Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 $5.50 When we have given up valuing life for every other reason, we can still value it, like the glass stick, as a curiosity. —G.K.Chesterton TheT HE NIGHT IS Best of FAR SPENT Thomas Howard Thomas Howard was a renowned Professor of Eng- lish and Literature for over 30 the night is Far spent years. He is a popular author A Treasury of Thomas Howard of numerous books, and a Selections by Vivian W. Dudro regular contributor to various nown for his wit and charm, Thomas literary & spiritual journals. Howard is one of the most popular K “A collection of Howard writings Christian writers today. This is a collec- is to be ‘treasured’ and saved. tion of Howard’s best material. Liturgical Who can resist ‘things literary’ reform and sacred architecture, women’s and ‘things sacred’?” ordination and hierarchical authority, C.S. —James V. Schall, S.J., Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien—these and many Georgetown University other topics of interest to Protestants and “Would it be brash to say that Catholics alike are tackled by Howard with Howard is an American counter- his characteristic thoughtfulness in these part of C.S. Lewis? I think not.” articles and speeches that span more than NIFS-P . . . Sewn Softcover, —Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. twenty years of his prolific career. 368 pages, $16.95

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P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522 1 (800) 651-1531 : Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s : Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010

4 |:Tremendous Trifles: 22 |:the Flying Inn: In a Cardboard Belt! Essays Christmas Eve Personal, Literary, and Savage 5 |:Lunacy & Letters: By David Beresford Reviewed by David Paul Deavel 7 |:EDITORIAL: 23 |:the Flying STars: Christianity, Patriotism, and

8 |:Straws in the Wind: Please Don’t Feed the Venus Fly Trap Nationhood: The England The Glass Walking Stick By Nancy Carpentier Brown of G.K. Chesterton Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg BY G.K. CHESTERTON 25 |:Jogging with G.K.: Shakedown: How Our Government 10 |:SCHALL on CHESTERTON: Confessions is Undermining Democracy in The Mind Poisoned with Paradoxes By Robert Moore-Jumonville the Name of Human Rights By James V. Schall, S.J. 26 |:The Battle with the Dragon: Reviewed by Chris Chan 12 |:A Miscellany of Men: Red, White, and Blues A Sudden Certainty The Road Was A Ribbon of Moonlight By Kyro R. Lantsberger A Poem of the New Creation By Dale Ahlquist 27 |:All I Survey: Mysteries and Stations in the Manner of Ignatius 13 |:The Ballad of Gilbert: From Out of the Past, Met in the Future Reviewed by Kevin O’Brien An Apology For A Letter Unposted By David W. Fagerberg

BY G.K. CHESTERTON | 28 |: the Detection Club: 41 :Chesterton University: Notes from an Island 14 |:ALARMS & DISCURSIONS: Vanished By Dale Ahlquist An Interview with Thomas Howard By John Peterson By Dale Ahlquist The Toy Shop Customer’s Casebook 42 |:Fear of Film: by Steve Miller In Its Darkest Hour 16 |:Tales of the Short Bow: Haunted Chesterton’s Bloodthirsty Heirs Reviewed by Art Livingston by Steve Miller By John Peterson 44 |:the Distributist: Edited Out A Policeman’s Lot Is Not A Happy One Welcome to the Plutocracy James G. Bruen, Jr. REVIEWED By Chris Chan By John Médaille

19 |:The Signature of Man: 32 |:Book Reviews: 46 |:Chesterton’s Mail Bag: Art for Art’s Sake The Duty of Delight: The Religion in Theatre and BY G.K. CHESTERTON Diaries of Dorothy Day Science in Religion Reviewed by Dale Ahlquist 48 |:News With Views: 20 |:ALL IS GRIST: The Cutting Edge G.K. Chesterton Collected Works 50 |:Letter to America: By Joe Campbell Volume X: Collected Poetry Part II Democracy Gone to the Dogs? Reviewed by Nancy Carpentier Brown BY G.K. CHESTERTON Art vs. Science? By Blaise Mibeck Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor Cover by Ted Schluenderfritz Reviewed by James G. Bruen, Jr. Illustration on page 22 by David Beresford

Publisher: Dale Ahlquist, President, ACS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Sean P. Dailey ART DIRECTOR: Ted Schluenderfritz LITERARY EDITOR: Therese Warmus COPY EDITOR: Susan Meister

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Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 3 : T r e m e n d o u s T r i f l e s : by Therese Warmus

he UK’s Catholic Herald has printed an interview Chesterton’s third novel, The Ball and the Cross, of Aidan Mackey, “The Man Who Was GKC’s Cham- was published. It was called “a philosophic pion”—our only objection to the title being that 100 years ago romance,” “a theological farce,” “another the revered Mr. Mackey, now 87 and self-reportedly product of Mr. Chesterton’s prodigal imagination,” and “crumbling by the minute,” is still very much with “a splendid mixture of Mr. Chesterton’s two enthusiasms, us.T In it, Jack Carrigan runs the gamet of Aidan’s eventful fighting and religion.” While theTimes reviewer scratched life and his deep love of G.K. Chesterton, the man and his his head and the Punch reviewer wished for more “pure writings; from the modest house of his youth in Manches- romance, devoid of symbolism,” James Douglas of The Star ter, to a stint during the war as an RAF radio operator, pulled out all the stops in recommending it as “the most to hitchhiking to the Chesterton home in Beaconsfield, obstreperous, stupendous, boisterous, exuberant, grotesque, where “I did not dare to ring the bell.” “I began a Dis- fantastical, flamboyant, iridescent, allegorical, metaphysical, tributist Association in Manchester in 1948, to spread his ironical, whimsical, nonsensical hotch-potch of symbolism ideas on self-sufficiency, social justice and the rights of you are likely to come across in a year of Sundays.” families,” Mackey explained. See the interview online at http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000512.shtml ¶¶The revolution continues: Jim O’Neill, writing for humanism, as much as its infuriating patrician conserva- the Canada Free Press online, had this to say: “The first tism,” Stuart Walton concludes, “it deserves to be read.” We deep rumblings—as if from a distant cannonade—came last think he’s starting to get it. November, with conservative victories in Virginia and New ¶¶In her non-fiction survey of detective literature, Talk- Jersey. Now, Scott Brown’s ‘Massachusetts Miracle’ has ing About Detective Fiction, author P.D. James credits trumpeted a clear blast that has shaken America awake— none other than G.K. Chesterton with blazing the trail finally, and irrevocably...G. K. Chesterton once said, ‘the for her works with his Father Brown series. Michael W. need here is a need of complete freedom for restoration, as Higgins in an online Telegraph-Journal review writes: well as revolution.’ Restoration and revolution—America has “G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories have special need for both.” appeal for her—quite independent of their whimsical ¶¶The Saints and Sleuths series of dramatic readings, delight in paradox. It is an appeal which she identifies with performances, and commentaries takes place each year at Chesterton’s observation that ‘the only thrill, even of a Seton Hall University, co-sponsored in part by the Celtic common thriller, is concerned somehow with the con- Theatre Company and the G.K. Chesterton Institute for science and the will.’ She writes apropos this clever insight Faith and Culture. This year’s celebration included three that ‘those words have been part of my credo as a writer. fictional priests and three real priests: Fathers Ian Boyd, They may not be framed and on my desk but they are Joseph Reilly, and Douglas Milewski. The programs, held never out of my mind.’” the last weekend in January and the first ¶¶Parting Trifle: Dale Ahlquist writes: weekend in February, feature dramatic “We are always pleased when a new edi- readings followed by conversations that Have a Trifle? Send it to tion of a Chesterton book is published, begin with scholarly commentary and [email protected] but sometimes we have to scratch our end with refreshments on stage. For more heads at how badly publishers miss the information, contact the Center for Catho- point. Hesperus Press in Chesterton’s own London has just lic Studies, [email protected], or call (973) 275-2525. released a handsome edition of Tremendous Trifles...except ¶¶The Guardian’s Stuart Walton posits Chesterton as they’ve given it the wrong title. They’ve added a preposi- Nietzche as an English gentleman in his review of What’s tion for no reason, calling it On Tremendous Trifles. They Wrong With The World on its one-hundredth anniversary: give the wrong dates for the original columns from the “The cumulative impact of the book is a little like read- Daily News, and on the jacket they list Chesterton as a ing a supremely elegant, aphoristic Nietzsche,” he writes, columnist for The London International News (instead of “but one domesticated for the English gentleman’s study.” the Illustrated London News). But these are truly trifles. Walton finds much in the section on women “would take The really tremendous error comes in the introduction by a lot of swallowing today,” and observes that modern man, one Ben Schott: ‘There are kernels of profundity within sinking in the ship of his obsessions and “half-realized On Tremendous Trifles—alongside elegantly turned logic ideals,” has pinned his hopes on an unknowable future: and phrases. Yet the collection might best be appreciated “Has the Enlightenment ideal of continual social progress now as a period piece—one that casts light on the texture been a reality, or has it all been a piece of western myth- of Edwardian Britain,’ and so on. Apparently they want to making?”—and finds Chesterton’s Edwardian defense of warn their readers not to get too close to this writer. View public schools a bit “flared-nostrilled.” “But for its sober from a safe distance.”

4 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : L u n a c y & l e tt e r s : from Gilbert Magazine Readers

My name is Santo. My name is not Put another way, the franchise Chad. owner is a colonist, and franchising is Santo is Italian. Chad is English. a form of imperial capitalism--a beastly Santo means Holy. Chad means chimera of two ideas about which GKC Warrior. wrote volumes. Santo is from Sanctus. Chad is Paul Nowak from Chadwick. Greenville, Michigan to provide proof of economic stabil- To call me Chad causes severe ity and a fee (usually in the form of a heart arrhythmia, blurred vision, and ; ; ; lump sum of as much as six figures). trembling. The franchise model is not unlike I’m really enjoying the December Santo Aramini that of a salesman on commission; issue of Gilbert Magazine, especially Parish, New York the franchise owner is expected to be the interview with Dean. (Many of his an investor of both his labor and his More fallout from our mailing mix-up. Sorry, replies about writing reminded me so money for a company, brand, products, Santo. And our apologies to Chad, whoever he much of what Flannery O’Connor said). and land he does not and cannot own. is. —Ed.

