Legion Hall was a watering the same was true of me. But the passage brave. Alas, I wasn’t old enough, or brave of time had its consolations. By then I was enough, to drink the water. hole for war veterans. old enough to drink the water. I was fourteen before I saw inside my My music career had pretty much adopted building. I had bought a trumpet When I first performed there, I felt a ended when I learned that the building and was looking for someone qualified to deep connection with the building and faced the wrecking ball. The demolition teach me how to play. I couldn’t believe drank in every feature of the interior. was to clear the way for a re-develop- my good fortune when the first trumpeter Well, that’s not entirely true. Much to ment of the area where the Legion I interviewed turned out to be eminently my dismay, I was still not old enough to Hall had boldly displayed our shared qualified. He played in a dance band that drink the water. birth year. appeared regularly at the Legion Hall. Oh, I’ve lost count of the number of con- I contemplated its demise with mixed and he was also a pretty good teacher. certs and dances I played at the Legion feelings. That it would no longer remind I didn’t attend the dances he played. I Hall during my high school and universi- me of my mortality cheered me. That I couldn’t afford to. But I was able to observe ty years. I’ve also lost count of the number would never again drink the water in its them surreptitiously. A fire escape that zig- I played elsewhere, as well as the different congenial surroundings saddened me. zagged up the back of the building had a groups I performed with. Even so, each I had no interest in watching its de- landing beneath a small window overlook- appearance at the Legion was special, sort struction. Although I go to funerals, I ing the dance floor. From there, I watched of like coming home. draw the line at executions. and listened to my teacher on weekend eve- nings when I was able to go downtown. I’m not sure what excited me most, seeing my teacher perform or catching my first glimpses inside the Legion Hall. Most aspiring musicians are dream- ers. I was no different. I dreamt about The Mystery of playing like the jazz icons of the day, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Shavers, Dizzy Watson’s Luncheon Gillespie, even Harry James. But almost by Sean Fitzpatrick as much, I dreamt about playing in the Legion Hall. In time, I was good enough—or the had just returned to our Baker Holmes sat hunched down low beneath other musicians were bad enough—that Street rooms, and had not even the tangle of tubes and flasks that crowd- I got on as third trumpet with a six- had time to fully remove my things ed his chemistry table. teen-piece orchestra made up mainly before Sherlock Holmes said, “I am “Holmes!” I roared. “How in the of high school students. When no other sorry that your luncheon with the blazes could you possibly have known trumpeter was available, the leader in- young lady was disagreeable to you, that? This really is outrageous! I do hope cluded me in a small group with which IWatson.” that you have not been spying on me?” I played my first New Year’s Eve dance I was struck to a dead standstill “My dear Watson!” Holmes cried, just before I turned sixteen. I was jubi- at these words, my hat midway to the his head still buried in the apparatus- lant because it took place at the Knights peg and my coat half off my shoulders. es. “How dare you suggest such a thing?

20 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 All is Grist

Though you do threaten our partnership keeping company with a woman who is It was all I could do to keep from hurl- with these persistent interests you take in insecure yet overbearing, clumsy, rather ing the fire irons at the man. I stood before the fair sex, I would never be so crass as forward with people she does not know him in complete and utter astonishment. to interfere with your personal affairs. I well, and whose overall manner tries the “I don’t have to be a mind-reader, have lectured you on countless occasions normal bounds of masculine patience.” my good fellow, to see that you stand concerning my opinion that women are generally not to be trusted, but you may do what you like with them.” Won’t You Be My Neighbour? ✦ ✦ In the modern town, there are “But come now, Holmes,” I said, “stop no neighbours, but only strangers dodging my question.” next door. (Illustrated London News, April 20, 1918)

Sherlock Holmes lifted his head above ✦ ✦ The complaint we commonly have to make of our neighbours is that they the equipment. His eyes were encased in will not, as we express it, mind their own business. We do not really mean that an enormous pair of goggles. “What ques- they will not mind their own business. If our neighbours did not mind their tion are you referring to, my good fellow?” own business they would be asked abruptly for their rent, and would rapid- he asked, the corners of his mouth trem- ly cease to be our neighbours. What we really mean when we say that they bling with delight at my bewilderment. cannot mind their own business is something much deeper. We do not dislike “Come off it, Holmes! How did you them because they have so little force and fire that they cannot be interested know I had luncheon with a lady?” in themselves. We dislike them because they have so much force and fire that “Watson, to point it out to you would they can be interested in us as well. What we dread about our neighbours, only cause me pain, for it is simplicity in short, is not the narrowness of their horizon, but their superb tendency itself and I have no desire to shed light to broaden it. (“On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family,” Heretics) on your inability to see the obvious.” “Then be so kind to suffer me an ex- ✦ ✦ But you do not think about the soul of your next-door neighbour. He is planation, though I prove in the end to not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of be as blind as a bat.” a pianola; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than “Very well, Watson,” said he, “if you yours, or roses that are better than yours. Now, all these are the wrong ends insist. Before you left earlier this after- of a man; and a man, like many other things in this world, such as a cat-o’- noon I could not help but notice the nine-tails, has a large number of wrong ends, and only one right one. (Illustrated care with which you dressed, choosing London News, July 16, 1910) that very flamboyant waistcoat of yours. ✦ ✦ It is hard for the average man to love his neighbour as he loves himself; but You brushed your hat and polished your he had at least taken some step towards the Christian ideal if he can worry shoes—a task which you typically reserve about his neighbour as he worries about himself. (Daily News, Sept. 13, 1905) for Saturdays. This being Wednesday, I could not but take note. You even ✦ ✦ One of our duties towards our neighbour is to talk about him. (Daily News, trimmed your moustache. Now, I have Sept. 13, 1905) never known you to take such precau- ✦ ✦ Just as it is a bad economic sign tions to impress whenever you attend in the State that masses of our fel- your club, neither when you make profes- low-citizens are too poor to be sional calls. That you were off to keep an taxed, so it is a bad ethical sign in appointment with a lady seemed the only the State that masses of our neigh- viable option. My guess was confirmed bours are too dull to be envied. beyond all doubt when I saw you pick (Illustrated London News, April 11, 1925) up an order slip from the sideboard with ‘Maxwelton’s’ printed broadly upon the ✦ ✦ It seems to be a time when men back, which I know to be a florist’s shop in believe they can reconcile nations; Covent Garden. Who else should you be but admit that they cannot recon- meeting but a lady if a bouquet was to be cile neighbors. (New York American, involved? For that matter, Watson, your March 25, 1933) reticence in telling me wither you were ✦ ✦ Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- headed was suggestive in itself, since you bor’s house; that is, thou shalt not are well aware of my opinions concern- hope to foreclose on it or force ing such dalliances. Are you answered?” him to sell it or do him out of it “Not at all,” said I. “How could you by any legal trick any more than have known that I did not enjoy myself?” raid it like a robber. (Sign, Nov. 1931) “Well, Watson, even though my experience is admittedly limited, I pre- sume that any man would find it tedious

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 21 All is Grist thunderstruck and that, therefore, my are usually symptomatic of an insecure to pour the wine when a gentleman is various deductions must be true, which nature, and the scent alone is enough at the table.” I am very sorry to learn, Watson, for to suggest that her presence is an over- “I believe you accused her next of your sake.” bearing one.” being forward with others?” “But how could you have guessed “But clumsy?” “I formed that theory after glancing at all that, and so accurately? It doesn’t “I perceive three spots on your right at your lapel. An orchid adorns it, which make an ounce of sense.” shirt-cuff which look very much like was not the case when last I saw you. “On the contrary, it makes perfect sherry stains. How else could you have Whether it is a sample of your gift from sense and only because it wasn’t guess- ‘Maxwelton’s’ or from a vase on your work. You ought to know more of my table I cannot say, but I can say that I methods by now, Watson. They were log- It was all I could do to know of your repugnance for wearing ical conclusions based on observations.” flowers on your person. How else could “You observed that she was both in- keep from hurling the fire this blossom have found a place upon secure and overbearing?” irons at the man. I stood your breast unless this lady fastened it “The first thing I became aware of there? Since you would certainly have upon your return, Watson, was a faint before him in complete politely excused yourself from such a odor of lavender—no doubt a per- and utter astonishment. proffered courtesy, had your permission fume used by the lady you dined with. been sought, I must imagine that the act There are seventy-five perfumes, which received such stains and in such a place was done without your acquiescence. every criminal expert should be able to except by holding your glass while some- Only an overly forward individual would recognize promptly. But what an ex- one awkwardly poured? Not only does behave in such a way, especially with a cessive application to have permeated this reveal a certain clumsiness, but also man she hardly knows. Surely, Watson, the clothing of her luncheon partner! gives further testament to the overbear- this is your first serious interlude with Such extravagant attempts to beautify ing female—one who makes so bold as the woman, is it not? I cannot believe that such a specimen of femininity as conspicuous as this could have escaped my notice for any length of time.” I tore the telltale blossom from my coat. “Confound it, Holmes, all that you say is true. But one moment—you said that she drove me beyond the bounds of my patience?” “When I find the good Watson stamping his feet up the seventeen steps to our rooms, angrily tearing his hat from his head, and clenching his teeth so tightly as to distort both the cheeks and temples, I know, unless I am much mis- taken, that his nerves have been sorely tried. As I said, Watson, it is simplicity itself.” “My patience, Holmes, is being tried from every quarter,” I growled. “Next you’ll be telling me what she looked like.” Holmes raised his face from the dish that he had been holding over his Bunsen burner. “Oh, she was quite beautiful, indeed,” said he. I raised my hands in defeat. “There can be no doubt about it,” Holmes said, laying aside his work. “What else but a remarkably beautiful face could have kept a connoisseur like you in such agonies for full four hours? No, a beauty she must be. What did you have for lunch?”

22 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 A Solution for Our Social and Economic Crisis ACS Books, a division of the American Distributism is a political economy champi- The Hound of Distributism is a collection of Chesterton Society, announced today the oning the sustainability of local economies essays written by leading Distributist au- release of its groundbreaking book on with the aim of ensuring the widest owner- thors from around the world. Given our Distributism, the thought-provoking idea ship of the means of production. In a world social and economic crises, this timely that what is good for politics and business obsessed with growth and globalization, and rich volume challenges the sterility of is not always good for society, but what is Distributism is a solution to our present our age by recovering the values of the so- good for the family makes good politics socio-economic malaise. cio-economic theory of Distributism. and good business.