; ; ; Chesterton for Today

Hurrah for Aidan Mackey, who ;;The human race is always trying this ;;The only excuse of literature is at last finds a place in your regular dodge of making everything entirely to make things new; and the chief features. I’ve enjoyed his pithy, self- easy; but the difficulty which it shifts misfortune of journalism is that it has deprecating humor for years on your off one thing it shifts on to another. to make them old. (“The Root of Reality,” Irish “Letters” page. (“The Orthodox Barber,” Tremendous Trifles) Impressions) Eldon Zeller ;;America is a conflict between two ;;It is a very queer feature of current East Grand Forks, Minnesota incompatible and intensely antago- poetry that there is hardly anywhere ; ; ; nistic things: the faith of republican such a thing as a love poem. The citizenship, and the fact of industrial poetry is about something that they I was pleasantly surprised to see capitalism. All the ideals, even all the call sex. (Illustrated London News, Aug. 19, 1933) ideal figures, of pure democracy have the inclusion of Garth Snider’s article ;;There is no Materialist, that is, there been inherited from a simpler past, “Franchising as a Distributist Ideal” in are no people who act on practical and closer to the earth and the sky. (English your December 2009 issue. I have pon- economic principles only…There are Life, March 1924) dered the idea myself, but had come to no men who have no idol; there are no a very different conclusion. ;;Men talk of the noise and unrest of men who have no god. They may have While franchising does involve our age; but I think that all that age is a wrong idol, or a wrong god. Idolatry, making business smaller, more local, really very sleepy; all the wheels and heresy, believing the wrong thing, that and creating franchise “owners,” it the traffic send one to sleep.(“ Reading the there is, if you like, but there are no is far from the ideals of Distributism. Riddle,” The Common Man) men who do not believe or admire at The company only licenses the right all. (“The Citizen, the Gentleman, and the Savage,” ;;At this moment modern men are to market and sell their product; the Lecture, March 30, 1905) franchise “owner” has no ownership monstrously over-stimulated, and are of the brand, the intellectual property, therefore stale. News and novels and or the business property. He cannot films and fashionable stunts are per- innovate new products and sell them petually playing on their emotions. And without approval from the corporation, where they still have any emotions, and must rigorously follow guidelines they have no emotions remembered in of how to price or how to advertise tranquility, which is the definition of the brand. If the corporation collapses, poetry, because they have no tranquil- cancels its franchising program, or ity. (New York American, Aug. 20, 1935) simply wishes to do otherwise, it can ;;Advertisement is aggression; it is terminate the franchise owner’s right in its nature an attack upon the eyes to sell their product, leaving him out in and ears, the senses and the soul. (G.K.’s the cold as much as a fired employee. Weekly, Aug. 7, 1926) Even worse, the franchisee is expected

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 5 : L u n a c y & l e tt e r s :

But one story really baffled me, college ball and, inter alia, neglected It is from the essay “A Piece of even after reading it twice: the one the library. Chalk” in Tremendous Trifles, which by John Peterson about the man who The inadequacy of the library is posted on Chesterton.org. That evidently kills his wife and then is found, almost cost the college its accredi- “shining, fierce thing” is the color after his death, to have the “branding” tation--imagine you were a student of white. on his chest. What am I missing? and discovered your diploma to I can only assume that someone Your “12 Days of Distributism” was be worthless; that you had done at Abercrombie’s ad department has very helpful. It’s a concept that I’ve better to have gone to South Bend been secretly trolling around your had trouble understanding, but your Community College. Web site. suggestions gave flesh to the ideas. Interesting in the proceedings of Del Teeter Lorraine V. Murray the trial about the ND protesters is Madison, Wisconsin Decatur, Georgia the discovery that the judge is mar- ried to a Notre Dame professor who ; ; ; ; ; ; supports abortion. O tempora! O mores! (For those Dorene and I went to Headington The review of Professor Rice’s miseducated at Notre Dame, that is a today to do some measuring at what book about Notre Dame precipated quotation from Cicero, Roman states- will soon (not later than February thoughts that have rolled about in man, etc., etc.) 22nd) be our new home. There, await- my mind. It finally comes up with Gabriel Austin ing me, were two issues of Gilbert the thought that the presidents of Los Alamos, New Mexico Magazine, and in the December issue that college, as well as the presidents was my “Ballade of Practical Dis- of other colleges in the Catholic ; ; ; tributism”—beautifully set out! Your or Jesuit tradition, have an envy footnote, howcomesomever, has the of bishops. I am finally getting to read the date utterly devoid of accuracy; the Is it not curious that a simple December issue of Gilbert Magazine. My verse was written for the issue of The priest [heirarchically simple] puts elder son, Buck (age 21), confiscated it Defendant for October 1953. himself above a bishop? Talk about and read every page before returning it As an indication of the revival o’erweening pride! It was such blind- to me. It took him a few weeks. of interest in G.K.C.: just compare ness that almost cost Notre Dame In the final comment in that that tiny journal with the Gilbert its accreditation in the mid-1970s. issue’s “Tremendous Trifles,” we find Magazine of the present day—but I So busy was the then-president of clothing manufacturer Abercrombie & make no apology, for my means were the college, running about joining Fitch quoting Chesterton in their ad: excruciatingly limited, and it was “presitigious” secular boards [the abor- “It is a shining and affirmative thing, some kind of re-start. tion-promoting Rockefeller Foundation, as fierce as red...” Did you recognize Aidan Mackey and such] that he took his eye off the where this quote is from? Headington, Oxford, UK

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6 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : e d i T o r i a l : The Words of Politics, The Politics of Words Mild constitutionalists in our own country often discuss word means. And who better to remind us than the greatest the possibility of a method of protecting the minority. If they defender of democracy in the last century: G.K. Chesterton. will find any possible method of protecting the majority, they Democracy, quite simply, quite literally, is the rule of the will have found something practically unknown in the modern people. It is politicians who impede democracy. world. The majority is always at a disadvantage. (“The Shadow of the Problem,” The New Jerusalem) Size is a problem: “Democracy is never quite democratic except when it is quite direct; and it is never direct except s this issue goes to press, and Americans watch in dis- when it is quite small.” Chesterton says that all centralized belief as their “representative” government attempts systems mean the rule of the few (which is as true of com- to cram an unpopular and unwanted health care bill merce as it is of government). Since large countries cannot down their throats, our neighbors to north watch really be purely democratic, they can at least practice the with greater shock as their gov- principal of subsidiarity and not interfere Aernment seems bent on establishing what with the right of people to rule them- was once known as the sin of sodomy as Perhaps the greatest abuse selves in the matters closest to home, or, a new universally protected right. A per- more importantly, in the home itself. For version of passion has led to a perversion of the language in the the government to interfere with mar- of power. Along the way it has made use Quebec document comes riage, an institution older than itself, is a of a perversion of language. blind and blundering misuse of power. It is not merely that good old words at the outset, with the use In electing politicians to represent like “gay” have been stolen to further of the word “democracy.” us, we are supposed to be exercising our an agenda, but twisted new words like rights, not giving up our rights. When “homophobia” have been summoned to That noble word, of our elected government turns around villainize the normal. Humanity through- course, is as badly and takes away these rights, we may at out all cultures and all of history has least begin by un-electing them. But we regarded the love between a man and a misused by politicians in also need to see the size of government woman as normal, the basis for healthy this country as by their reduced when its legitimate branches have romance, the spark that creates a family. been overrun by bureaucratic under- It has been so obvious, so basic, even Canadian counterparts. growth. Chesterton is not a libertarian. He so biological, that it has not ever have believes that while government is an ugly had to be defended. This same normal necessity, we are not supposed to live in mentality has also typically regarded homosexual desires panic of any form of government. not merely with disapproval, but with natural revulsion, as While we need to reduce the size and reach of the State, something perverse and antithetical to human dignity, or, as which is out of control, we also need to change our atti- the Catholic Church has simply stated: “disordered.” tudes about our responsibilities. We have abdicated our own But now this normal mentality has officially been labeled authority by trusting the specialists and the experts. The “homophobic,” so that what had been natural is now sud- experts, says Chesterton, are the exception. We don’t need denly unnatural, and vice versa. Anyone caught keeping the them to explain to us what us what is normal. “We live in previously normal mentality is now charged with “heterosex- an undemocratic age,” he tells us, “when the great masses ism.” A new document, published by the Province of Quebec of men are assumed to be wrong.” Chesterton says, “The this past December, lays out the government’s “strategic case for democracy is that it is common-sense. It does not guidelines for the fight against homophobia.” It proposes to progress towards or tend to produce or ultimately evolve put the full power of the state behind protecting the rights common-sense; it is common-sense.” of “victims of homophobia.” Don’t like it? Potentially, even to The trouble with democracy is not democracy. It is certain speak out against this policy is a criminal offense. artificial anti-democratic things that have, in fact, thrust them- In making its case for such Stalinesque statutes, the selves into the modern world to thwart and destroy democracy. document states: “Homophobic attitudes and behavior may even lead, in some cases, to suicide.” It doesn’t say whose. The one great weakness of democracy, says Chesterton, But we will say that there is very genuine threat of self- is that it can lead to tyranny. We will certainly have a taste destruction at work here. We are systematically destroying of that tyranny if we are forced to swallow state-controlled our own society. “health care” and homosexual “marriage.” If we are not Perhaps the greatest abuse of the language in the Quebec allowed even the privilege of debating about it, perhaps it is document comes at the outset, with the use of the word time to start fighting for it. As Chesterton says, “Thousands “democracy.” That noble word, of course, is as badly misused of men died to defend democracy, before it was established. by politicians in this country as by their Canadian counter- And hardly one human being has really done a stroke of parts, and so it would be useful to be reminded what the work to defend it after it was established.”

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 7 : s T r aw s i n t h e W i n d : picturesque and unexpected character. One man had a walking-stick made of An Essay by G.K. Chesterton glass and filled with sweets. If there were children in the house, the preservation of that glass stick has something of the insane sublimity of a religion. Many had weapons of undoubted antiquity. Several had weapons with definite and ascertainable historical associations. A boot of the Duke of Marlborough was (I The Glass Walking Stick think) one of the exhibits. I do not know how this boot became detached from ractical politics are in this world out money in torrents and maddens the its fellow; but when I recall the clear continually coming to grief, for the hearts of millionaires. intellect and fine financial genius of the truth is that practical politics are One poor woman, for instance, Conqueror of Blenheim, together with too practical for this world. This had a patchwork quilt made out of that liberal disdain of the pedantries of world is so incurably romantic that fragments of the French and English personal dignity which also distinguished Pthings never work out properly if you uniforms at Waterloo. Words are abso- him—in short, when I reconstruct the base them on the sound business prin- lutely inadequate to express the poetry whole moral character of Marlborough, I ciple. For instance, it is always assumed of such a quilt as that; to express all think it highly probable that he sold one in modern social philosophy that orna- that is involved in the colours of that of his boots for threepence, and hopped ments, curiosities, objets d’art, etc., are strange reconciliation. The hope and home. Another of the vicar’s parishio- things that people add to their lives when hunger of the great Revolution, the ners had an old picture of the Flood, so they have procured all that is solid and legend of isolated France, the starry old that quite competent authorities sensible. The actual fact is quite other- madness of the Man of Destiny, the described it literally as “priceless.” I wise. The savage wears an objets d’art in nations of chivalry that he conquered, do not know how old this picture of his nose before he discovers that clothes the nation of shopkeepers that he did the Flood really was (perhaps it was a are of any use at all. Man discovered that not conquer, their long and dull defi- water-colour sketch taken on the spot), dress was a luxury before he discovered ance, the last agony of Europe at war but it is a mere matter of fact that the that dress was a necessity. It is not only with a man, the fall that was like the owner received for it a sum such as he true that luxuries are more noble than fall of Lucifer—all those things were on had never seen in his life. Yet he had necessities; it really seems as if they were that poor old woman’s quilt, and every let the thing hang on his walls quite more necessary than necessities. night she drew over her poor old bones undisturbed probably through many I see that the vicar of a very poor the heraldry of a thousand heroes. On periods of acute economic distress. district has made an experiment of her coverlet two terrible nations were Some of the exhibits were entirely wild quite extraordinary interest. He sug- at peace at last. That quilt ought to and odd; but I am not sure that I did gested that the poor should bring out be strung up on to a great pole and not like them as well as any. One was a all the objects of interest that they had carried in front of King Edward and stuffed lamb with an unnatural number in their houses; and he undertook to President Loubet in every celebration of heads or legs or something, which see that they got the best possible price of the Entente Cordiale. had really been born on some country for them, if they cared to sell. There That quilt is the Entente Cordiale. estate. Simple and uneducated people is a wonderful irony and significance But a poor householder owned it and have no horror of physical monstrosi- about his offer. He asked the poor to never thought of its value. ties; just as educated people have no produce expensive things; and they The other exhibits had, in one horror of moral monstrosities. But the did. He demanded diamonds, so to way or another, this same quaint and broad characteristic of all the things speak, from the men who had no bread. He asked the starving what treasure was hidden in their houses. He knew human nature. The incredible fact fell out exactly in accordance with his Our Mr. Chesterton demand. The people who could hardly In the introduction to The Glass Walking keep the rags together on their backs brought out of their houses things Stick, Arthur Bryant, wrote: “I never met a more which were not only genuinely worth generous man, and I never saw a happier. I do study, but were genuinely worth money. not believe there is anyone who had the inestima- They were all curiosities, numbers of ble privilege of knowing Gilbert Keith Chesterton them were expensive curiosities. Several who would not say the same.” of them had that unique quality which more than either use or beauty draws

8 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : s T r aw s i n t h e W i n d :

described was emphatically the fact that an unfashionable picture which grows simplicity even so fine a thing as the they were interesting things. And this is more priceless as it grows older, but a patchwork of Waterloo. Ten to one they particularly a quality of them as things fashionable picture (or rather a brown would have valued a cartridge-belt of collected by the poor. The cultivated or green photogravure reproduction of the City Imperial Volunteers more than classes go in for what is beautiful; but a fashionable picture), a fashionable those rags red with the sacred blood of the uncultivated for what is interesting. picture which does nothing of the kind, the last battle of Napoleon. The upper For example, the more refined people a fashionable picture which, whatever middle-class people would not have been concern themselves with literature—that its technical merits or the temporary content with keeping the boot of a dead is, with beautiful statements. But simple interests attaching to its artistic school, Duke, being more happily engaged in people concern themselves with scan- is actually growing more worthless every licking the boots of a live one. The thing dal—that is, with interesting statements. instant that it remains in existence. alive, the thing of the moment, must Interest often exists apart from beauty; The people who own it are people who always be overpoweringly attractive and interest is immeasurably better and always want the best art that one can to the fashionable class; and with the more important than beauty. I myself get for money at a given moment. And exception (as I have said) of some of know a man who is beautiful and remark- the best art that one can get at a given the best and simplest and most patriotic ably uninteresting. The distinction is one moment is always—the most fashionable of the aristocrats, it is heavily doubtful that affects religion and morals and the art. They can never dare to be behind whether the sudden pillage of all the practical philosophy of living. Existence houses of the educated classes would often ceases to be beautiful; but if we are reveal possessions strictly of the same men at all it never ceases to be interest- Dark hours will come when interest as those revealed in that insane ing. This divine creation in the midst museum which the adventurous vicar set of which we live does commonly, in the wisest man can hardly up. A sudden pillage of all those houses the words of the good books, combine get instruction out of it; but would probably reveal that what they amusement with instruction. But dark considered their individual good taste hours will come when the wisest man a brave man can always was; in fact, the fashion of the whole of can hardly get instruction out of it; but get amusement out of it. their class. The uncommon poets would a brave man can always get amusement be common to all of them. The uncom- out of it. When we have given up valuing When we have given up mon bindings would be common to all of life for every other reason, we can still valuing life for every other them. The uncommon panels and wall- value it, like the glass stick, as a curiosity. papers would be common to all of them. For the universe is like the glass stick in reason, we can still value Hardly one of them would have this, at any rate: it is unique. it, like the glass stick, as a the moral magnificence to have in their But the important point is this, that houses a thoroughly inappropriate the uneducated are, by their nature, the curiosity. For the universe thing—such, for instance, as a stick full real conservers of the past; because they is like the glass stick in this, of sweets. That is a treasure only found are the people who are really not inter- in the homes of the humble: but it is ested in beauty, but interested in interest. at any rate: it is unique. the inappropriate thing which is inter- The poor have this great advantage over esting forever. Nobody ever understood the ordinary cultivated class, that the the romance of humble life so well as the times; that is, to be independent of poor (like a few of the best of the very Dickens—its patience and its extrava- the times. In such an educated house- rich) are not affected by the fashions: gance, its endurance of ancient evil, its hold you will always find the brown they keep things because they are quaint love of fitful festivity, its disorderly and print of Burne-Jones’s “Golden Stairs,” or out of the current line of thought. yet kindly methods, its uncomfortable and the grey-green print of G.F. Watts’s They keep Old Masters because they love of comfort, its dark and almost “Hope.” You will not find the “priceless” are old, not because they have recently maniacal respectability. Dickens felt picture of the Flood, except under the been “discovered.” They preserve old all this in his very bones, and the very careless keeping of the very rich—or of fashions until the time when they shall names of his books often express the the very poor. become new fashions. For the man who enduring elements in the life of the It is the same with all the other is ten years behind his time is always ten poor. The poor all have Hard Times. examples which I have offered above. years nearer to the return of that time. The poor all have Great Expectations. The upper middle-class family would not You go into the poor house in the vicar’s But in no name did he more certainly have preserved the glass walking-stick poor parish and find a picture of the strike the note of what makes the poor full of sweets. The family would have Flood which is really ancient. It is daily streets fascinating than in the three bought the walking-stick while the fash- becoming darker and older and more words, the “Old Curiosity Shop.” ion was on; but the upper middle-class remote from the modern world; and it family would have eaten that walking- From Illustrated London News, December 16, is daily becoming more important. You stick long before the fashion was over. 1905. An edited version of this essay is the title go into the average house of the average The upper middle-class family would piece of the posthumous collection The Glass cultivated gentleman in the same parish, not have preserved with that perfect Walking Stick. (See page 41.) and you find—what do you find? Not

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 9 : S CH a l l o n CH e s T e r T o n : King John, or the domestic virtues of the prairie-dog—in short, everything Timely Essays on Chesterton’s Timeless Paradoxes but himself. Someone, evidently C.F.G. Mas- terman in The Speaker, had attacked Chesterton’s book. He said that Ches- terton displayed a mind poisoned... by paradox. For those of us who love Chesterton, we are as eager as Socrates to drink this same poison. Chesterton The Mind Poisoned is not annoyed by this accusation about his mind and does not intend to defend with Paradoxes himself against it. Paradox is not his By James V. Schall, S.J. poison but his delight. Masterman, whom he calls “my n 1914, J.M. Dent & Sons repub- in their original splendor. God delights, excellent friend,” had also accused lished Chesterton’s The Defendant, as Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy, by Chesterton of the vice of optimism. originally introduced in 1901. For doing and seeing things again and again, This finding of good in ordinary things, this edition Chesterton was per- because of their wonder. Chesterton’s penchant, Masterman suaded to write a new introduction, Chesterton, surprisingly, tells thought, prevented us from devoting Ientitled, naturally, “In Defence of a us that he is a bit concerned about our energy to reforming things. Ches- New Edition.” Chesterton’s introduc- the title of the book The Defendant, terton confessed that the reason he tion begins with his wondering why which is a series of short essays wrote this new introduction was ethical, anyone would republish these such defending marvelous things like rash not literary; that is, it was necessary to essays. It seems the best reason to vows, skeletons, nonsense, ugly things, defend what he thought true. Pessi- republish them would be that the ear- detective stories, baby-worship, and mism, evidently, should be the source lier edition was completely forgotten, slang. Chesterton’s worry is that the of improvement, Chesterton argued, that new readers might look on the book’s title is, properly speaking, inac- because if things were bad, people text as something never before seen. curate. A defendant refers to the law; would want to change them. But it Chesterton imagines that Shake- a defendant is concerned primarily to did not seem to work that way. The speare or Balzac moved to prayers defend himself; whereas Chesterton is reason is, if you think that something would prefer not to be remembered. concerned to defend the character of is bad, as a pessimist does, you can Why? They would be pleased with this very thought, that they were suddenly unknown to a new generation of read- ers. So good are they, that if they were forgotten they would be everlastingly re-discovered and read. After all, no one writes unless he hope that he will be read—even though no one knows, CD OF THE MONTH CLUB on writing anything, whether he will BY ALL YOUR FAVORITE SPEAKERS be read or not, or in what era. Many JUST $5 PER MONTH a book became much read only after WHICH INCLUDES SHIPPING! the death of its author. Chesterton then asks why is it that we ourselves do not see the wonder of Shakespeare or Balzac? He states the principle: It is a monotonous memory which keeps us in the main from seeing things as splendid as they are. DR. SCOTT HAHN, ARCHBISHOP FULTON SHEEN, If there is any phrase that better FR. CORAPI AND MANY, MANY MORE, sums up Chesterton than any other, I SIGN-UP ONLINE / CANCEL ANYTIME AT: think, it is this one, his admonition to us http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.com to see things as splendid as they are. We can sometimes, but not always, see this JUST CLICK ON THE “FIND OUT MORE” splendor in things on seeing them for BUTTON ON RIGHT HAND SIDE AND THEN the first time. But, and this is peculiar “JOIN ONLINE NOW”. to Chesterton, we can see it, perhaps ever more clearly, by seeing things again Be sure to use Promotion Code 56129