The Hound of Contributing Authors Include

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ACS BOOKS Or call TOLL FREE 800-343-2425 Tales of the Short Bow led Larry through the kitchen to an alcove that housed the furnace. “I’ve never seen a unit like this,” com- mented the technician, “or this large—I could almost walk into it. I like the window that lets you see inside. Custom built, you say?” “Yes,” replied Hans. “We replaced the one used by the old crone who lived in the cottage before us. The people who built it for us thought we were over-building, Heating Contractor but we like it. It works well.” Larry placed his toolbox next to the by James G. Bruen Jr. furnace, emptied his pockets of phone and keys, turned the gas cock to off, and ooks like a heating contractor,” autumn air flooded the cottage. Once the set about inspecting the furnace. “Electric said the elderly man, peering repairman explained he was offering a ignition,” he noted. “I don’t see many of from behind the curtains that complimentary no-obligation inspection t h o s e .” covered the picture window in of the home’s heating and air condition- “Custom built, just the way we the small living room of the se- ing system, Hans let him in, noting that wanted,” repeated Hans proudly. cluded cottage in the deep forest. their home was not air conditioned but “Do you mind if I watch?” asked L“At least that’s what it says on the side of had a custom-made gas furnace. The Hans. the truck, Gretta.” “Not at all,” said Larry. “If I see any Rocking gently in a chair, his sister problems, I’ll point them out to you.” looked up from her knitting. “I don’t The three chatted briefly in A large double pane window covered know if we should let him in,” she said. much of the door to the furnace. Larry “He might try to scam us, just like that the living room. The two unclasped the door and swung it open. man who came last year who said he’d fix men remained standing; He looked about the interior with the aid our driveway, then he wanted to do the of a small flashlight. “What an unusual roof, too, then he was going to replace our Gretta continued rocking. configuration,” he observed. “That looks windows, and before long he wanted us to like an oven rack in there!” pay him lots of money. Con men always Larry leaned inside for a better view. try to cheat old people, Hans.” repairman carried a small hard plastic Hans quickly shoved Larry in, shut and “At least we got him to check out toolbox. He donned paper shoe covers relocked the door, and turned the gas our heating system before winter came,” before entering. cock back to on. Ignoring the muffled replied her brother as the technician nav- The three chatted briefly in the living screams emanating from inside the fur- igated the leaf-strewn cobblestone path room. The two men remained standing; nace, Hans retreated to the kitchen where, to their door. “This one looks like a nice Gretta continued rocking. The knitting standing on a stool to reach above a cab- young man. He’s a little portly, but he needles flew rapidly the entire time. inet, he toggled a switch from “heat” to moves easily and is dressed in a nice crisp The repairman, Larry, said he would “cook.” He set the control at 250 degrees uniform.” Hans closed the curtain and give them a written estimate before un- Fahrenheit before climbing down. went to the door. “We should get a mea- dertaking any repairs or maintenance. He “How is it going, Hans?” asked his sure of the man before we decide what to assured them that his company was li- sister from the living room. do,” he added, “but we need to make pro- censed and bonded, that it was registered “Very well, Gretta,” he replied, joining vision before winter sets in again, Gretta.” with both the Chamber of Commerce and her. “He’ll take a while to cook, but we’ll “Well, that other fellow wanted our the Better Business Bureau, and that it be well provisioned for the winter.” credit card numbers,” protested his sister. was rated highly on Angie’s List. Gretta “Did you remember to get the keys?” “The nerve of him. Did he really think we offered Larry sugar candies. Hans wanted she asked. “It was quite difficult getting are that gullible?” to know who Angie was. rid of that truck last year after that other “Thank heaven we don’t have any “What do you think, Gretta?” asked man’s keys melted.” credit cards,” he laughed. Hans at the conclusion of the chat. “Yes, Gretta,” said Hans. “Larry left “Whatever you decide will be all right, “Should we have Larry look at the them on the floor outside the oven.” dearie,” she sighed, the knitting needles furnace?” “It’s getting late,” said Gretta, setting moving nimbly. “Just be sure to offer him “He looks like a sweet young man, aside her knitting. “Let’s wait until morn- some candy.” Hans, but I’m not very good about these ing to move the truck. No telling what Hans unchained the door and opened things,” she said. “It’s up to you.” criminals might be out and about in the it before the man was able to knock. Crisp The cottage had no basement. Hans night.”

24 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Tales of the Short Bow

“The more I eat, the shinier I get,” the Jack and the Giant Apple Apple said, a reply which Jack found quite disconcerting. He tried to remember the by Kelsey MacIntyre stories his father used to tell, especially the one about a cat who once defeated hen Jack’s father died, eyes peeled open. “What do you want?” a giant by tricking him into assuming a Jack and his aunt moved he said, his voice as wet and grainy as a form the cat could devour. to a cottage to tend goats pool of quicksand. “Are you, by any chance, one of those until Jack was old enough “Those are my apples!” Jack said, and giants who can change shape at will?” to find work in the village. then, afraid of giving too bold an impres- Jack said, in the soft, coaxing tone he used Now, Jack’s aunt had heard sion, added quickly, “What are you?” to get ladybugs to crawl onto his palm. Wthat giants lived in the surrounding hills, The Apple seemed displeased by the “Could you, for example, turn into some- so when all of the apples on the old apple question—his eyes became slitty again thing that flies, like a hawk, or something tree in the backyard vanished overnight, and a draining sound like a leaky barrel that swims, like a seal? Or perhaps some- she decided to send Jack after the thief. came from his throat. “I’m a giant, of thing smallish, like…a pie?” She was not particularly fond of apples, course!” he cried. “You see how big I am, “No,” the Apple said. “Why on earth but she was even less fond of children, don’t you?” would apples be able to change shape?” and giants are known for crunching up Jack looked from the Apple’s supple “Oh, of course,” Jack said. “I don’t children and swallowing them faster than brown stem to his shiny red belly. “I can know why. They wouldn’t, I suppose.” you can bake a poisoned pastry or devise see you’re big,” he said finally, thoroughly “What can I do?” he thought. “The a way to lure them off the forest path. perplexed. “But you don’t look like any of stories never mentioned giant apples!” Jack walked, and walked, and finally, the giants I’ve ever heard about.” He was almost sure he would be crunched when the evening sun leaked out from “I look perfectly well like a giant up. The Apple, growing bored and a little under the moist gray clouds, he heard apple!” the Apple roared. “You’re head hungry, picked up another stolen apple something unusual. It was coming from must be very mushy if you expect me to to munch on, and that was when Jack just beyond the next hill, and it sounded look like a giant goose or a giant person. remembered something else. He remem- like crunching. Jack did not know he lived Really! How silly boys are nowadays. I bered the way the wind usually scattered in a giant-infested area, but he certain- think I’ll just have to crunch you up.” green apples underneath his aunt’s apple ly knew about giants, and he, unlike his “Pardon me, sir giant,” Jack said, feel- tree, and how they rolled and bounced aunt, remembered where he had learned ing that good manners could not be amiss and bruised. He remembered touching about them: his father was a great sto- at this point. “I’ve just never seen a giant the dark jelly under the bruised skin. ryteller and used to entertain the family apple as fine and shiny as you.” “Very well,” he said, leaning over the with tales of magical creatures and mon- sters. Jack’s aunt, suspicious and not at ✦ ✦ I believe in the essence of the old doctrine of equality, because all imaginative, only remembered the Credo xiii it appears to me to result from all conceptions of the divinity parts of the stories that might help her of man. Of course there are inequalities, and obvious ones, but though they avoid meeting any such creatures, such as are not insignificant positively, they are insignificant comparatively.( Thomas which regions of the country they inhab- Carlyle, CW 18:27) ited. But Jack, imaginative and very rarely suspicious, remembered the descrip- ✦ ✦ If I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in tions of the creatures themselves—their immortality I must not think about it. (“The Maniac,” Orthodoxy) habits, strengths, and most importantly, ✦ ✦ I believe in the right of national self-defence. (G.K.’s Weekly, Nov. 14, 1925) weaknesses. The chomping and slurping continued ✦ ✦ I believe more and more that there are no trivialities but only truths ne- and Jack, expecting a troll or an ogre or glected. (New Witness, March 8, 1918) some other such beast, crept up on his ✦ ✦ I believe that it was always common ground to people of common sense stomach and peered down the other side that the enslavement and importation of negroes had been the crime and ca- of the hill. He saw what looked like an tastrophe of American history. (“Prohibition in Fact and Fancy,” What I Saw in America) enormous apple, crouched below and munching on smaller apples that it bal- ✦ ✦ I believe that the only way to say anything definite is to define it, and all anced between slab-like arms cut from definition is by limitation and exclusion; and that the only way to say some- its sides. Its eyes were closed, two slanted thing distinct is to say something distinguishable; and distinguishable from gashes, and it was making too much noise everything else. In short, I think that a man does not know what he is saying to notice Jack. until he knows what he is not saying. (Illustrated London News, Dec. 15, 1934) Jack clambered to his hands and knees and shouted, “Hey!” The Apple stopped mid chew and its

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 25 Tales of the Short Bow ridge so he was just within the Apple’s “Aunty!” Jack called, when he was As for Jack, he filled a knapsack with reach. “You win. You can eat me, and I almost to the crest of the hill. “Hurry out slightly dusty buns and set out for the bet I’ll taste a whole lot better than those to the garden!” village. No one knows what he did there bitter apples. But you need to catch me Jack’s aunt had been huddled by the until he was old enough to find work, but first!” And he jumped up. kitchen window listening to the distant I’m sure he thought of something interest- With a noise like a starfish being crashes and shouts for quite some time, ing. After all, one of the most important ripped from a wet rock, the Apple opened but when she heard Jack call she sus- things to have when seeking your for- his mouth, threw the apple core aside, and pected a trick, naturally assuming that tune is imagination, and Jack had plenty rolled after Jack. other people disliked her as much as she of that. Jack ran—up and over hills, between disliked them. “That crafty child wants rocks, his shoes scuffing on the uneven the giant to eat me instead of him,” she path and the rumble of the rolling Apple- thought, and bolted the door. giant behind him. The sun had sunk “Aunty, please come out!” Jack called The Kitchen below the horizon and a foamy gray dusk again, pausing on top of the hill. “There’s Distributist hung in the air instead. Jack hoped his an apple on its way to the cottage and if aunt would keep her wits about her and you don’t move it will crush you!” come out of the cottage when she heard Jack’s aunt heard the word “apple” and the noise. thought Jack was trying to bribe her with “I will roll you flat and chomp you the promise of the stolen apples she had down!” the Apple bellowed, but as Jack sent him to retrieve. “Stay far away from glanced over his shoulder he saw that me, you wicked boy!” she screamed. “The each bump sent the beast higher and giant can have you, for all I care!” Vinegar: more household higher into the air, and that each time he The Apple finally rounded over the collided into the ground again a shadow hilltop and Jack was forced to dive out uses than baking soda. Here of bruising appeared on his red flanks. of the way. Unable to change direction are just a few. The final hill before the cottage was quickly on such a steep slope, the Apple the steepest; Jack almost tripped as he barreled downward, past Jack, past the began to climb it, but he grasped handfuls garden wall and the bare apple tree, and of the thick grass and pulled himself up. straight into the side of the cottage with The Apple rolled faster and faster, build- a splat. Timbers and plaster showered ing up enough speed to reach the top as from the ceiling, coating the giant in dust well. He intended to catch Jack on the way and splinters. Jack ran down the hill in down the other side, when the boy would pursuit, but when he reached the rubble be unsteady. neither the Apple nor his aunt stirred. At full strength, it can be used to polish car chrome. Or you can soak your rusty tools in undiluted vine- gar overnight to clean the rust from them. And with a solution of three parts water and one part vinegar, you can coat the windows of your car at night to keep them frost-free overnight. In the kitchen, you can eliminate onion odors by rubbing vinegar on your fingers before and after slicing. And you can disinfect wood cutting boards by wiping with full-strength vinegar.

26 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Chesterton University also against greatness. He desires to be An Introduction to the Writings of G.K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist simply normal. In a passage that pre-fig- ures Chesterton’s later writing about the Book of Job, he tells of being the first to witness creation and achieving that feel- ing of being “indifferent to all the pranks of heaven and earth.” There is one other, even more wildly creative first-person narrative called “Apotheosis,” in which the narrator is none other than God. But it is not mega- Pieces of a Puzzle lomania. It is a compassionate account of his love for a fellow image-maker. He has What Might Have Been heard the song of the woodcarver. One of the few complete tales in Volume 14, Part Three of the Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton this collection is the tightly woven “Consistency,” which features a shadow of The Quote: “He was...a Roman Catholic ccording to G.K. Chesterton’s chattering of a squirrel and the banging and a Royalist, who believed everything, own account, he became a jour- of a woodpecker. lest he should believe nothing.” Hmm. nalist by accident. But it is clear In “The Queen of the Evening Star,” In “Why the Moon Was Made,” that he was an aspiring writer we meet a magical woman, not unlike an Chesterton offers an amazing insight long before he made his living as apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, into the subjectivity of nineteenth century Aa writer. The discovery of his early note- and we also meet, appropriately, the ear- , answering Kierkegaard’s books revealed that he was developing liest of the many Chesterton characters arguments without even having heard his literary skills just as a master musi- named Gabriel. Unlike Hope, Syme, and them, as a group of Scottish Covenanters cian must practice and practice on his Gale, this Gabriel has no last name. debate why the moon was made. Each has instrument, taking whatever ready and his own very narrow interpretation with innate talent and utterly mastering that Chesterton can combine two no consideration of a larger, universal art. Reading these stories, some complete, truth. This purely intellectual exchange most incomplete, is like listening to that or three words perfectly, in is subtitled “A Romance.” prodigy at practice. There are brief flour- a way we could not have “The Appalling Five,” “The Face of ishes of virtuosity, there are also random Brass,” “The Man with Two Legs,” and but still beautiful notes, left hanging in imagined, the way a painter other fragments found here prefigure The the air. There is the frustration of hear- combines two colors in an Club of Queer Trades, The Man Who Was ing only part of a complete work, there Thursday, and Tales of the Long Bow. We is the anticipation of hearing something entirely new juxtaposition. even have several tables of contents of un- not quite ready for the audience. We are In “The Bells of St. Cuthbert,” the written tales, known only by their titles. eavesdropping, listening through the wall. saint sits in the belfry of his hermit- Here’s another idea for a story. A It is both frustrating and exhilarating. age and decides to let the ringing bells man acquires this collection of early Perhaps the comparison to a painter go free, cutting the ropes and watching Chesterton tales, most of which are unfin- would be even more appropriate. We are them fly away, telling them that he will ished, and he reads one of them aloud to seeing sketches, color studies, creative ex- let them know when they must return. his family each evening. They then try to periments, but no finished masterpieces. What an image. But we never learn of complete the story or argue about how the He can indeed paint vivid pictures using their adventures. author might have intended to finish it, only words. He can combine two or three We do learn, however, of the adven- or they fly into a rage that they will never words perfectly, in a way we could not tures of Prince Wild-fire, who “seemed as know how it ends. This story about stories have imagined, the way a painter com- if he had come to the edge of the world, would appear to be merely Sisyphusian, bines two colors in an entirely new and, as science was not invented then, because they would sit through the same juxtaposition. He paints familiar scenes perhaps he had.” experience the next evening with the to make them startling. He makes wildly “A Traveller’s Tale” is a rare and very same results, and again after that. “The imaginative vistas look like classical land- revealing first-person narrative. The nar- Story of the Unfinished Stories” is a plot scapes. Here are some of the things we see rator describes growing larger and larger for Camus. But we need not bother with in this gallery of early Chesterton: against his will, being told that he speaks it because we know what all these stories In the earliest fragment, a hero named very well, and that he is known as “the led to. We know how Chesterton’s story Flickerflash escapes from goblins and is poor mad boy who stares at everything.” ends. And where ours will end. In the Inn sheltered in the forest, comforted by the He is struggling against madness but at End of the World.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 27 The Flying Inn on his left arm and goaded her into biting him. His clinical observations were pub- Home Rule at Home lished, at least those observations that he was able to record before becoming unconscious. His recovery took about a year. This is a hard way to get a research paper published, and lends an interesting flavor to the proverbial academic advice to scientists that they must either publish or perish. Her poison is not meant for us so Black Widow Spiders much as for killing her prey. She is a so- licitous mother, and builds a haphazard by David Beresford web in dark places such as under porch- es or in the dark corners of a garage or The most childlike thing about a child is his quite lazy, picking up light loads, and shed. Normally one would never find curiosity and his appetite and his power of often walking back and forth pretend- a black window spider, unless playing wonder at the world. ing to be busy. This is so common that hide-and-seek. —What I Saw in America, G. K. Chesterton there are special ant castes whose job it It is odd how the phrase black widow is to find the shirkers to force them back spider evokes negative ancy Pelosi said, one time to work. Solomon had it right when he images; a black widow after an electoral victory said “go to the ant thou sluggard”, which seems different than a for her party, that she or he shows the difference between wisdom and widow in black. Alice Cooper or whoever she was talking cynicism. built an entire stage show on about had the Midas touch. The black widow spider has a curi- this. I personally find the story It is a common blunder. King ous mating ritual. The male, urged on of the black widow spider NMidas was a king who turned everything to breed, approaches the larger female, and its curious mating he touched into gold, and the logic of who, after mating, habits quite touching. the idea is that gold is good, so anyone proceeds to For one thing, the rela- who can turn things into gold must be catch and tionship is monogamous, a great person. Of course, in the story, eat the hap- selfless, and entirely trust- the ability to turn things to gold was a less male. ing. The father spends his life curse placed on King Midas, so that ev- The technical gathering all the food and erything he loved was destroyed, changed term for this resources he can to pro- from its natural beauty into hard cash. kind of behavior is vide for his offspring. Only an idiot would miss such an obvious sexual cannibalism. It Then, with the brief point, but as I said above it is a common is this that gives the spider opportunity he has blunder. I suppose that when it comes to the common name of “black he leaves it all to learning lessons, we can never remove widow spider”. Some curi- his children in the ourselves from the lesson itself. ous contradictions arise only way possi- This applies to the book of nature as from having this name ble. His spouse, well. Aesop, a miserable cynic, revealed given to the species; we in the only much about himself when he wrote the speak of a male black widow way she story of the ant and the grasshopper. In spider, or unmated female black can, ac- this story, a grasshopper sings all summer widow spiders—illogical phras- cepts the while an ant greedily stashes food away es, given the normal meaning of nuptial gift of his for winter. When winter comes, the grass- the words. person, using the protein to provide hopper approaches the ant, whereupon The black widow spider is a poi- much needed food for their eggs. These the ant lectures the grasshopper about sonous spider, and one of the few that can she carefully guards with the rest of her missed opportunities and laziness. The kill a man in North America. Normally life. I do not know if she tells her young grasshopper dies of starvation and cold, a black widow spider bite would result children about their father’s self-sacrifice and the ant is snug in his house, warmed only in a long sickness, accompanied by on their behalf. I suppose she does not by the self-righteous contemplation of intense pain, with the bitten limb turning need to: their sons will follow the father’s his stored-up wealth. Of course, real black and swelling up like a balloon. In example for their own children when they grasshoppers are far from lazy, they are the early 1900s a curious entomologist grow up, and their daughters will follow constantly at work eating so they can wanted to describe the effect of the bite hers. There are few stories of nature that make lots of eggs, and ants tend to be in detail. He placed a female black widow are more edifying than this.

28 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 The Flying Stars was sad inside. She never talked about her- “What do you call the man who wants to embrace the chimney sweep?” self. She kept busy helping others, and in “A saint,” said Father Brown. —G.K. Chesterton that way, overcame her sorrows. She was always thinking of others. Father Vincent McNabb said she had “self-forgetfulness.” In this way, Frances is a great exam- ple. There are very few women who would say their married lives turned out just the way they planned. There are silent sor- rows many women bear, and some bear them sadly while others bear them bravely. Sainthood for Frances Frances teaches us how to be brave. Frances is an exemplary wife. Many and Gilbert? women have artistic or creative type hus- bands, and struggle to understand their by Nancy Carpentier Brown needs and wants. Frances was ever so pa- tient, so calm, so gentle with Gilbert. She is ll this sainthood talk about subject of Christmas than any other sub- a good example to us of how to be a good Gilbert, what about Frances? ject she wrote about. She wrote Christmas wife. Frances teaches us how to be patient, If ever there were two Eve plays for children. She set up a large and love the spouse God has given us. people more closely knit into Nativity every year, always in a place of Frances was an excellent Aunt and a marriage than Gilbert and honor. Frances leads us to the Christ Child. Godmother. She knew that childhood is Frances Chesterton, we have Frances’s heart, like Mary’s, was full a special time, and she took time to listen Ayet to find them. George Bernard Shaw of sorrow. She feared, as she confided to to children, play with them, sing to them, invented the name ChesterBelloc to de- Father O’Connor, that she wasn’t carrying and create puppet shows for them. As they scribe Chesterton’s close association with her cross well. Her humility shines through. grew, she made tea and was patient enough Hilaire Belloc; but before that, Gilbert him- She took her energy, and used it keeping to listen to the young people struggling to self invented the ChesterBlogg to describe track of Gilbert. She negotiated his con- find their place in the world. She cared a different sort of close association. tracts, took dictation, made meals, tended about them. She wrote plays to help teach Gilbert and Frances relied on each the garden, darned socks, debated him, them. She tutored them. She loved them. other. Frances was raised agnostic, but Frances teaches us how to love all the chil- became an Anglo-Catholic. When Frances She cared about children. She dren in our lives. met Gilbert, he was a theist, unsure of his Imagine for a moment, Gilbert Keith faith. Through the course of their three- wrote plays to help teach them. Chesterton without Frances. Gilbert alone year engagement, he came to believe in She tutored them. She loved could have been a famous author, but he Christianity. He credits his conversion to would have failed to arrive at most of his Frances in The Ballad of the White Horse: them. Frances teaches us how to speaking engagements. He would have eaten, drunk, and smoked excessively— Therefore I bring these rhymes to you love all the children in our lives. more than he actually did—and died in Who brought the cross to me prayed with him, kept track of his schedule 1915. He would have failed to write The In a letter he wrote Maurice Baring and lectures, kept his notes in order, kept a Everlasting Man, Eugenics and Other Evils, he said, “I am concerned most…about… box of cigarillos for him, and always knew St. Francis of Assisi, The Outline of Sanity, a Frances, to whom I owe much of my own where his glasses were. There is no record bunch of Father Brown books, St. Thomas faith…” of her ever losing her temper; but there is Aquinas, and a whole lot of other articles They had wanted a family, and tried a record of how marvelously patient she and books. He might never have convert- heroically to have one. However, when was with him, even when he inadvertently ed to the Catholic faith. Without Frances, it became clear to Gilbert and Frances hurt her feelings. he simply would not have been able to do that they could not have children, they And while doing all of this, she still had all he did. discussed other options. They began a time to think her own thoughts, pray her Indeed, their marriage, as most mar- concerted effort to make sure they helped own prayers, and dream her own dreams. riages which are sacramental, was their the children who came their way. Children Gilbert called his wife’s life a heroic path to heaven. Our spouse is our God- came to visit for extended periods of time, tragedy. Frances bore many sorrows. Her given way to heaven. Our spouse loves the door always open to Uncle Gilbert and life certainly did not go the way she planned us, but is also willing to point out our Aunt Frances’s house. it. And yet, she always had hope, she always short-comings. Gilbert needed Frances to Frances contemplated the manger looks to the Christ Child. And she kept her get to heaven. Frances needed Gilbert in scene. Her special attention was to sorrows hidden deep in her heart. exactly the same way. If Gilbert is a saint, Bethlehem, and she wrote more about the No one besides Gilbert even knew she then certainly Frances is one, too.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 29 Varied Types next step on my path toward Christ was to choose the way of trust and humility. —G.K. Chesterton “No Devil Worshipers Please” In chapter 4 of Orthodoxy, Chesterton writes, “Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about....” I realized that my limited view placed me in that “small and arrogant oligarchy.” I knew the Good Shepherd was calling me to walk toward a larger, more humble place. By considering the valuable spiritual input Cheers! available from the Saints, I began to under- stand the importance of what Chesterton by Victoria Darkey calls the “democracy of the dead.” I then received the grace to trust n the days and weeks following the “Chesterton was a Christian, so we know the Holy Spirit to speak through the American Chesterton Society con- he’s in heaven.” Magisterium. With the authority of the ference in Worcester Massachusetts, Before I was a Catholic, my under- Church investigating and sanctioning local Chesterton Societies were standing of the communion of saints was the Communion of Saints, I was freed abuzz with the news. We heard that defined as the fellowship shared between from fear; free to trust the light in the we are witnessing “the beginning of true believers. Of course, it was up to the Saints and to experience a fellowship with the beginning” of the road to can- believers to determine the definition of those the Church recognizes as living in Ionization for Gilbert Keith Chesterton. “true believer”. the heavenly household of God: We have embarked on an adventure It also went without saying that this Therefore, since we are surrounded by so marked by hoping, watching, waiting, “fellowship” was strictly an earthly affair, great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid our- and praying for official recognition of excluding believers who were on the other selves of every burden and sin that clings Chesterton’s holiness. When we heard side of death. I viewed this limit as a pru- to us and persevere in running the race the news, we cheered. dent boundary, which would keep the that lies before us while keeping our eyes The Catholic Church’s process of de- fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter claring the sainthood of any person is of faith. a journey: usually a lengthy one. This Chesterton left behind a great is fitting, as the path to holiness in this testament to the truth in the In the context of the Church dogma life is a journey: usually a lengthy one. of the Communion of Saints, the reality G.K. Chesterton was well acquainted volumes of his writings and in of this scripture passage from the Letter with spiritual journey. In fact, when it the witness of his life. When, God to the Hebrews came to life more clearly comes to journeying through the spir- than ever before. As we journey in this itual life, Chesterton is considered by willing, the Church recognizes life, those who’ve gone ahead, and fin- many to be a master. His life was a con- his path to holiness, she will ished well, are cheering for us. They’ve tinuous walk along a path to holiness, successfully found the right path: the path which led him from one spiritual place present him to the world. that leads to Christ. They are support- to another. The view of him on the path ing us with their prayers, and providing has inspired numerous souls to follow. believer from falling into the dangerous continuous encouragement to persevere They have found that the path leads and forbidden arena of necromancy and on the path, through the examples of the deeper into the Truth and the Light of other occult practices. lives they led while on earth. Christ. Chesterton’s path led him from In addition, the idea that deceased Chesterton left behind a great testa- the darkness of agnostic despair into Christians had any ability to act in heaven ment to the truth in the volumes of his the light of Christianity. It eventually on our behalf, or to interact in the earthly writings and in the witness of his life. led him into the fullness of communion realm of the living were notions regard- When, God willing, the Church recog- with Mother Church here on earth. We ed as remnants of medieval superstition; nizes his path to holiness, she will present now wait and hope for The Mother to something, I’d been taught, all good him to the world, and many more souls acknowledge her son, and to testify Christians should guard against. will have the chance to recognize and that his path ultimately led him to ho- Then, the path I was on brought me follow his path to holiness. His voice will liness and to the Communion of Saints to a place where I was confronted with then be heard as that of one who cheers us in Heaven. the Catholic Church. My position on the on from his place in the heavenly choir. Non-Catholics may question why the Communion of Saints began to serious- And those of us hoping, watching, wait- fuss about Chesterton’s possible canon- ly unravel when I recognized that it was ing and praying down here will cheer ization. “After all,” they might comment, pride and fear that held it together. The again.