10 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : S CH a l l o n CH e s T e r T o n :

have no desire to improve it because we must be conservatives. I presume consequence is that I will never love you do not, according to your theory, he meant by this that to conserve what you and you really have no reason think it capable of improvement. To little good there is in an evil world, we to improve. In order to improve change bad things to good, or ugly cannot change much lest we are left things, we must first love them. It is things to beautiful, there must already only with evil. no wonder that we read in Scripture be in them some germ of good to be Finally, Chesterton gives his that God first loved us. Unless we do loved, some fragment of beauty to be ultimate reason for republishing such what God does, we will never under- admired. This passage recalls Chester- wonderful essays, even in 1914, such stand what God is, or why he loves ton’s remark, again in Orthodoxy, I a symbolic year—the Guns of August, us. Unless someone first loves us, we think, that Rome did not first become World War I, surely a time that ended will never know that we are loveable. great then men loved her. Men first two centuries of optimistic progressive But if someone has first loved us, we loved her, therefore she became great. theory. These essays, he thought, may know that this love could not have What prevents progress? Chester- or may not he considered serious lit- been because we were already perfect. ton’s answer is properly metaphysical: erature. But they are ethically sincere. This is why God loves sinners, because [It] is the subtle scepticism which Why so? Because they seek to remind He sees in them what is beautiful and whispers in a million ears that things men that things must be loved first and what is good. We can reject God, no are not good enough to be worth improved afterwards. doubt, but in doing so, what we reject improving. If the world is already good, This is the mysterious truth, isn’t is our opportunity of seeing that the we are some odd sort of revolutionar- it? If I say I will not love you until you splendor of what already in us is beau- ies to want to change it. But if it is evil, improve to be worthy of my love, the tiful and good.

The Fantastic Fiction of Gilbert Chesterton by Martin Gardner

Foreword by John Peterson “I read Martin Gardner’s manuscript and really enjoyed doing so. It’s Introduction quintessential Gardner, which 1. The Napoleon of Notting Hill means it is gracefully written, well-argued, extremely informative, 2. The Club of Queer Trades quite convincing, already a classic. He certainly writes in an agreeable 3. The Man Who Was Thursday fashion. I knew from the first page I was reading an MG book. It is, of 4. The Ball and the Cross course, a collection of columns, chapters, essays, forewords, etc.” — 5. The Innocence of Father Brown John Robert Colombo 6. Did Sherlock Holmes “For more than half a century, Meet Father Brown? Martin Gardner has been the single brightest beacon defending rational- 7. Chesterton’s Manalive ity and good science against the its understanding of hard questions mysticism and anti-intellectualism that matter.” —Noam Chomsky 8. Chesterton’s Flying Inn that surround us.” — Stephen Jay Gould 9. The Poet and the Lunatics Quality Trade Paperback, 240 pages; “Martin Gardner is a national trea- $22.00. ISBN 978-1-55246-803-6 sure, and Did Adam and Eve Have 10. The Man Who Knew Too Much Shipping to USA and Canada $6.00 Navels? should be compulsory 11. The Trees of Pride and Other Tales reading in every high school and in Check or PayPal accepted; Congress. It will no doubt hold back no credit card orders 12. Tales of the Long Bow the current tidal wave of lunacy The Battered Silicon Dispatch about UFOs, Scientology, Creation- 13. The Return of Don Quixote Box — George A. Vanderburgh ism, and the like.” —Arth ur C. Clarke P.O. Box 204, Shelburne, 14. Four Faultless Felons Ontario, Canada LON ISO “Martin Gardner’s contribution to 15. The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond contemporary intellectual culture is website: www.batteredbox.com unique in its range, its insight, and e-mail: [email protected] Afterword by Pasquale Accardo

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 11 : a m i s c e l l a n y o f m e n : phrase parroted from the mouths of the modern poets was the dismissal of the great old poets, and even the great recent poets. They praised only The Road Was A the old poets who seemed modern before their time. Ribbon of Moonlight Noyes not only defended rhyme Alfred Noyes 1880-1958 and meter, he continued to write in it. While free verse has prevailed for By Dale Ahlquist the time being, there is one sense in which Noyes has emerged the victor hen Alfred he left the university to over his adversaries. His poetry is Noyes was an become a fulltime poet. still read and recited and enjoyed, undergradu- He wrote a 200-page while the works of most of his ate at Oxford, epic on Sir Francis modern contemporaries sit unread, he often Drake and several other unquoted, and unremembered. “The Wspent his weekends in books of poems, with a Highwayman” still thrills as he comes London. While standing few novels and essays riding, riding, up to the old inn in the library of his host, that also made their way door. (Pop singer Loreena McKennitt he met a young writer out of his pen. He was recently put this poem to music.) quoting the poetry invited to be a profes- It is also interesting to note that of William Morris. At sor of modern English one of the last people ever to make dinner, the writer pro- literature at Princeton his living writing poems was Alfred duced from his pockets and remained there for Noyes. Free verse certainly does not little brass figures of almost a decade. After put bread on the table. Pickwick and Sam the untimely death of Weller and Micawber and other char- his first wife, he returned to England, acters from Dickens. It gave everyone, remarried, had four children, and said Noyes, “an almost uncanny sense eventually retired to the Isle of Wight. THE wind was a torrent of darkness that Gulliver held them alive in his He also turned out to be a fan of among the gusty trees, hands.” This was 1902. The follow- Chesterton’s religion. In 1927, Noyes ing year, Noyes reviewed this writer’s was received into the Catholic Church. The moon was a ghostly galleon first major book, and called it “a little The Anglican Dean of St. Paul’s tossed upon cloudy seas, Apocalypse…sensationally significant Cathedral, W.R. Inge, wrote dismis- The road was a ribbon of moonlight and profound. His…cry throughout is, sively of “the curious fashion which over the purple moor, ‘I intend to get to God’, and that, in has led about a dozen men of letters brief, is what he wishes the rest of the to join the Church of Rome,” but he And the highwayman came riding— world to do.” lamented the “sad loss” of Alfred Riding—riding— Half a century later, Noyes would Noyes. Chesterton was amused by say that he felt some pride in the the reaction of “the Gloomy Dean” The highwayman came riding, up to fact that he was one of the first to to Noyes’ conversion. It was as the old inn-door. proclaim the genius of G.K. Chester- though the poet had suddenly cut II ton. He would always be an admirer his own throat. of Chesterton’s poetry. Once at a Shortly after his conversion, He’d a French cocked-hat on his literary society when Chesterton Noyes was also taken to task by the forehead, a bunch of lace at was asked to recite some of his own literary community for his defense his chin, poems, he claimed he could not of traditional poetry. Suddenly he A coat of the claret velvet, and remember them. Noyes stood up and was considered “old-fashioned.” But breeches of brown doe-skin; said that he knew them and pro- when poetry is a matter of fashion, so They fitted with never a wrinkle: his ceeded to recite. On another occasion, much the worse for poetry; there is boots were up to the thigh! when Belloc praised Lepanto to Noyes, no originality when anything follows And he rode with a jewelled he assumed that Noyes did not like it a fashion. Noyes wrote a brilliant twinkle, “because all poets are jealous.” Noyes’ critique of modern poetry called The response: “Then I’m not a poet.” Opalescent Parrot, arguing that the His pistol butts a-twinkle, But he was a poet. modern poet might seem exotic and His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the Alfred Noyes never bothered grad- colorful, like a parrot, but he also has jewelled sky. uating from Oxford. He had written the characteristic of always saying —from The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes a volume of poetry called The Loom the same thing because that is what of Years, which was a bestseller, and he has been taught to say. The main

12 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : T h e b a l l a d o f G i l b e r t : An Apology For A Letter Unposted

(For Clare Nicholl)

He thought he saw the Unicorn, the horned and holy horse, He thought he saw the Unicorn, her mane a wind of pride, He looked again and saw it was a Subject for Remorse, He looked again and tried again, and worked until he died; He rushed for what he meant to post— He ordered a Pantechnicon— and didn’t post, of course. that’s waiting still outside.

He thought he saw the Unicorn, the Virgin’s wildest pet, He thought he saw the Unicorn, that breaketh curb and bond, He looked again and saw it was a Long Outstanding Debt. He looked and saw a girl of whom he was extremely fond . . . He wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote— The floods rose to the Chilterns when and hasn’t written yet. they found him in his pond.

He thought he saw the Unicorn, crowned of the Silver Spear, He wondered if it was a Stag and saw it was a Dear— And so he drowned himself— some say in Water— some in Beer. —G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton Rewrites the Classic Lines – 3

;;Be it ever so ghastly, there’s no place like home. (Quoted in Titterton, G.K. Chesterton)

;;The romantics tried to make sex as sacred as they thought good and as free as they found convenient. They wanted to eat their wedding-cake and have it. (Illustrated London News, Aug. 27, 1932)

;;There is more faith in honest doubt than in those nasty creeds. (“The Road to Roundabout,” The Flying Inn)

;;Modern democracy was born free, and everywhere it is in chains. (Illustrated London News, April 11, 1936)

;;The Universe repeats itself, with the possible exception of history. (Commonwealth, January, 1902) ;;Third thoughts are much better ;;If our social dogmas are not true, ;;People in the Liberty Hall Club, than second thoughts. (“Third Thoughts are then are we, of all men, the most those vultures of the air, have nests; Best,” The End of the Armistice) miserable. (The Nation, March 23, 1907) but man has nowhere to lay his head. ; ; (“The Conversion of an Anarchist,” G.K. Chesterton, ;Two worlds are better than one. ;No man shall see life and live. (“The Eye of Death,” Manalive) (Illustrated London News, Mar. 12, 1910) Collected Works, Vol. XIV)

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 13 : a l a r m s & d i s C u r s i o n s : subject of G.K. Chesterton come up, or was this great opportunity wasted?