30 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 All I Survey the ethics of Efland. Chesterton was not “It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love worried about dragging children out of has been destroyed or sent into exile.” —G.K. Chesterton childhood, but of dragging adults back into it. It is adults, not children, who need fairy- tales in order to enable them to recover the sense of elementary wonder. “This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure forever.”

Objection #4: Fairytales will make the real world seem dull. Poiesis Lewis believes the current in fact flows in the opposite direction. To have by David W. Fagerberg a fantastic castle in the clouds does not make the ordinary home seem boring. t is a pity that G.K. Chesterton and children fear...because it is in the world “Paradoxically enough, it strengthens our CS Lewis never met. At least I’ve already. Fairytales do not give the child relish for real life. This excursion into the found no evidence that they did, his first idea of bogey. What fairytales preposterous sends us back with renewed although they overlapped (Lewis give the child is his first clear idea of the pleasure to the actual... [The child] does 1898–1963, GKC 1874–1936). possible defeat of bogey. The baby has not despise real woods because he has England does not seem like that known the dragon intimately ever since read of enchanted woods: the reading Ilarge a country. Lewis would have been he had an imagination. What the fairy- makes all real woods a little enchanted.” ten years old when Chesterton wrote tale provides for him is a St. George to Far from dulling the world, the excur- Orthodoxy; Chesterton would have been kill the dragon.” sion into fairyland gives the world a new fifty-one when Lewis’s conversion was dimension of depth. “It would be much helped by reading Everlasting Man. Lewis Objection #2: Children will confuse fact truer...to say that fairy land arouses [in the was thirty-eight when Chesterton died, and fancy. child] a longing for he knows not what.” and lived beyond him by a quarter centu- Lewis disagrees: “Does anyone sup- I cannot think of a more accurate de- ry. What a conversation they would have pose that [the child] really and prosaically scription of Chesterton’s goal. “These tales had—someone more clever than I could longs for all the dangers and discomforts say that apples were golden only to refresh write a fictional dialogue. But right now of the fairytale?—really wants dragons in the forgotten moment when we found I am thinking about how vigorously they contemporary England?” that they were green. They make rivers would have nodded in agreement over a Chesterton: “Though I might fill run with wine only to make us remem- glass of beer when discussing the value the world with dragons, I never had the ber, for one wild moment, that they run of story-telling. slightest real doubt that heroes ought to with water.” Lewis wrote an essay titled “On Three fight with dragons.” Those who can, do; those who can’t, Ways of Writing for Children,” and in it teach. As a professional teacher, I have he identifies various reasons why people Objection #3: Children’s stories are lived under that accusation for thirty object to fantasy. Each of them remind me childish, and we should outgrow them. years, so I have become inured to the of Chesterton in some way. Here is what Lewis’s reply: “A children’s story which charge. I cannot write stories; but I can their possible exchange over Lewis’s list is enjoyed only by children is a bad chil- write about writing stories, as I have would have been like. dren’s story.... No book is really worth done here. I find both of these men en- reading at the age of ten which is not lightening, though it is a light I can only Objection 1: Fairytales are scary. equally worth reading at the age of fifty— appreciate from a distance. The root of Lewis replies that none of his fears except, of course, books of information.” our word “poetry” is poiesis, which does as a child came from fairytales, and if a (One is reminded of the sort of books that not mean finding words that rhyme, parent confines a child’s reading list to Eustace Scrubb read: “He liked books if it means being able to make things. books “in which nothing at all alarming they were books of information and had Lewis made Malacandra and Narnia; ever happens, you would fail to banish the pictures of grain elevators or of fat for- Chesterton made Fr. Brown and The terrors, and would succeed in banishing eign children doing exercises in model Man Who Was Thursday. Even better, all that can ennoble them or make them schools.”) Chesterton would sometimes disappear endurable.... Since it is so likely that they Chesterton’s reply is summarized by into his bedroom when he had diminutive will meet cruel enemies, let them at least Maisie Ward: “He had begun in boyhood guests at Beaconsfield and return with an have heard of brave knights and heroic by realizing that the world as depicted in illustrated epic. It justifies J.R.R. Tolkien courage.” fairytales was saner and more sensible than in describing man as a sub-creator. We Chesterton’s reply: “Fairytales, then, the world as seen by the intellectuals of stand under the first and true Creator, are not responsible for producing in his own day.” That is the whole basis for but we do not stand idle.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 31 the Detection Club “Maybe you should have knelt down and said a prayer with the priest?” —G.K. Chesterton “The mystery of life is the plainest part of it.” laughs Maloney. “Maybe that would have helped you catch them?” He fin- ishes his plate and wipes ketchup from his face with a napkin. “I figure I’ll call the heist in before goin’ inside the bank,” says Potter, ig- noring Maloney’s razzing. Maggie leaves their tabs on the counter and walks away. The coffee is Knife Fight on the house; the food isn’t. “I’m callin’ in when the guy in black by James G. Bruen Jr. says ‘That’s not necessary, Officer’ and the other guy agrees with him.” ell me about yesterday, Potter,” continues Potter, “when a guy yells at “They were threatening you?” asks smiles Patrick Maloney as he me from the Korean barbecue a couple Maloney takes the stool next to Otto of doors down from the barber shop. “No,” says Potter. Potter’s at the counter in the ‘Officer, Officer,’ he screams. ‘Knife “Just trying to buy time,” observes Route 29 Diner. “Quite a fight! Help! Help!’ I turn around, and Maloney, “to facilitate the getaway. collar, I hear,” he adds. this white guy’s dressed all in black Aiding and abetting.” TThe other uniformed cop grunts with one of those white collars, and “I called it in anyways.” without looking up from his coffee. he’s holding the barbecue door open “Right.” He couldn’t tell if Maloney was being and pointing inside. He keeps on yellin’ “Turns out, someone beat me to it.” sarcastic or not. The waitress pours a for m e .” “The bank?” mug for Maloney. “The usual, honey?” “A priest,” observes the Irish cop. Maloney slaps a ten on the counter she asks; it’s more a declaration than a “You’re quick, Maloney,” snorts to cover his tab and a tip. Potter’s five is question. Potter, turning towards Maloney for pure tip—he’d only had coffee. “Yeah, Maggie,” says Maloney. the first time. “No, a law professor—the guy with Potter swirls a stirrer in his black “So much for writin’ the Explorer the priest.” coffee. “You know that Vietnamese dude up,” Potter continues. “I’m inside “What?” barber on 50? the barbecue real quick. But there’s “Yeah, the priest—name’s Petersen, “The one that comps us?” nothin’ to see. Just the priest, anoth- from the District—had him call. The “Yeah, that’s the one. I just got mine er white guy, and two waitresses can’t priest saw the two dudes in ski masks cropped, and I walk out, and there this hardly speak English. No knives, no goin’ into the bank and figured out black SUV pulled up ‘longside the curb, fight, no nothin’. Real quiet.” what’s goin’ down, so he has the prof motor runnin’. Full tinted Explorer. I “Priest suckered you?” Maloney says call 911 on his cell from inside the rap a window and point to the ‘No while shoving potatoes into his mouth. Korean barbecue. The cars didn’t get Standing’ sign. Black dude lowers the “I’m askin’ him what’s up when there before the perps split.” window a couple of inches. He’s wearin’ through the window I see two dudes “The dispatcher probably called a NFL knit cap with one of them goofy bolt from the bank that’s between the your car,” snorts Mahoney. pompons—Ravens, not Skins. Ridin’ barber and the barbecue. They got black Potter laughs. low on his brow; long dreads hangin’ ski masks coverin’ their heads and they “Besides,” challenges Maloney, “why from under it; dark sunglasses. I can’t packin’ serious hardware. They got into are you so sure the priest fellow wasn’t hardly see his face. Then that nigga flips the Explorer real quick.” a fake, working with the others? They off this nigga!” Maggie refills Maloney’s mug but got away didn’t they? Did you check to “Bad ass,” laughs Maloney. “You flip Potter puts his hand over his. see if there’s really a Petersen priest in him back?” “The priest was a phony?” exclaims DC? Why’d the priest sucker you with “I’m boilin’,” says Potter. Maloney. “A lookout who diverted you! that knife fight baloney?” “I love to see black turn red!” Protecting the bank robbers in case Maggie sweeps the money from the Maloney laughs louder. something went sour?” counter. “Thanks, guys.” Maggie slides a plate in front of “The Explorer pulls away immediate- “Sucker me? Man, if that priest don’t Maloney: two eggs over easy, white ly,” continues Potter, “but no screechin’ get me away from that Explorer those toast, bacon, and potatoes fried with tires or anythin’ else that’d call atten- two guys perforate me soon as they onions. Maloney splashes ketchup over tion. I’m out on the sidewalk in a flash come out that bank. Two on one, and the eggs and potatoes and digs in. with the priest and the other guy too but I’d never even see them: writin’ up that “I’m about to write the dude up,” there’s nothin’ I can do. They’re gone.” driver I’d a had my back to them.”