TH: Alas, the great opportunity was An Interview with wasted—not because Lewis was not a reader (and lover, as far as I know) of Thomas Howard GKC, but because at that point I had read only Orthodoxy, and wasn’t in By Dale Ahlquist any position to moot the topic in that short interview. Thomas Howard is a highly out to his house in acclaimed writer and GM: What do you think are the main Headington, and told scholar noted for his stud- connections between Chesterton me to come along a ies of Inklings C.S. Lewis and Lewis? wooded lane to the (Narnia & Beyond: A Guide house. (That lane is no TH: Surely the fact that their work, to the Fiction of C.S. Lewis) more, and his former whether “fanciful” or expository, and Charles Williams (The property, I hear, is all bespeaks The Permanent Things. Their Novels of Charles Wil- developed.) He came style was different. But holiness is liams). He was a featured to the door himself, there, and an unremitting insistence speaker at the Rochester and looked the way on plain common sense and well- Chesterton Society Confer- one had hoped: rubi- ordered thinking. And of course they ence in September, 2009, cund face, bald, baggy both make the Truth a pure delight, where unfortunately he tweeds, twinkly eyes, which it is, of course. found himself cornered by and a booming, jolly, bell-like voice Dale Ahlquist. GM: You are an acknowledged scholar asking, “Mr. Howard?” We sat in a of one of the other famous Inklings, GM: Sorry to begin with an obvious small parlor that would have given Charles Williams. How did you get question, but how did you get to know the vapours to an interior designer. started down that track? C.S. Lewis? Chocolate-colored overstuffed velve- teen chairs, a small gas fire, and no TH: The same friend who sent me The TH: I met Lewis at The Kilns in l963 “decoration” at all. We talked for per- Hobbit at Fort Benning sent Williams’s as a result of having exchanged letters haps forty-five minutes (I didn’t want The Place of the Lion. It blew me and postcards with him over a couple to overstay). I could not bring myself out of the tub (to coin a whole new of years. The exchange began when I to take notes, and this was before the phrase), but I had no idea what on was a soldier at Ft. Benning, Georgia, days of tiny recording devices, which, earth was going on in that novel. I in the late 50s. He had answered a in the interest of courtesy I would felt like W.H. Auden, who remarked, letter that I, in an excess of youthful not have used in any event. The talk “When I first started reading Williams’ zeal, had fired off to him at Magdalen was of his own work, Tolkien, Purga- poetry, I couldn’t make head or tail of College about The Hobbit, which no tory (he said, “There might be such it.” And then I found that Lewis was one had heard of back then but which a place”), and so forth. I ventured both a friend and an aficionadoof a friend had sent to me. Lewis wrote timorously at one point that Till We Williams and his work. In fact, it was back, “Oh, but believe me, you are still Have Faces was my favorite of his The Place of the Lion that first flagged only paddling [English for “wading”] books. He looked pleased, and said Lewis down. I went on to write my doc- in the glorious sea of Tolkien. Go on at that it was his own favorite. toral dissertation on Williams’ novels. once to The Lord of the Rings—three volumes as long as the Bible and not GM: Did you have any idea at the time GM: Charles Williams is the only one a word too long (except for the first that his reputation would rise through of the Inklings who may have met chapter which is a botch; don’t be put the stratosphere? Chesterton, since Williams contributed off by it).” I was living in England in a few reviews and poems to G.K.’s TH: I don’t think anyone, least of all the early sixties, and happened to be Weekly. Do you recall anything in Lewis himself, visualized the moun- in Oxford at Easter. I had asked him particular that Williams said or wrote tainous eminence that would collect if I might pop in and see him, and he about Chesterton? around his name eventually. Neverthe- acted as though there was nothing less, I knew he was a “figure.” He had TH: I wonder whether Williams ever he’d like better (this was his habit; he come to enormous prominence in said anything about Chesterton. He hadn’t been waiting on the edge of his the l940s with Screwtape and Mere didn’t tend to mention other writers chair for me). Christianity, and of course his books in his own work. His approach, vision, GM: What was it like, meeting him? had been pouring out since then. and style were so crotchety, and so bizarre (but bang on the same bull’s- TH: He had given me instructions as GM: So, in your written and spoken eye at which Chesterton and Lewis to which bus to take from Oxford discussions with C.S. Lewis, did the aimed their arrows), that he tended

14 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : a l a r m s & d i s C u r s i o n s :

simply to pursue his own themes in solitude. But I brought back to Chesterton is Everywhere the U.S. many years ago in a large (From The Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2010) canvas zipper bag a huge bundle of Willliams holographs (this is a real The Kids Will Be Alright cloak-and-dagger story) that are now The coming U.S. population boom will bring new economic vitality in the Marion C. Wade Collection at Wheaton College. As far as I know, by Joel Kotkin there they sit, still untouched. So Excerpt: “The very diversity of the emerging America makes many wonder what interested readers may rummage into ultimately will hold the country together. Ultimately, this unique society will find its that trove and no doubt find Chester- binding principle in the notions that have long differentiated it from the rest of world: ton. There may well be letters. a common belief system, a sense of a shared destiny and an aspirational culture. “As the British writer G.K. Chesterton once put it, the U.S. is ‘the only GM: And I was right there at the nation…that is founded on a creed’. This faith is not, and was not initially meant Wade Center, a few months ago! to be, explicitly religious; rather, it is a fundamentally spiritual idea of a national Talk about wasted opportunities! Oh raison d’être.” well, another day. Do you see any connections between Chesterton and Williams? (From Watertown Daily Times.com, January 19, 2010) TH: It’s a case of “everything that Wordsmiths Distort Abortion Debate rises must converge.” As I indicated by Donna Marek before, Chesterton, Lewis, Williams, Excerpt: “...the ‘60s and the sexual revolution came along. We were now ready Tolkien, and company all saw them- for Planned Parenthood’s so-called ‘gift’ of birth control/abortion; then the selves to be in the service of Truth, ‘pro-choice’ (pro-death) movement; then ‘legalized’ abortion (baby killing). G.K. which they understood to be found Chesterton put it in perspective by stating, ‘They insist on talking about birth in catholic (small c) orthodoxy, and control when they mean less birth and no control.’ since they all had fertile, agile, and “Wordsmiths are hard at work in our daily lives. ‘Choice’ means kill; ‘no’ inexhaustible imaginations, it follows equals yes; ‘right’ is wrong, and on and on. Word games do take lives, and as that one could draw a line from George Orwell said, ‘If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt almost any sentence in Chesterton thought.’ Ironically, we can be arrested, jailed and/or fined for killing cats, dogs, to any sentence in Lewis, Tolkien, darters, birds, elephants, seals, snails and whales, but we are vindicated for kill- and Williams and find a glorious ing babies. connection. “America, what a country.” GM: Okay, enough fluff. Let’s get to the meat. How did you come upon Chesterton? Chesterton, at which I blush in the GM: Surely! But Thomas Howard weaves TH: I read Orthodoxy (as an Evan- pages of Gilbert Magazine. a few spells himself. I know that he has gelical) undergraduate and loved it. enchanted me. Thank you so much. GM: All is forgiven. The Chesterton The sheer ebullience of Chesterton’s revival is upon us. What strikes you mind regaled me. Then, some years most about this revival? later, I forget just when or where, I read The Everlasting Man. This had TH: Such a revival can only be good. I a strange, and lasting, influence on wish it would become a tsunami and my imagination and thinking, but I swamp everyone, or at least bring would have to go back now and read them to their senses. Chesterton’s it again, and underline it all in order work is a case in point of what Lewis to be able to retell specifics here. I hinted at in his “Weight of Glory” think that it started to nudge the very sermon: “Do you think I am trying unwitting me towards the Ancient to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but Church, although I would have been remember your fairy tales. Spells are appalled to have thought so then. used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you GM: Have any other Chesterton books and I have need of the strongest spell been particularly meaningful to you? that can be found to wake us from TH: Other than the two I’ve men- the evil enchantment of worldliness tioned, Orthodoxy and The which has been laid upon us.” Ches- Everlasting Man, I am one who terton is a weaver of such salvific has read comparatively little of spells, surely?

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 15 : Ta l e s o f t h e s H o r T b o w : the library. The room was dark except for the light of the full moon stream- ing through the windows, and he had dozed off. He was a light sleeper; and, at about midnight, something made his eyes pop open. He stared at the wall Haunted before him. There, framed in moon- light on the wall, he saw the shadow of By John Peterson a woman. Marvin froze in his chair. He was ’ll be frank,” Mr. Abernathy said. “I after. When asked why he didn’t get terrified. He was aware of the flood of would love to have a year-round married, his standard answer was that cold sweat on his face and hands. He tenant. This place is almost impos- he didn’t want his new social life to be was gripping the arms of his chair so sible to let during the off-season.” stretched out to twenty-fours a day. tightly that his hands ached and the “Well, give me the papers then,” Then everything changed. It was chair creaked. Then a cloud covered IMarvin said. “I’ll sign right now.” love at first sight. the moon and the light faded. When Marvin had turned the family busi- An enormous old mansion on a the cloud had passed, he could see ness over to his brother, who was also beautiful lake had caught his eye, and nothing but moonlight on the wall. his partner, and retired at the age of he drove up the driveway thinking to He realized that he had been holding forty. Commerce bored him, and he had ask the owner if he might have a look his breath. enough money to retire. At least that inside. No one was there. Then he saw He did not know how long he was the opinion of his financial advisor. a sign that announced, “Owner will stayed there not daring to move; but “Even with your profligate ways,” lease to qualified tenant.” The owner at last, after the day had dawned, he the man had assured him, “your nest was Abernathy. crept from the library. He sat in his egg will double every ten years. Now “I’d better tell you first,” Mr. Aber- kitchen, drinking hot coffee and trying stop bothering me and go buy a yacht nathy said, “or you’ll soon hear it from to sort things out. He was not an or something.” the villagers.” emotional man, and as he pondered Marvin settled down to life in the “Hear what?” the fear that had overwhelmed him, large house he bought for himself in “They’ll tell you this place is he felt strangely exhilarated. It had a wealthy suburban community and haunted.” not been fun but it had been powerful, began to enjoy new friends and the fun “I’ll sign,” Marvin said. and at least it had snapped him out of parties, dinners, luncheons, bridge, “For a year?” of the blue mood he had been falling and golf; but after a few years of this “For forever.” into lately. He resolved to put him- routine, he realized that, once again, self on late-night patrol and take the ; ; ; he was bored. He was bored with the consequences. same friends, the same stories, the Marvin had never dreamed that Two nights later, as he quietly same jokes, and the same foie gras solitude could be enjoyable. Or so turned a corner in a hallway, he before and the same crème brulée easy. The kitchen pantry and the wine noticed something in a mirror hang- cellar were well stocked, and Aber- ing on a wall. The light was very dim, nathy simply billed him for what he but he saw reflected there the image used. For perishables, Gordon’s Market of a young woman dressed in black, delivered. Mrs. Sykes came in to fix her long blonde hair falling to her his supper as often as he wished, and waist. Her face was pale and unsmil- Mrs. Olsen came in to clean twice a ing, and she was looking straight at week, which was more than sufficient him—or through him. He felt a rush for a bachelor who had no intention of of terror, but he fought against it entertaining guests. and made himself turn abruptly to Marvin loved wandering about his confront this specter. He was alone. new home at night without turning on Marvin leaned back against the wall lights. He especially enjoyed exploring and mopped his forehead with his it by moonlight. His previous residence handkerchief. He was trembling, had been laid out like a diagram. This almost quaking with fear. place was more like a labyrinth with He suspended his midnight interesting passages and unexpected patrolling for a week, but then he was rooms and stairways that creaked and overcome by the urge to renew his groaned. He made Abernathy a gener- vigils. He wondered at himself. He ous offer and bought the place. would not have been able to explain One evening, Marvin sat happily why he was deliberately seeking the meditating in a chair in the middle of experience of crushing fear.

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It was two in the morning on toss out. And nobody has ever missed “I don’t want to go to college,” another moonlit night when, gazing the food I’ve taken.” Jeanie said, “or to Denver. I want to from an upstairs window, he caught a They talked and talked. Jeanie stay here.” glimpse of something moving near the hadn’t realized she was starved for “Well, I don’t see how that will be woods. He strained to see more clearly, companionship. For his part, Marvin possible,” Marvin said. and then the fear and dread hit him hadn’t realized his recent blue mood “Can’t you think of something?” again like a body blow. A ghostly figure was simple loneliness. After a few days “I don’t believe so. Look, it’s not as was moving along the margin of woods, had passed, however, he decided it was though we were man and wife.” and it had glanced up at him. He time they moved on. “Oh, Marvin, I was beginning to rushed from the window and cowered in “I have a plan, Jeanie,” he said. think you would never ask me,” she the hall outside of the room. He could “I’m going to set you up with a new said. not catch his breath, and he wondered identity so that your stepfather can “We’ll have to change your appear- if he might be having a heart attack. never trace you, and I’ll send you to ance somehow,” he said. Finally, he calmed down, and college. After you get your degree, I’ll “I do look older now, and I could though it took courage—courage he put you into a good job in our family cut my hair and dye it red,” she said. had not known he had, because he firm in Denver.” “Auburn, I think,” he said. had never before had occasion to use it—he returned to the ground floor and waited. After about fifteen minutes, he heard a faint sound coming from the Edited Out direction of the withdrawing room. He hurried along, and was just in time to James G. Bruen, Jr. see his young blond ghost clambering through a window. This time he felt no ho do you think I am, ser- his skin at all. Some weird ritual, I bet.” fear. He turned on the lights. geant? Jessica Fletcher?” Reiter glanced at them quickly. She was dressed in a sweat suit, laughed Miss Teri Reiter “Oh,” she said; “they’re editing symbols she was slender and pretty, and her into the wall phone hang- and proofreader’s marks.” blonde hair was swept back into a long ing in her kitchen. “Just “I wonder what they all mean?” ponytail. She did not look happy. Wbecause I write murder mysteries, do “Would you like me to explain, ser- “I was afraid you would catch me,” you think I can solve them, too?” geant? This one means delete, and this she said. “You’ve kept a very good “Well,” sputtered Sgt. Dick Copper means insert, and—” watch on things.” into his cell, “I thought you might be “No, I mean, whadda they have to “What is your name?” he asked. able to help me out. The victim being do with his murder?” “Jeanie,” she said. a mystery magazine editor and all, I “Perhaps he died of a thousand “My name is Marvin. So, you’ve thought you might have some insight edits?” she chuckled. “Or his antago- been living here?” that we’re missing. We’re a bit flat- nist wrote with a poison pen?” “Yes, I’ve been living here.” footed and could use some help.” “I gotta comedian,” growled the Marvin and Jeanie sat and talked Teri Reiter soon joined Sgt. cop, “when what I need is another until long after the sun had risen. Five Copper across town in the third-floor Fletcher woman.” years earlier at the age of sixteen, walk-up apartment of Eddie Toremort, “Jessica Fletcher was delusional, she told him, she had run away from or, more precisely, Toremort’s former sergeant,” replied Reiter, snickering home because her abusive stepfather apartment, for Toremort was dead, slightly. “She never left California, but had told her he intended to kill her. sprawled on his back on the wooden everybody pretended she was in Cabot She believed him. The mansion was floor, a blue pencil stuck into his chest, Cove, Maine.” vacant at the time, and she found piercing his heart. Stacks of paper “Jessica was a fictional character!” a door left unlocked. She had lived encircled the corpse. snorted Copper. “She wasn’t real. And there ever since. “The apartment was locked from Cabot Cove wasn’t real neither!” “I stay in the attic in a small suite the inside,” said Copper. “She was as real as I am.” of rooms the tenants don’t know “The murderer came and went over “Teri, I hate to break your heart, about,” she said. “When the house is the transom,” observed Reiter. but you’re fictional, too,” insisted rented, I don’t come out much except “Looks that way.” Copper. in the dark after midnight—I jog along “The murder weapon?” Teri Reiter “Is Sherlock Holmes less than real the lake for exercise, and I think I’ve asked, gesturing at the blue pencil. because he’s fictional?” rejoined Reiter. read half of the books in the library. “Looks like it,” he said, “but then “Is Fr. Brown less than real?” I’m very good with needle and thread, there’s these marks all over his body, Copper stared at her in disbelief. and I make my own clothes out of even on the soles of his feet. I can’t “This philosophy stuff’s too deep for throwaways—it’s amazing what people make hide nor hair of ‘em. None pierce me. I’m just a down-to-earth type a’

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 17 : Ta l e s o f T H e s H o r T b o w : guy, working a murder.” “I remember hearing somewhere that “Once a story makes it into print, in murder stories, an author can’t just its characters spring to life,” continued spring the murderer on the readers Teri Reiter. from nowhere, right? That wouldn’t “Look at these stacks of papers be fair to the readers. The murderer’s around his body,” said Copper. gotta already be in the story, right? “They’re all so neat and all. You’d Not somebody that gets introduced for think they’d’ve got disturbed in the the first time when it’s revealed he did ruckus. But they look like they’ve it, right?” been arranged all neat-like around the “That’s right, sergeant. I wouldn’t corpse. Whaddaya make of that?” be much of a mystery writer if I vio- “Manuscripts,” noted Reiter, flip- lated that rule.” ping casually through some of the “But all rules are made to be papers. “And most of them aren’t very broken, right?” good, either.” “Not that one, sergeant. It’s “Yeah, but why aren’t they scat- inflexible.” tered all over the place? Why are they Sgt. Copper pondered her state- all so neat around Toremort’s corpse ment briefly before speaking: “Well, like a circle of tombstones?” Teri, then you must’ve killed Toremort, “Sentinels standing in silent tribute right?” to his profession,” said Reiter. “The “Me, sergeant? Me?” killer obviously respects the printed “You, Teri. You’re the only writer in word, even when its quality is inferior.” this story, and, like you said, a writer “You mean I’m looking for an did it.” author?” asked Copper. “Or somebody “Your logic is impeccable, sergeant,” who loves to read?” she conceded. “Precisely.” “But why, Teri? Why kill off the “Don’t read much myself,” said Sgt. editor?” Copper, picking up a manuscript and “Have no sympathy for Eddie perusing it for several minutes. “Ever Toremort, sergeant. He committed an submit a story to Toremort, Teri?” he unpardonable offense; he deserved to asked eventually. be rubbed out. He denied characters “Several, sergeant. Why?” their very lives: he accepted one of “Just wondering,” said Sgt. Copper, my stories for publication, but never returning the manuscript to its stack. ran it.”

stories by G.K. Chesterton, adapted for children by Nancy Carpentier Brown and illustrated by Ted Schluenderfritz Introduce young children to the wit and wisdom of Chesterton with these adaptations of four Father Brown mysteries