32 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 the Detection Club

knows will become popular in the future, A Detective Ahead of His Time such as paint by numbers, or the board game Clue, or forensic-themed enter- Murdoch Mysteries medical degree. Ogden is the local pa- tainments; and the suggestion of such (TV series, 2008– ) thologist and Murdoch’s love interest. She an amusement is dismissed with a curt Created by Maureen Jennings is also the show’s main source of modern “that will never catch on.” The characters attitudes and politically correct opinions, don’t actually wink at the audience when Reviewed by Chris Chan and though her perspectives are not always they say this, but the fourth wall is pretty anachronistic, the way they are present- badly cracked. urdoch Mysteries is a popu- ed is often handled more blatantly than it The fact that Murdoch consistently lar Canadian mystery series, ought to be. One expects the screenwrit- creates crime scene investigative de- but it’s also a historical er to run onto the set and say, “Well said! vices decades before they were actually drama and a science fiction Why couldn’t more people have thought invented is almost laughable at times. series as well. The first four that way in the 1890s?” Though the series The following dialogue does not actually seasons have been collected frequently suggests that Murdoch and appear in any episode, but it could: Minto a single DVD collection, and as of Ogden are meant to be together, by season MURDOCH. Gentlemen, after an this writing the fifth season is available three I started rooting against their pairing, hour and a half of experimenting, I separately, and the sixth season has just partially because I found the Murdoch/ have finally managed to isolate the finished airing. Set primarily in Toronto Ogden relationship increasingly tiresome, substance that makes up the genetic in the last years of the nineteenth centu- partially because I liked another romantic traits found in all living things. If any- ry (the series moves into the twentieth interest for Murdoch more. body leaves hairs, blood, or saliva at century at the end of the fifth season), a crime scene, I can test their genetic the series centers around the title charac- material and prove who left the trace ter, Detective William Murdoch (Yannick evidence. Bisson), a brilliant young police investiga- tor who solves his crimes with the help of CRABTREE. Brilliant, sir! This will be science and technology, often in the form perfect for catching criminals dumb of innovations that did not actually exist enough to leave large amounts of bodily at the time. This isn’t a series that strives fluids near their victims! We can call for historical accuracy, so much as it tries it… Dastardly Nitwit Apprehender– to be “accurate-ish.” wait, that’s a bit of a mouthful… how Murdoch is a dedicated detective and about D.N.A. for short? all-around nice guy, and the really likeable MURDOCH. (Blank stare.) We’ll work Bisson plays the role perfectly. In pretty on that, George. much every episode, Murdoch creates an BRACKENREID. Bloody hell, anachronistic invention, ranging from a lie Murdoch! Pretty soon your new detector to a means of transmitting pho- invention will be used for trashy en- tographic images by telegraph, to sonar, to tertainments where men will be tested night-vision goggles, and a lot of other gad- in order to tell whether or not they fa- gets. One wonders why Murdoch still has thered illegitimate children! to work, since he could probably live like a MURDOCH. I don’t think it will ever prince off of his patents. Though Murdoch come to that, sir. is a man of science, he is also a man of The cast is rounded out by the gruff faith. A strong Catholic in a city filled with but warm-hearted Inspector Thomas BRACKENREID. Well in any case, it’s Protestants, Murdoch faces discrimina- Brackenreid (Thomas Craig) and the a better invention than that eyeliner tion on the job and frequent assaults on young, often-bumbling, but surprising- for men you keep using. the tenets of his faith. Unfortunately, the ly perceptive Constable George Crabtree MURDOCH. Once again, sir, I don’t show usually doesn’t allow Murdoch to (Jonny Harris). Their characterizations are use eyeliner! My eyelashes are just nat- defend his religious views properly, and his distinctly reminiscent of the Stottlemeyer/ urally like this! Nestor Carbonell from spiritual side is largely relegated to cross- Disher partnership on Monk. Lost has the same thing! ing himself every time he comes across a The show is a lot of fun, but its Achilles’ CRABTREE. What’s Lost, sir? dead body. This is a pity, as the show often heel is its annoying habit of occasionally MURDOCH. It’s a television show. passes up on the chance to explore a really revealing its knowledge of future events. interesting aspect of its central character. For example, a UFO-themed episode CRABTREE. What’s a television, The next main member of the cast makes an oblique reference to Roswell, sir? is Doctor Julia Ogden (Hélène Joy), one New Mexico. Alternatively, a reference MURDOCH. You’ll find out when I of the few women in this era to have a is made to something that the audience invent it next week.

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 33 the Detection Club

I’ve been complaining, but I do really Chesterton’s Bloodthirsty Heirs like the series. One favorite dramatic Brief Reviews of the Contemporary Mystery Scene by Steve Miller device the show frequently employs is to include real-life figures in the plots, such as Nicola Tesla, Harry Houdini, Arthur John Lange (Michael Crichton). Hillary Bell Locke (Michael Conan Doyle, Annie Oakley, H.G. Wells, Grave Descend (1970). A Bowen). Jail Coach (2012). The and many more. poem by Dr. Samuel Johnson closing credits of a motion pic- Don’t watch Murdoch Mysteries ex- provides the name for the ture contain such exotic titles pecting to learn the true condition of sunken boat, Grave Descend. as gaffer, best boy, key grip, forensic science in the late nineteenth The story’s villain collects animal wrangler, and inferno century. Watch the show to be enter- Johnson works and memorabilia. maker. Someday we may see the tained, to try your hand at unraveling Although there is no mention of G.K. jail coach of a star listed as well. twisty mysteries, and to laugh at the Chesterton’s play, The Judgment of Dr. A prominent celebrity is likely to do series’ many jokes, all the while remem- Johnson, the mystery hard time for a drunken rampage in a bering that the series’ creative team is contains sufficient suburban California county. Will the playing fast and loose with history. quotes from the lex- experience so traumatize him that he For more information, see http://www.acorn- icographer to warm will be psychologically unable to fulfill a media.com/. any Chestertonian multi-picture contract? Loss prevention heart. Otherwise the specialist Jay Davidovich is assigned by work follows pulp an insurance company to use “any legal Whodunnit Theology thriller formula. The means necessary” to avoid paying the hero, McGregor, as a claim. His goal is to find a jail coach Father Brown on not totally respect- to teach the star basic prison survival Hypocrisy and Lawlessness able deep sea diver is skills. A Dial-a-Designated Driver (only the somewhat prin- in Los Angeles) with a toddler daughter Father Brown struck the table so that cipled loner in an unprincipled Jamaica. in tow has spent time in Houston jail for the glasses on it rang; and they could Hired for a suspicious salvage job which contempt of court and seems the perfect almost fancy a ghostly echo from the must be kept secret, his response when candidate. But one jail term and mili- mysterious chalice that still stood in the he learns the boat has not yet sunk is to tary duty to escape a second means she room beyond. ask for more money. A formidable com- has significant baggage. Her Armenian “No!” he cried, in a voice like a pis- rade defeats a gang of thugs and shoots ex-pimp—and possible father of her tol-shot. “There shall be no difference. a man guarding McGregor at a highly child—calls himself Mr. Ten Percent I gave you your chance of pitying the opportune moment. The authorities, and sees blackmail, abduction, and a poor devil when you thought he was a rather than throwing everyone in jail, potential fix of the star’s legal problems common criminal. You wouldn’t listen allow McGregor forty-eight hours to as his ticket to big bucks. Davidovich then; you were all for private vengeance clear up the mess, even when the likely has enough trouble then. You were all for letting him be result is tripling the Kingston homicide protecting his es- butchered like a wild beast without a rate. But if plausibility were the stan- tranged wife from hearing or a public trial, and said he had dard would anyone read these books or abusive boyfriends. only got his deserts. Very well then, watch most action movies? The payoff But a six-foot-four if Daniel Doom has got his des- is explosions, fires, smarmy bad guys, blond, blue-eyed erts, Brander Merton has treacherous women, competing crooks, Jewish-Ukrainian got his deserts. If that was betrayals galore, and animal dangers veteran of Iraq good enough for Doom, by including Jamaican crocodiles, trained and Afghanistan all that is holy it is good ocelots, and hammerhead sharks. Will is not easily di- enough for Merton. Take our hero survive? Of course, he will but verted from his your wild justice or who is killed in the process? John Lange mission—save the our dull legality; is a pseudonym of Michael Crichton star and stay alive. but in the name from the days before Andromeda Strain Hillary Bell Locke is a pseudonym of Almighty God, and Jurassic Park made him a bestsell- of Milwaukee Chestertonian Michael let there be an ing author. Bowen. equal lawless- ness or an equal law.” “I should enjoy nothing more than always writing detective stories, except always reading them.” —G.K. Chesterton

34 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 The Chesterton Review the journal of the G. K. Chesterton for Faith & Culture