www.hillsideeducation.com

18 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : T h e s i g n at u r e o f m a n : The theory of art for art’s sake, for Chesterton on Art instance, as applied to painting, was a proposal to separate a picture from the subject of the picture. Sentiment would be better without art; art would be better without sentiment. In other words, a picture would be a better pic- ture if it were not a picture of anything. And a subject would be all the better Art for Art’s Sake subject if you did not paint it. n the days of Oscar Wilde, who on our souls, or the significance of It is, therefore, in antagonism did at least make up his jokes for beauty in the universe. to the whole of that recent aesthetic himself, but made up his theories by Now I will venture to say that if philosophy which made art a thing a certain knack of totally misun- we only enjoy jewels or sunsets under sacrosanct and absolute, its own derstanding Flaubert, the whole these limitations we shall not enjoy judge and its own end. There is no Iliterary world used to buzz with all the them much. There must be some sense blacker mark of decadence than the business that was called Art for Art’s of general well being to enjoy anything kind of idolatry which is expressed Sake. It was what new and modern and very much, even “for its own sake.” in the phrase “art for art’s sake.” Art daring notions nearly always are–that The romance of ritual and colored is in many ways the religion of the is, it was partly a truism and partly emblem has been taken over by that cultivated class to-day. And it is the an untruth. In other words, every- narrowest of all trades, modern art decadence of art when it is separated thing in it that was not a truism was (the sort called art for art’s sake), and from the rest of life, just as it was the an untruth. If it meant that artistic men are in modern practice informed decadence of religion when it was criticism should be artistic it was that they may use all symbols so long separated from the rest of life. So obviously true; if it meant that a solid as they mean nothing by them. long as religion meant, as it did in its social object, like a picture, a book, a Art for Art’s Sake is in its nature vigorous days, that the whole nature statue, or an ornamental chocolate box merely a superstition. For anything of man must have an outcome and tied up with pike ribbon, has no other becomes a superstition when it is sublime climax it was strong. It rotted aspect or effect except the artistic, it absolutely separated from all other away into musty theology and mad was obviously false…Men like Wilde considerations, whether it be religious ethics precisely when people began to liked literature to be a little naughty exercises or scientific research on art, say “piety for piety’s sake,” and just and admired improper art merely for or beer, or foreign stamps. The drunk- as decidedly exactly as the old ascetic being improper. But that is to moral- ard, for example, is merely an idolater, pitted religion against life, so decidedly ize art; it is to introduce a moral test and his motto is “beer for beer’s sake.” does the new decadent pit art against where there should be only an artistic This is the worst element in our life. Both sought to make their nos- test. At the same time they objected to anarchic world of to-day. The whole trum conquer and ignore every other the improper artist being denounced, is one vast system of separation—an side of man. The theologian disdained kicked, shot or hanged or otherwise enormous philosophical Divorce Court. pity in the name of logic, and called dealt with strict propriety, according to upon men to contemplate the soul- the moral test. This again was to forget destroying nightmare of an eternal and the art of the artist and remember only living pain. The art critic disdains pity the moral position of the man. in the name of realism, and calls upon The true Art for Art principle men to contemplate all the most repul- is quite plain. If a man shoots his sive agonies and disillusions of moral grandmother with great skill (as, for pathology. Aestheticism seeks to stand instance, while his grandmother is alone, and it will fall as Puritanism fell. very rapidly climbing a tree covered For what is now called “the artistic with leaves) let us by all means admire conscience” has become a thing very and applaud him for being a good shot. much narrower and harder than the And let us hang him for having shot “Nonconformist conscience.” his grandmother. That does really keep You never work so well for art’s the two departments of thought clear sake as when you are working for the and separate. sake of something else. Walter Pater declares that art From New York American, Feb. 3, 1934; August should teach us to enjoy certain exqui- 20, 1932; “The Universal Stick,” What’s Wrong site moments of appreciation; and with the World; The Bookman, April 1902; Daily solely for those moments’ sake. Which News, March 31, 1906; February 7, 1902; June seems to mean that we must not con- 25, 1904 nect them with any sense of the effect

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 19 : a l l i s G r i s T : piece to me? It’s your job to reject sub- missions that are obviously unsuitable.” “I enjoyed reading it.” “That’s a bad sign. You’ve got some holidays coming, Chudley. I’d take them if I were you.” “I also understood it.” The Cutting Edge “How many times did you read the piece?” By Joe Campbell “Twice.” “You understood it after only two readings?” don’t know what goes on in the edito- “It contains some poetry.” “The writing is lucid, the char- rial offices of literary journals. I can “We love poetry.” acters clearly drawn, the levels of only guess. Here is my latest guess: “I know, but this poetry is meaning accessible, the—” Chudley, the assistant editor punctuated.” “Need I remind you that this is a of Garlic, a quarterly magazine, “You mean it contains periods, literary journal? The next thing you’ll Ican’t make up his mind about a recent commas, question marks—” be telling me is that the piece lacks submission. He approaches Booth, “And colons.” gratuitous sex.” the editor. “How disgusting.” “I’m afraid it does.” “There’s something unusual about “It also has a regular meter.” “And you expect us to risk print- this piece, Booth.” “Did you say meter?” ing it?” “Yes, Chudley?” “Iambic pentameter.” “I’m not sure what we should “It’s grammatical.” “That’s so sixteenth century.” do. That’s why I brought it to your “Grammatical?” “Yes, and it rhymes.” attention.” “It follows the rules of grammar.” “Then it can’t be poetry.” Booth ponders silently. “That is unusual. Is there anything “Of course, but—” “I’m not unmindful of our constitu- else wrong with it?” “Why on earth did you bring the tional right to free expression,” he says. “But a deficiency in gratuitous sex. Isn’t that offensive?” “Of course, it’s offensive. But I thought we wanted to be on the cut- ting edge.” “You have a point, Chudley.” “There’s one more thing.” “Yes?” “It’s also deficient in blatant vulgarity.” By William Cobbett “The Apostle of Distributism” “As well as four-letter words, no doubt.” William Cobbett, known to Chestertonians as “the Apostle of “No doubt.” Distributism,” was a keen observer of his time. He documented “We published a piece like that the economic and social shambles of an England caught in the before you joined us. There was a lot throes of the Industrial Revolution and where distribution of of criticism and one of the granting capital ownership was becoming increasingly concentrated. In agencies withdrew its funding. I nearly The Emigrant’s Guide, Cobbett offers his prescription: Go to lost my job.” America. In early 19th century America, almost anyone could be- come an independent owner of capital. “No one said being on the cutting edge is easy, Booth.” Cobbett’s 1829 manual for new Americans describes American “Well, I guess I should give it a look.” life from a perspective that complements Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. This edition from Economic Justice Chudley hands him the piece, and Media includes an extensive foreword adapting the principles of he glances over it. distributism to a modern economy. “You failed to mention that in the To Order poetry the first letter of each sentence The Emigrant’s Guide (240 pp, ISBN 978-0-944-997-01-7) is is capitalized.” available for $20 from Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble. “I didn’t think you’d notice.” com, as well as by special order from local bookstores. For bulk/ “Our readers will notice.” wholesale orders (10 or more copies at a 20% discount), e-mail “We could run a disclaimer, absolv- [email protected]. ing the editors and proofreaders of blame.”

20 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : a l l i s G r i s T :

“Our readers will hold us respon- “I hadn’t thought of that.” “You mean the one that’s grammati- sible anyhow. They expect literature “Discretion is the better part of cal, punctuated, contains capital letters, and this piece doesn’t make it. Sorry, valor, Chudley.” lacks gratuitous sex, vulgarity, and four- Chudley. If we run it, who knows what “That’s so sixteenth century.” letter words, and is easy to understand?” might happen. We could be asked to “It’s also reality. Return it with the “Rejection slips aren’t literature, accept advertisements.” standard rejection.” Chudley.”

to promote the legitimate science of Art vs. Science? climate change. By Blaise Mibeck In all of these examples, a goal to express some truth is present. The flag is something that can be trodded ften, I will find something in Galileo’s studies made the moon on literal and figuratively. “Piss Christ” art that will remind me of more than a light source in the back- expresses the reality of what the incar- science, and vice versa. For ground of a scene—he made it the nation means—the level to which God instance, the giant portraits of scene. Roentgen’s first x-ray image stoops to become a human and to exist Chuck Close (see http://www. was of his wife’s hand. Too dense to in the sewer that is sin. The problem is Ochuckclose.coe.uh.edu/). His later transmit the mysterious radiation, that these stunts are more concerned works are abstract until you see the her wedding ring contrasts with the with pulling emotional strings than they whole image—then they have a near near invisible nature of her flesh. The are at depicting the ideal (in the case photographic precision. Chuck Close skeletal fingers could remind us that of art), or discovering the mechanisms is using his understanding of the roles marriage should be a battle to the (in the case of science), that are present color and unconscious inference play death. Edgerton often intentionally and at work in the universe. The good in visual perception. He has experi- composed his high-speed photographs (and bad) news is that the longer this mented with human visual perception with the skill of a still life artist. trend continues, the less seriously the to make these incredible images that Good artists and scientists are public will take these two important inspire the viewer to reconsider how tenacious. Ideally, both are concerned human endeavors. familiar and unfamiliar every person is. with truth and the understanding that Our ability to make sense of what comes from observation. Scientists we see is quite incredible. In fact, can be as intuitive as artists and artists Hermann von Helmholtz, the famous as precise as scientists. The general Chesterton is Everywhere electrical engineer, studied vision and population has difficulty understand- discovered the eye to be very poor at ing artists and scientists, despite the (From The Financial Express—Bangla- collecting images. People appear to ostentatious behavior of each field’s extract large amounts of information more flamboyant celebrities. Both desh, January 25, 2010) from what they see. The theory is that fields, unfortunately, have their share Time To Catch The Bull By experience and assumptions are used of famous hacks. For the common The Horn to fill in the gaps; to make up for what scientist and common artist, however, the eye can’t see. A good artist under- these fields can be full of tedious by Shamsher Chowdhury stands more biology, chemistry, and work, false starts, and of course the Excerpt: “[A] level of orientation in physics than many people would think. ah-ha moments that keep them from politics is necessary for the good Likewise, scientists can be artists. changing careers. of the nation amongst all stages There is often a style of investigation, Art and science have been of the society enabling people to an aesthetic principle for displaying plagued in the last one hundred years understand and interpret the work- data and a certain artfulness in the with a temptation to appear great ings of a democratically elected lab. Imaging has always been at the by shocking the sensibilities of their government. In late July of this year, heart of science and the principle audience. This unfortunate trend is I wrote an article in the columns of method science uses to communicate being played out by artists who can this very daily calling for banning findings to the non-science community. not draw and by scientists who can of student wings of our political Consider the lunar sketch’s of Galileo, not experiment. Little truth, beauty, parties. In that column I quoted G. Roentgen’s x-rayed hand images, and and good has come from seeing an K. Chesterton having said as early the high speed photographs of Harold American flag laying on a floor and as 1926, I quote, ‘Education is simply Edgerton. None of these were intended a crucifix immersed in urine. Like- the soul of the society as it passes as art—but they do reflect the universe wise, polar bears clinging to scraps from one generation to the other’, and inspire the viewer to see ordinary of icebergs and photoshopped images unquote. things differently. of an underwater London do little