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Editorial Office Phone: 973 275 2431 400 South Orange Avenue email: South Orange, NJ 07079 [email protected] in 2014 we celebrate our 40th anniversary Book Reviews and in return was assassinated. Fortuyn and Duranty are contrasted as radically different men, one principled, the other unethical. I have some hesitations about the portrayal of Fortuyn—by depicting Fortuyn as a hero of conscience some of the destructive repercussions of his social and political policies are whitewashed— but the point of this play is to use Fortuyn “When the Real Revolution as a metaphoric figure as to the dangers of political correctness. I do have some con- Happens, It Won’t Be Mentioned cerns about the presentation of Duranty’s son Michael—Longin and Simon claim In the Newspapers” to not know what happened to him, and the characterization and scenes featuring young Duranty are pure fiction, which The Party Line: A Play in Two Acts version of events, and people who makes me worry what might happen by Sheryl Longin and Roger L. Simon attempted to reveal the truth were mar- if the real Michael Duranty emerges to New York, N.Y.: Criterion Books, 2012 ginalized and derided. complain about his depiction in the play. 160 pages, $15.95. Why did Duranty cover up the Chestertonians may be familiar with famine? There is no clear-cut answer, one supporting character—Aleister Reviewed by Chris Chan though the play does provide some good Crowley, the infamous Satanist and suggestions. Soviet sympathies may be dabbler in the occult. Crowley was the he story of Walter Duranty is a one reason—publicizing the massive one man that G.K. Chesterton flat-out far too-little-known chapter in deaths from starvation would have seri- refused to debate. Longtime American the history of American jour- ously discredited the communist system. Chesterton Society member John nalism and foreign relations. Additionally, journalists who reported the Peterson once wrote, “Chesterton never Duranty was a respected inter- truth might have been banned from the stated his objection to meeting Crowley, national reporter for the New Soviet Union, and therefore might have but possibly he didn’t want to lend cred- York Times, and won a Pulitzer been blackballed from their profession. ibility to Crowley’s views by discussing PrizeT for his coverage of life in the Soviet Notably, The Party Line is not a straight them. Or, it might simply be that Crowley Union during the 1930s. Duranty pre- history of Duranty’s career, gave him the creeps.” The sented Stalin’s USSR as a successful and but instead is a mixture of Crowley depicted in The prosperous nation, and compared the fact and fantasia, jumping Party Line will certain- communist system favorably to the Great between the twentieth and ly give people the creeps, Depression-afflicted United States. At this early twenty-first centuries. thanks to his engaging in time, many whistleblowers and activists Some of the characters, orgiastic rituals and his were trying to alert the world to the fact like Duranty, Fortuyn, and consumption of bizarre that the seeming success of the Soviet Crowley, are real. Others, and vile compounds. Union was largely a sham. Not only was like Duranty’s son, have This is a fascinating Stalin’s government horribly mismanaging been fictionalized to the play. To the best of my the country’s development, but in order point where they almost knowledge, it has not yet to support other areas of the nation, they certainly have only a pe- been staged, so The Party were deliberately provoking a famine in the ripheral connection to Line exists only as a liter- Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of millions. the actual person. Other ary experience at this time, Though the famine, widely known characters are purely though that is likely to today as the Holodomor, is acknowledged the creation of Longin change in the near future. by many leading figures and politicians as and Simon. It’s an intelligent and carefully argumen- an act of genocide, there are vast numbers The Party Line addresses the effects tative presentation of what happens when of Holodomor deniers in the present day, of Duranty’s reporting, covering multi- people sacrifice their principles, either for and there were plenty of deniers during ple storylines, including Duranty’s career, personal gain or simply out of coward- the 1930s as well. Duranty was one of the other journalists wrestling with the ethics ice. Additionally, it’s a perceptive look at most prominent and influential figures of whether to report the truth or not, and how people are often more apt to accept a who declared that there was no famine a parallel storyline between Duranty’s son comfortable lie rather than a brutal truth. or malfeasance on the part on the Soviet and the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. I have wondered for years if someone government. Prominent media figures Fortuyn crusaded against the threats he would ever bring the Duranty story to and policy makers accepted Duranty’s perceived were threatening Dutch society, the stage, and I cannot criticize Longin

36 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Book Reviews and Simon for depicting the event differently from the way I might have. I would have fo- cused solely on Duranty, but The Party Line is interested in timeless truths throughout modern history, stressing recurring themes rather than set events. In any case, the tale is rich enough to provide fodder for multiple tellings. There have been a couple of campaigns to have Duranty’s Pulitzer Prize revoked, but the Pulitzer Committee has refused to rescind the award, In response, the Walter Duranty Prizes for Mendacity in Journalism have been recent- ly launched in order to target deliberate lies in reporting that threaten people’s lives and safety. There have been some fierce debates amongst Chestertonians lately on whether it is acceptable to lie for a good cause. The Party Line argues that there is no such thing as a noble lie. For more information, see http://www.newcriterion. com/posts.cfm/Announcing--strong-Criterion- Books-strong--and--i-The-Party-Line-i--6918 –Ed.

Additionally, Nordlinger wisely keeps Deserved and his own opinions to a minimum, only occasionally and briefly stating why a Undeserved Honors particular choice was an excellent or a poor selection. This makes the book a March 2012 publication are mentioned, history rather than an editorial, and yet though some laureates only get about a throughout the book there is a very pal- Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel page and others get far more. pable feeling that Nordlinger is biting his Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Nordlinger notes early in the book tongue. One wants to ask him, “But what Controversial Prize in the World that given the scope of this study, he has do you really think?” In the few instances by Jay Nordlinger to focus on concise capsule summaries where Nordlinger relaxes his self-control New York, N.Y.: Encounter Books, 2012 of each laureate’s life and achievements. and allows himself to declare why a lau- 476 pages, $27.99 (hardcover) This is understandable, but the subjects reate’s political views were reprehensible, are so interesting and his critiques so in- or why a group’s effort to achieve a certain triguing that one rather hopes that Peace, result wound up doing more harm than Reviewed by Chris Chan They Say is not Nordlinger’s only foray good, Nordlinger’s prose is at its sharp- into this topic. Longer essays about the est and most incisive, and also its most laureates, or comparative studies of laure- intriguing. he Nobel Peace Prize is argu- ates in similar fields of work, or critiques This book is essentially a history of ably the world’s most coveted of the lasting effects of their legacies, international relations during the twen- award, but most people would could prove fascinating. Nordlinger also tieth and early twenty-first century. The be hard-pressed to name addresses certain misconceptions about first fifty years worth of laureates are more than ten or twelve re- the Prize. For example, the Nobels can mostly European figures, with several cipients. Jay Nordlinger’s never be revoked, the Prize does not have Americans and one Argentinian (Carlos Peace, They Say: A History of to be given every year (just once every five Saavedra Lamas, 1936). The latter half theT Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous years, at minimum), and Alfred Nobel of the laureates are from all over the and Controversial Prize in the World is a never founded the Peace Prize out of world. It is very interesting to compare concise but detailed history of the Nobel guilt for inventing dynamite. Quite the the efforts of statesmen who produced Peace Prize (the other Nobel Prizes are contrary, Nobel was always proud of his lasting international alliances (George mentioned but not analyzed). All of the invention, though he may not have liked Marshall, 1953) to those bureaucrats hundred-plus laureates prior to the book’s all of the ways that it was used. who created treaties that ultimately

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 37 Book Reviews failed miserably (Frank Kellogg, 1929), For a book about peace, Peace, They threat of another war. Chesterton argued to the great humanitarians (Mother Say is bound to provoke a lot of argu- that another, even worse war would be Teresa, 1979) to the political action or- ments, and this is a good thing, for it coming unless serious steps were taken, ganizations (International Physicians provides a different sort of forum for whereas Angell, a leading pacifist, argued for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1985, people to discuss the weighty topics of that nations now realized that war was a Soviet-supported group that receives what constitutes human rights, the best unprofitable and that Germany would particular criticism from Nordlinger), to ways to resolve major conflicts, never start another armed conflict. Angell brilliant scientists who saved and the morality of interna- won the Nobel and swayed major polit- over a billion lives (Norman tional actions. People who ical figures; Chesterton was ignored and Borlaug, 1970). criticize some Laureates uncelebrated. Perry calls this “perhaps Interestingly, most of generally attack their tar- the greatest blunder in the history of the the early twentieth-century gets in primarily political Nobel Prize.” Angell was proved devastat- awards were for interna- grounds. When Nordlinger ingly wrong, and Chesterton was shown tional relations, whereas critiques a Nobelist, he fo- to be prophetically correct, but by then now human rights figures cuses on that person’s or it was too late to bestow any honors on working in a single country organization’s actual achieve- Chesterton. are likely winners. There ments and impact, as well Most people talk airily of “changing are plenty of great people as their careers after receiv- the world” and “making the Earth a better who have won for promot- ing the awards (many have place.” All of the subjects of Peace, They ing human rights in their led controversial lives after Say tried to do this, some successfully, own nations (Martin Luther winning). other not so much. Looking back at their King, Jr. (1964) Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), The anthology “Chesterton in War impact and their careers after winning, Lech Walesa (1983), Liu Xiabo (2010)), and Peace,” edited by Michael W. Perry, some of these Laureates are clearly heroes, but some commentators argue that such argued that G.K. Chesterton should have others now appear to be either villains awards are contrary to the guidelines out- won the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize rather or simply buffoons. Nordlinger’s work lined in Nobel’s will, which focus more on than Sir Norman Angell. Both men wrote is helpful to understanding just what internationalism. extensively on international issues and the “peace” really means.

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The American Chesterton Society The Return of Father Brown is 4117 Pebblebrook Circle, available at the American Chesterton Minneapolis, MN 55437 (952) 831-3096 Society Web site or by mail. [email protected] www.chesterton.org Fear of Film and pacing have been heavily chopped up and rearranged, the spirit of Orczy’s orig- inal work remains intact, and the result is a rattling good adventure story that far exceeds most of the action movies pro- duced today. In the 1982 television adaptation, Anthony Andrews plays Sir Percy as if he’s having the time of his life, playing the dual role for all it’s worth, relishing both They Seek Him Here… the character of the dashing hero and the ridiculous popinjay. At times, it seems as The Scarlet Pimpernel (TV movie, 1982) marriage is not a particularly happy one if Andrews is marshaling every ounce of Directed by Clive Donner as Sir Percy seems largely uninterested in strength he has in order to keep from look- Written by William Bast, based on the novels his wife, and Marguerite despises her hus- ing directly at the camera and giving the by Baroness Emmuska Orczy band for being weak-willed, shallow, and viewer a massive smile and a wink. For cowardly. It is hardly a spoiler to point out all the fun Andrews appears to be having, Reviewed by Chris Chan that Sir Percy is much more than what it’s just as enjoyable to watch him at work. he seems, as it should be blatantly obvi- Jane Seymour’s role is less showy and com- (Warning: major spoilers follow –Ed.) ous to all readers (and indeed, often the plex, but she does a fine job as the heroine book’s cover and introductory material (even though some of her character’s facets They seek him here, they seek him there. are filled with clues or even an outright from the novel have been pared away for Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. revelation) that Sir Percy is much more this production), particularly when her Is he in Heaven… or is he in Hell? than he seems, and the hidden facets of marriage is left floundering on the rocks That damned elusive Pimpernel. his character wind up saving his marriage. thanks to the machinations of the vil- he Scarlet Pimpernel is one of Sir Percy’s buffoonish personality is just lain of the story. Ian McKellen plays Paul the greatest adventure novels a façade. The seemingly empty-headed Chauvelin, an investigator for the French of all time. Written by Baroness peer has a secret identity, and he is actu- revolutionary government charged with Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet ally… Batman! tracking down the Scarlet Pimpernel. Pimpernel is actually the first No, that is of course a joke, although the Enamored of Marguerite St. Just, in- in a series of books (more than dual personality exhibited by Bruce Wayne tensely loyal to an increasingly violent aT dozen and a half novels, short story in order to hide the fact that he is Batman and unstable revolution, and unworried collections, and a play) about a swash- (especially as depicted in the recent film about the moral implications of sending buckling hero with a secret identity. trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan) is innocent people to the guillotine simply The Scarlet Pimpernel, the clearly inspired by the The because they are on the government’s list leader of a resistance move- Scarlet Pimpernel. Indeed, of enemies, Chauvelin is determined to ment, rescues condemned the truth of the Scarlet smash the Scarlet Pimpernel and his allies. aristocrats from the clutch- Pimpernel’s identity ought to Andrews and McKellen are both brilliant es of the French Revolution, be so obvious to readers even playing two very different men, Andrews often through ingenious from the earliest stages, that as the courageous and ingenious adventur- and elaborate escape plans. the makers of a 1982 televi- er who sees no reason why he can’t both In the original novel, sion adaptation see no need save the day and have the time of his life the identity of the Scarlet to disguise the fact that the while he does it, and McKellen as the polit- Pimpernel is initially a Scarlet Pimpernel and Sir ical fanatic with ice water running through mystery to the reader. Percy are one and the same. his veins. As the bloodthirsty rev- It would have been dra- The Scarlet Pimpernel works as well as olutionaries of the Reign matically awkward to even it does because the production manages of Terror are continual- attempt to disguise that fact. to make history entertaining. It’s an ad- ly thwarted, once-privileged, generally In any case, the Scarlet Pimpernel’s identity venture story with both brains and heart, good-natured aristocrats are plucked is made clear on the DVD box. and Sir Percy makes a very important from French jails and smuggled off to The 1982 dramatization of The Scarlet point that many people forget—helping safer countries. (Incidentally, a pimpernel Pimpernel is partially based on the novel people ought to be an adventure, and is a small flower.) The central charac- of the same name, but the storyline also saving the world can be a thrill if done ter of the book is Marguerite St. Just, a draws upon one of the sequels, Eldorado, properly. strong-willed French actress married to where the Scarlet Pimpernel rescues the For more information, see http://www.acorn- Sir Percy Blakeney, a ludicrously foppish, young Dauphin from brainwashing and media.com/. mentally negligible British nobleman. The imprisonment. Though the basic plotlines

40 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 The Signature of Man may be much that is really problematic about which of the two considerations should prevail; but it is not a problem, but simply a prejudice, to say that all the other considerations need not be con- sidered. And if we do consider this more general matter of social effect, we shall find one or two rather odd things about it, and a position that is full of paradox. First, it is odd, in a question of rev- erence to religion, that the only religion Jacob Epstein’s Ecce Homo we do, in fact, expose to superficial ir- reverence is our own religion. The stalest by G.K. Chesterton school of Freethinkers continue to de- nounce Christianity as a tyranny; but, he representative of a news- merely telling us that we know nothing in fact, Christianity is a target that has paper recently rang me up about art, we have every right to reply long been left exposed to the missiles to ask my opinion about the that he knows nothing about life. There of such Freethinkers, and of anybody much-disputed statue of Christ by Mr. Epstein; and the printed report of my remarks, though notT incorrect so far as it went, naturally did not cover much of what I really said, and especially of what I really meant. As I should not like to be entirely misun- derstood, on a subject on which such a superb amount of nonsense is talked on both sides, I will add a note on the matter here, To begin with, hardly any- body seems to put clearly the primary point about the problem; that it is really two totally different problems. There is the problem of the intrin- sic intellectual truth or value of such a thing to the intellect which creates or criticises it; the question of its essence as apart from its effect; the question of whether such a statue has what Mr. Eric Gill would call absolute beauty. Second, there is the problem of its social and practical effect; of what such a thing, considered as a public monument, ac- tually presents to public opinion. I know that some intellectuals talk in a distant and disdainful manner about this pop- ular problem, as if it did not matter at all and could be dismissed. But that only shows for the hundredth time how very unintellectual an intellectual can be. It is a fact that human happiness may be greatly affected by its existing traditions, customs, conventions, understandings— and misunderstandings. If an artist chooses to say that he sees nothing in this, and never thinks about it, we need only infer that the artist is a very nar- row-minded man. If he is content with Ecce Homo

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 41 The Signature of Man else who wanted to take any liberties in letters, said with admirable candour only be considered unreasonable in the with it; and it is the only target of that and clarity: “I am an Oriental; Epstein ruling people or in our own religion. sort in the world. The pious forms of the is an Oriental, and he sees Christ as an The other half of the problem is other religions are protected, not only Oriental sees him.” much more difficult to solve; and I have by the people belonging to those reli- The other comment, which was in a left myself no space in which even to gions, but also by us. If an Englishman sense on the other side, came from an pretend to solve it. But I deny altogether thought it breezy and broad-minded to Oriental prince ruling a country largely that any doubts I may have in the matter walk about in a mosque with muddy Buddhist in complexion, who expressed are mere marks of ignorance of the boots, without either taking them off surprise at the statue, saying that the very varied forms and styles in art. The or covering them with canvas slippers, images of Buddha expressed calm and matter goes very much deeper than that; he would be instantly arrested or kicked tranquillity; while nobody could say and concerns, not only the methods by out, not only by the Moslems, but by that Mr. Epstein’s Christ produces that, which the artist may express his mean- the Christians; anyhow, by all the other either in itself or in its spectators. Now, ing, but also the meaning that he intends Englishmen. Note that this is strictly a I know all about the existence of differ- to express. No man knows another man’s question of protecting a mere custom, ent conventions in art; and it is no good mind absolutely; and if Mr. Epstein were or even a mere convention; not even a to tell me that I only criticise the thing to affirm that his Christ was meant for question of any undeniable denial of a because it is not like a classic figure in the Christ who talked to the children or creed. The Englishman in the mosque is the Elgin Marbles; still less that I only who inspired the Troubadours of God at least as much entitled to say he sees do it because it is not like a doll in the who followed St. Francis, I could not, nothing particularly polluting about a of course, disprove his statement. But it pair of boots, as the Epstein sort of artist seems to me, merely as an imaginative is to say he sees nothing profane in join- But I know that nobody impression, that what he has represent- ing the head and body of a holy figure in ed, apart from his way of representing it, the proportions of a pantomime goblin. would be allowed to present is the Jewish idea of suffering with dig- The Englishman may say he means no an image conceived so as nity; and that is a totally different thing harm with his mud or leather; just as the from the Christian idea of suffering with Epstein artist may say he means no harm to disgust and infuriate tortured but unbroken love. Thus even with his clay or stone. One may call it Buddhists. If a man were to the second half of the problem is divid- a superstition to cover the human feet, ed in its turn into two problems; first, as the other may call it a superstition to fill Burma with caricatures of whether it is really good art which thus carve the human body so as to resem- Buddha, or what seemed to the expresses a philosophy; and second, ble the human body; it is all a matter whether it is really a good philosophy. of opinion. The point that concerns me Buddhists to be caricatures of Personally, I am much more certain here is that we do, in fact, force the opin- Buddha, he would probably that I differ from Mr. Epstein about ion to give way to the superstition, or the second point than about the first. convention—when we are demanding be stopped from doing so. If anything is here expressed in stone, respect for Mahomet; but apparently what is expressed in stone is something not when we are demanding respect Lowther Arcade. I recognise that the very stony indeed; a sterile and terri- for Christ. image of Buddha is conceived so as to ble sorrow, which, like the very spirit of It is the same with the other great appeal to Buddhists. But I know that Israel, can endure rather than expand. faiths that dispute for the same ancient nobody would be allowed to present an There would be nothing specially novel territories. A lingering bigotry still pre- image conceived so as to disgust and in- and provocative in that alone, in an age vents Englishmen, and other Europeans, furiate Buddhists. If a man were to fill which is by its nature a battle-ground from complete religious reunion with Burma with caricatures of Buddha, or of so many divers moods and philos- the Thugs who throttle people as a re- what seemed to the Buddhists to be car- ophies. But to be surprised, in face of ligious gesture. But, outside such cases, icatures of Buddha, he would probably such a representation of Christ, that the we do defend the dignity of the Asiatic be stopped from doing so; not merely by common people do not see Him gladly, religions; the only thing we do not the Buddhist priests, but by the British as they once heard him gladly—that sur- defend is the dignity of the European Government. It is, therefore, broadly prise seems to me a mere deficiency in religion. I merely remark on this point true, as I have said, that we do recog- common sense. as a paradox, and for the moment in an nise over a great part of the world, even From Illustrated London News, March 23, 1935 entirely detached spirit. The two most in subject peoples and in alien religions, interesting and intelligent of the com- the delicate and dangerous sensitiveness ments on the matter quoted in the press of the soul of man in connection with its Please donate to the both came, curiously enough, from in- sacred images, and even its artistic tra- American Chesterton Society. heritors of Eastern, and to us, alien, ditions. It does seem to me rather queer www.chesterton.org traditions. A Jewish lady, distinguished and quaint that this sensitiveness should

42 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 Hills Half Heard contains. Meeting and talking to them was my real education, saying almost nothing until I was sixteen, by which time I was squarely in the middle of the beat literary movement. Kerouac had origi- nally called it a “beatific generation” and to no one’s surprise (of those who were around at the time), two of most import- From Kerouac to Chesterton ant of the poets were in the religious life, one a Dominican (Br. Antoninus) and, Part 1 the other a Zen Buddhist (Gary Snyder). Conversation centered about the arts, re- by Art Livingston ligion, and social philosophy (politics not quite being the right word). The buzz- n the early days of the Midwest to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of ev- word that year was “asceticism.” Chesterton Society, we would regale erything at the same time, the ones who The younger ones, myself among each other with tales of how we first never yawn or say a commonplace thing, them I must confess, worked so hard at came to read Chesterton. Eyebrows but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow appearing inconspicuous in order not to often lifted when I offered my tes- roman candles exploding like spiders be noticed by the world at large, that we timonial, but I wish to trumpet it across the stars. overdid it just enough to justify the cari- Iagain now. To understand why I blew the cature of dressing funereally. Many loved dust from an old library copy of Alarms After many adventures with Dean, life so much that they relished conversa- and Discursions, we must go back eight who draws Sal (our narrator living in tions about death and they did indeed more years, to another book, and by a adulation of him) into a life that blurs write enough bad verse on the subject that different author. My adolescence lasted into one hedonistic joyride, both Dean I often could not tell the difference be- seventeen days in September, 1957, my and another close friend declare private- tween the original and the parody. first two and a half weeks of high school. ly that they are contemplating suicide. My own inclinations had led me to On the second Sunday of this period I These confessions come as fast as Dean write structured poetry and to concen- discovered a glowing book review, bought hotwiring a car. A life of dissipation leads trate on Beauty, with Keats as my master; the book with a few saved dollars the next to the grave, and Sal looks on as Dean’s but I never forgot the lessons I learned Saturday, read it the next two days while wife calls her husband a louse because from Kerouac, not only the negative one also shaking my head over what amount- he deserts her whenever Dean gets an about the Dean Moriaritys of the world, ed to a retraction of approbation from the itch to go somewhere else. When Sal and but the positive one: that “the devil is same newspaper. The book was On the Dean wander into the interior of Mexico, defeated,” as I heard him say in an inter- Road and I found its message overwhelm- Sal comes down with a severe case of view with Ben Hecht, who didn’t seem ing. That message is the direct opposite dysentery—and Dean leaves him sick to have the least notion of what Kerouac of what most people who haven’t looked in bed for more kicks somewhere else. was talking about. The cycle was about at its contents believe. Eight months later, they happen upon complete for the peripatetic novelist, and Unlike most poor souls unprepared each other on a New York street. Even Kerouac was close to falling into the arms to hear what Jack Kerouac was actually poor Sal has finally figured out Dean: “I of the Catholic Church, which he was to saying, I had the good fortune to have knew he was a rat.” do in short order. been well grounded in moral theology Beyond my learning a worthwhile What has all this to do with discov- in the Lutheran church of my youth. My moral lesson, I read the book at a crucial ering G.K. Chesterton? Those of us who only question, which occupied my life time of life, just as I was realizing the shal- know Chesterton’s work are well aware over a year, is whether one can enjoy the lowness of the government school I had that the one type of person of whom bohemian life without being dissolute to attend. Fifty-six years later, the school he speaks with utter contempt, and for oneself. Short answer: of course one can. experience seems an even greater waste whom he seemingly has nothing good to For openers, I would ask, what is the idea of time than it did then, but Providence say are aesthetes. By the age of nineteen, of how a friar lives? Kerouac has clear- is strange. Had I gone to a good school, I was a pagan worshipping at the shrine ly written a cautionary tale. Those either I probably would never have been set up of Apollo (figuratively). Two questions: unfamiliar with the book, or who looked for what was to follow. A chance conver- why did Chesterton so distain the aes- at it only long enough to confirm their sation led me to Maury’s bookshop on thetes above all other modern types? And, prejudices, mistake the narrator’s origi- ’s Near North Side. I didn’t have how did I come to read Chesterton? The nal beliefs as being the point of the book: to go on the road; the road came to me, clues for good detective work are laid out which was just as well because it came for you. …the only people for me are the mad to me in the form of every conceivable To be continued. –Ed. ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad kind of character the bohemian world

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 43 The Distributist Abortion generates roughly $1 billion a year for an industry that receives almost half a billion in annual government sub- sidies. More than 55 million unborn children have been reportedly aborted in the United States since 1973, the year of Roe v. Wade. As citizens of the Western country with the highest abortion sta- tistics, Americans have lived under the false principle that anything less than full access to legalized abortion violates Cultural “Fundies” a fundamental human right. But slogans like this one are straight out of a playbook by Richard Aleman introduced into American vernacular by the likes of Planned Parenthood. Invoking nthems of freedom are the individuals as well as institutions. “reproductive health” or “choice” drowns ribbons and bows in a steady Looking back, Pope Paul VI’s an- out any serious discussion about the im- stream of propaganda pa- guish is thoroughly justified. Unrealistic plications of hoisting the freedom to rades that excuse the real expectations, mostly influenced by por- act above the fundamental right to life. world consequences of the nography and the glamorization of sex, Citing right to privacy laws, they ignore many lives broken by the are pervasive among singles and couples. the rights belonging to the human being narcissistic culture we’ve Statistics reveal that only a small percent- growing inside a woman’s body. And Ahappily cultivated. In our profoundly fun- age of married (Catholic) women rely then, of course, there is the Eugenic angle damentalist and secular society, sacrifice on natural family planning methods, about the ageless struggle for the survival is no longer a noble demand of love, but while more than thirty-eight percent of of the fittest above the weakest in soci- a methodically driven-out demon bolt- church-attending females use contracep- ety—which, of course, is anathema when ing under pain of the rite of exorcism. tives. An alarming thirty-three percent applied to economic philosophy. Individualism is destroying women and believe couples have the right to decide The abortion lobby’s concern over disintegrating family life. The utilitarian the moral acceptability of contraception the poor facilities and botched abortions qualities of individualism measure others regardless of Church teaching. Paul VI’s performed by butchers might be taken by how well they contribute to the nar- prediction about government overreach seriously if they were not simultaneously rative of our own lives. G.K. Chesterton has also been vindicated in the current positioning themselves as industry de- writes, “There is more pure individual- struggle over the Health and Human regulators. On the one hand the abortion ism in a pirate than in a peasant,” and no Services Mandate. HHS requires em- industry say they support commonsense greater example of this selfishness exists ployers to provide insurance coverage regulations and oppose the horrors per- than in the social poisons of our time. of prescription contraceptive drugs and petuated by Kermit Gosnell, and on the From the earliest days of Christianity, devices approved by the Food and Drug other they successfully lobby across the the artificial prevention of conception Administration, including sterilization United States against regulations they was seen as a most serious sin precisely procedures and abortion-causing drugs. because it intended to impede the be- Government-mandated coverage impos- ginnings of new human life. Eighteen es contraception without the possibility hundred years after Tertullian compared of debate over the moral implications of the prevention of birth with murder, contraceptive use. Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae Representing a Western generation swiftly reaffirmed the Church’s rejection struggling with first world problems, of contraception on the coattails of the spokespersons in favor of frustrating the Second Vatican Council. Paul VI’s encyc- natural consequences of the procreative lical was prophetic. First, His Holiness act are silent about the steady stream of firmly stated that artificial methods of revenue pouring into the pharmaceu- birth control were to become the leading tical mega-industry. Although the sale vehicle toward lowering moral standards of condoms has dipped in recent years, for young people, as well as a catalyst for manufacturers are still giants generating marital infidelity. Second, wives and hundreds of millions in annual profit. In women in general would be objectified 1998, oral contraceptives made hundreds and disrespected by men. Finally, con- of millions of dollars for industry leaders. traception would become a powerful tool Today, companies like Bayer record prof- in the hands of government to control its in the billions.

44 Volume 17 Issue 1, september/October 2013 The Distributist believe are intolerable. The results are coerced, they appear less reluctant to de- then the feminist movement neither un- more abortions, fewer inspections, and ceive or legally compel others in order derstands men nor comprehends power. less enforcement of health and safety to further their self-interest. The culture Social fundamentalists will have to laws. For example, a bill has been in- of individualism and its dogma claim to explain away the social science data that troduced in California that would allow serve the common good, but truly wor- reveals the hefty price tag of broken fam- non-physicians to perform abortions in ship at the feet of “ephemeral idols.” ilies and emotionally torn children paid the first trimester of pregnancy. Signed An accusation often hurled against for our wants and desires. Pro-life men by California Governor Jerry Brown those opposed to abortion is of an unjust and women alike can point to the brave on October 9, AB 154 passed the State society favoring a masculine-dominated women coming forward in ever greater Assembly with support from Planned culture, but we must question whether numbers to speak out about how contra- Parenthood. The deregulation of medi- feminism itself isn’t rooted in philan- ception and abortion have been sources cal licensing will increase the likelihood dering. How else can we describe the of abandonment, betrayal, and despera- that more cases like Gosnell will occur cheerleading of women’s “empowerment” tion for women. The children left behind and the number of abortions will balloon that encourages the flattering and seduc- by their parents’ quest for “happiness” in the state of California. tion of women by men, the trivializing of will grow up to become our politicians “Deregulation,” the cause célèbre of their feelings, boasts of intimacy without and future corporate leaders. Their market fundamentalism, is also a sacred commitment, and heralds abortion as the moral decision making will affect how hymn for social fundamentalists who promised land of women’s sexual freedom we produce our food, how our environ- want their pornography, their divorce, and “reproductive rights”? Only a move- ment will be preserved, and whether our and their birth control. When pressed, ment that could convince topless women limited resources are worth exploiting market fundamentalists and social fun- to march down a street to protest our for a profit. But there is another ecosys- damentalists will both confess that so-called patriarchal social system could tem, the human ecology made up of the individuals must have an unrestrained seriously believe nudity might turn the family. Disregard for this natural human right to use their property as they see fit, consciences of men. Is this the best that institution will naturally lead to disre- and by property they also mean their re- one hundred years of feminism can do? gard for the natural environment they lationships. Afraid of being cheated or This is liberation? If this is empowerment, live in.

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promoad.indd 1 8/8/13 11:37 AM Chesterton’s Mail Bag ance of the sort of psychic assistance that was given to Macbeth; the power that Gilbert Keith Chesterton Answers His Mail leads men on with promises which are fulfilled to their own destruction. Your friend, G.K. Chesterton (Columbia, October, 1926)

Dear Chesterton, Movies, Spirits, and Liberty You say you are in favor of liberty. I say that the modern evils arise from people having too much liberty. Dear Mr. Chesterton, Dear Mr. Chesterton, Signed, Should we ban the cinema? Long lists are Why do you always object to Shaw being given of particular cases in which Spiritualism? Isn’t it enough that it is spir- children have suffered in spirits or health itual? Isn’t that a good thing? from alleged horrors of the cinema. One Signed, child is said to have had a fit after seeing ACD Dear Shaw, a film; another to have been sleepless I say they arise from the governing classes with some fixed idea taken from a film; Dear ACD, having too much liberty and the governed another to have killed his father with a It is not sufficient commendation of having less liberty than ever. carving-knife through having seen a knife Spiritualism to show that it is spiritual. Your friend, used in a film. We wish to know what spirit it is of; even G.K. Chesterton Signed, if it be not the mere mockery of a moun- (New Witness, April 14, 1922) Concerned Citizen tebank. The communication may even be a real miracle without being a real Dear Concerned, message; in the sense of a message This may possibly have occurred; though from a particular man or woman if it did, anybody of common sense would who is dead. In that sense the prefer to have details about that particular manifestations of Plato may child, rather than about that particular be authentic without being picture. But what is supposed to be the Platonic; and even what is practical moral of it, in any case? Is it that Platonic has its perilous side. the young should never see a story with Now when we observe the a knife in it? Are they to be brought up actual communications that are in complete ignorance of “The Merchant supposed to come from the mighty of Venice” because Shylock flourishes a dead, it is something of an understate- knife for a highly disagreeable purpose? ment to say that we do not find Plato very Are they never to hear of Macbeth, lest it Platonic or Spiritualism very valuable to should slowly dawn upon their trembling our own spiritual life. At the best, the intelligence that it is a dagger that they see communications seem to consist before them? It would be more practical of rather vapid universal state- to propose that a child should never see a ments of all the ideals which real carving-knife, and still more practical are at this moment in the that he should never see a real father. All air; and the proceedings that may come; the era of preventive and have very much the prophetic science has only begun. appear- Your friend, G.K. Chesterton (New Witness, May 12, 1922)

The Magazine of the American Chesterton Society 47 Letter to America But I should not think there was any wild poetry about the young man, G.K. Chesterton in the New York American if he stopped in the street to deliver a moral lecture about the abolition of all door-knockers; as the essayists deliv- er moral lectures on the abolition of all dogmas. I should not be intellectually im- pressed if he indignantly complained that the door-knocker was outside the door and not inside. Nor am I intellectually impressed Thought for the Thoughtless when he complains that church ritual is external, and not exclusively internal. I by G.K. Chesterton should not think much of his argument, if he merely said that a policeman’s helmet ome essays have lately been If I met a student from some studi- does not prove a man to be a hero. published in England expres- ous college walking down the street laden Nor do I think much of it when it sive of the mind of Thoughtful with knockers, I should not perhaps think says that a person’s dog collar does not Youth; and calculated to make that it needed any policeman’s truncheon prove him to be a saint. The stale and anybody turn in consider- to knock him silly. It would be only to ob- vapid anti-clerical cant seems to me able relief to the alternative vious that the silliness had come first and much more wearisome than the mere Sof ThoughtlessY outh. It is not altogeth- the knocking or knockering afterwards. buffooneries of boyhood; and I have less er unnatural that a boy, under certain But the silliness would be of a sort with respect for the highbrow revolt than the conditions should not stop to think; it which I could sympathize; partly because lowbrow riot. is considerably more depressing that he it was so utterly and unspeakably silly. The drinking is at least drinking; and should stop to think and then prove in- It would have a sort of wild poetry the thinking is not in the least thinking. capable of thinking. The diversions of the about it; such as I have always felt in the I would rather console myself with the young have been many; whether the old eccentric old lady, who never collected proverb that boys will be boys than with are diverted by them or think the young anything from rubbish-heaps or jum- a more melancholy maxim that bores will should be diverted from them. ble-sales, except wooden legs and doctors’ be bores. In the old days the sportive youths brass-plates; of neither of which she could From New York American, May 31, 1932 had a habit of fighting watchmen; and make any personal use. later, when modern organization en- larged their opportunities, a taste for knocking off policemen’s helmets or running away with their truncheons: always supposing, of course, that the truncheons did not get in first and give them the knock. They had also a very curious passion for unscrewing the door knockers from ordinary doors. I have never understood the plea- sure of this laborious occupation; which seemed to me to partake of the nature of a skilled and patient handicraft. Nor do I know what they can possibly have done with the knockers when they had them: it would seem a somewhat melancholy occupation to wander about the world rattling knockers that could not be ex- pected to establish relation with doors. That is a pretty fair sample of the silly things that boys can do when they are silly or slightly drunk. But it is nothing to the silliness of the silly things they can say when they are quite sober and entirely serious.

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