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 21 : t h e f ly i n G i n n : repulsive smell coming from the kitchen. Home rule at home I investigated, and the source was the pot filled with boiling water and juniper branches. This was not going to work, it seemed, so I took charge, got a towel, and carried the pot to the back door to get rid of it because the smell was making everyone nauseous. Christmas Eve I cannot actually remember the By David Beresford details, but my feet must have slipped on the ice on the back porch because my “Oh, I don’t know,” answered Mary, get two flu shots: one for the so-called legs went up and I went down, hitting my lightly enough; “there’s only two things swine flu in the fall and another for the head on the threshold, while simultane- generally true of them. At certain curi- normal seasonal flu. I never saw the ously throwing hot water all over my feet. ous times they’re just fit to take care of fellow happier, his medicine cabinet I lay there groaning for a few minutes, us, and they’re never fit to take care of was filled with pills, salves, and tonics; and then turned over and crawled back themselves.” —Manalive, G.K. Chesterton and his red nose redder than ever! And, into the house, calling out, “Can some- like I say, when you examine it from all one put ashes on the ice on the back t was Christmas Eve, and I was sides, no real harm is done. porch before somebody gets hurt?” My sitting in the living room looking at As I was saying, it was Christmas children ran from the kitchen to help the Christmas tree, contemplating Eve, and from where I was sitting I me up, and Theresa came into the room whether to light a cigar to celebrate could hear the sound of productive wiping her hands on her apron. Taking the holiday. The rest of the family work. I decided to pitch in and help, so hold of my elbow, Theresa guided me to Iwas getting supper ready before we went I went into the kitchen and asked my the living room and told me to sit by the to Mass, and my big problem was, did I wife for a large pot—“Theresa, where do fire. One child got me a cigar, another an have time to enjoy the cigar, or should I we keep the pots? Can you get me one? ashtray, a third a book, a fourth a glass, wait until after? After Mass was winning Sure, no hurry, I’ll just wait here until and a fifth my brandy. in my mind, for half the pleasure of a your hands are free.” I had previously “Stay here now. You have helped cigar is the anticipation. asked my boys to cut some juniper enough. We will just have to get by on I find that a nice cigar, or my pipe, branches and put them at the back door, regular cough syrup like everyone else is quite a pleasant past-time. A pipe and I instructed my daughter—“Anna, this Christmas,” said Theresa. or cigar is not for everyone. There are stop drying dishes and help me here”— And I trust she was not many people who prefer to pass the to put these in the pot filled with water being ironic. time by recycling their garbage, while and place it on the wood stove. My idea others find fulfillment in chasing flu -vac was to make a tonic in case anyone felt cines. I know of some who are happiest sick over Christmas. I figured that was when they are rubbing antiseptic gel the most helpful thing I could do, on their hands. These are all harmless so I got things rolling then enough pursuits in themselves, prone to went to the cause preachiness and self-satisfaction living room perhaps, but largely harmless. So, I to read. adopt a live-and-let-live attitude, and After about while for me an occasional cigar gives ten minutes I me more pleasure than sorting card- noticed a board, getting needles, or squirting what feels like dog slobber on my hands, I realize that the world is a big place and filled with lots of different folk. One such is a friend of mine, a fine fellow and normally quite sane, clever even, whose particular hobby is to nurse a never-ending cold and paint his upper lip with camphorated liniment. I play along, for he really does extract so much pleasure from this enterprise. “How is your cold today, Bill?” “Bad, very bad, I can’t seem to shake this cold.” This year he was ecstatic, for this was a bonanza year when he was able to

22 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : t h e f ly i n G s Ta r s : I know that insects are a part of life, and this past year with our “What do you call the man who wants to embrace the carnivorous plants has taught me their chimney sweep?” “A saint,” said Father Brown. —G.K. Chesterton usefulness in the food chain. I don’t think I would have done well as a pioneer housewife in a soddie or a log cabin with a dirt floor. Still, I’ve seen what can happen to roads and path- ways when you don’t keep working on them. Like Chesterton’s white fence, they don’t stay roads and pathways Please Don’t Feed the unless you keep re-surfacing. The post doesn’t stay white unless you keep Venus Fly Trap painting it white. A house is really By Nancy Carpentier Brown a temporary structure in a world of insects and bugs, prairie grasses, and trees. The birds try to come in our ur house has a problem. Bugs. structures are actually carnivorous chimney. The wasps try to make their Yes, and lots of them. Our lot tubes, baited with sweet smells and hanging nests along our eaves. Spiders used to be a farm field where equipped with evil sticky pads lined set up camp near our lights to take the bugs could have the run with downward facing spikes, ready to advantage of the night bug attractant. of the place, and after four- lure the lazy fly or curious ant into an Why shouldn’t they? Our home dis- Oteen years, they still think they can. amazing trap. placed their home years ago. They’re I suppose they feel displaced by our Suddenly, the bugs I found in the only trying to take it back. But luckily, structure and fight to take back their house seemed, well, useful. I could I’m bigger than they are. And I’ve got own territory. feed them to the plant. I had a rather insecticide, too. We have always had cluster flies. strange sense of satisfaction know- Our home is our castle, and we’re These slow moving pollenia rudis show ing that the bugs would meet their always defending it. At times, we’re up in the autumn, fly around like crazy inevitable end in the digestion of this defending it against little things, like for a few days, then find themselves a weirdly-evolved vegetation. bugs. At other times, bigger things like nice cozy little nook to hole up in for As I caught each fly and put it ideas and thoughts. And no matter the winter. I guess I don’t mind them down into the pitcher plant, I felt a how long we’ve lived there, we’ll always under the siding or the eaves of the smug sense of “so there!” as I watched have to fight the critters—bugs or ide- roof. I’d never have to see them there. it approach its impending doom, unable ologies—that try to dwell there with us. But when they come out and buzz to crawl backwards for the spikes—this Chesterton is like the pitcher around at the window—that bugs me. is probably a sign of a sick mind. plant, helping us digest the ideas that Autumn also seems to bring out This year, to add to our thematic bug us, keeping our homes a little a gaggle of ladybugs. And box elder collection, we have purchased a Venus cleaner. The ideas, like the bugs, will beetles. And crickets. And wasps. Fly Trap. The mysterious creature still try to creep in. But we have our Winter brings mice, which occa- snaps its “hands” closed on anything pitcher plants and our fly traps, and we sionally find their way up to the attic. that moves, triggered by some process know how to use them. Spring inevitably brings in the ants. scientists have yet to explain. The plant Like insects trying to find a tiny And spiders and pill bugs seem to be can exist without trapping insects, but corner for the winter, buggy ideas will year-‘round visitors. it has evolved to be healthier if it gets always seep into our homes. Be on guard. I used to feel at war with the bugs, food, so I am keeping my plant healthy And take my advice: don’t feed needing to pluck up an enormous each time I feed it. box elder beetles to your Venus Fly amount of courage to get rid of them. Unless I feed it something bad. Trap. When we first moved in, I carefully car- Which I did. I figured if it liked flies, ried each ladybug and spider outside what about trying it on a box elder and set it free. I’ve since become less beetle? Initially, my Venus Fly Trap eco-friendly. liked the beetle. It closed down on it Your donation to the American Last year, though, brought a and trapped it just as it had done for Chesterton Society supports our strange turn of events. I stopped seeing the spiders and flies I gave it. But then, efforts to make G.K. Chesterton, bugs as “the enemy” and started view- slowly, over the course of a few days, ing them as, well, not friendly, but the paddles started turning black. A the champion of the common more like food. Yes, food. Don’t get the quick search of the Internet told me man, known throughout the wrong idea. that box elder beetle must have carried world. Please give generously. Just for fun, we had bought bacteria, which sickened the plant. My www.chesterton.org a pitcher plant. The tall pipe-like poor baby! I had to cut off the arm.

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 23 Health Care

;;The mistake of all that medical talk ;;Many hygienic enthusiasts of our ;;If a man’s personal health is a public lies in the very fact that it connects time want to think of every man as a concern, his most private acts are the idea of health with the idea of patient. (Daily News, May 30, 1908) more public than his most public acts. care. What has health to do with care? (“The Eclipse of Liberty,” Eugenics and Other Evils) ;;If you really wished an official to take Health has to do with carelessness. charge of your health it would be, first ;;The success of the Public Health (“H.G. Wells and the Giants,” Heretics) of all, necessary that the official be Services has drawn the attention of the ;;Prevention is not better than cure. with you every minute of the day. He theorists to the population problem… Cure is healthy; because it is effected would have to stay with you all night It is a logical and obvious economy: at an unhealthy moment. Prevention long to see that you did not snore, and Those who are not born will not need is unhealthy; because it is done at a that you slept in a hygienic attitude. the services of the clinic or the doctor. healthy moment. (Daily News, May 30, 1908) Imagine such a supervision…The (G.K.’s Weekly, Feb. 23, 1929) carrying out of the idea would mean ;;These great scientific organizers ultimately that there would be a long insist that a man should be healthy procession of people—all watching each even if he [is] miserable. (“The Idiot,” The other. But then it would be necessary Ball and the Cross) to have somebody watch the official. ;;The cult of hygiene today is not so (Boston Globe, Jan. 16, 1921) much materialistic as mystical. Health ;;You can be an expert in disease. You is preferred to life; and the experts cannot be an expert in health. Health seem to be more satisfied with what is too large and free to be explored. they call a well-nourished corpse than (Daily News, July 6, 1912) with a lively cripple. (New Witness, July 20, 1916)

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24 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : J o gg i n G w i t h G.K. : there also are jolly good reasons (at “Do not look at the faces in the illustrated papers. least every day one wakes up tired in the dead of Michigan winter) Look at the faces in the street.” —G.K. Chesterton not to go running. I realize disci- pline of itself can count as a good thing. However, I also realize that for some folks running (apart from the necessity sometimes of run- ning from danger—from mad dogs, Confessions fires, bad opera, etc.) is always an By Robert Moore-Jumonville odious enterprise. I take as an example this exchange that appeared on my Face- his month I came close not to many reasons for his pen remaining book page recently between Mike submitting an article. I’m not idle. Perhaps one day he woke up Foster and Miki Tracy (unknown to sure how long I have had the with a hangover and stayed in bed me until it mostly had played itself privilege of persecuting read- to draw; or maybe when the time out). The discussion went like this: ers with this column of my mad came to deliver his completed essay, MidwestT meanderings about running. Chesterton found himself hopelessly Foster: “running for fun is so Maybe nine years? I don’t think I’ve lost—abducted by a strange cabman, NOT Chestertonian. Unless it was skipped an article during that time wandering some unexplored plain in for last call @ Ye Old Cheddar (though missing the deadlines general Brussels in the rain, or planted on Cheese.” editor Sean Dailey sets is another the wrong train. When I asked my Tracy: “Running ‘for fun’ is matter). Often in the past I’ve worked daughter Annesley what she thought unspeakably bizarre insanity. Per- ahead, some summers writing the bulk might have kept G.K. Chesterton sonally, I’d rather stick myself in of my articles for the coming year from submitting on a given day, she the eye with a fork whilst dancing after school finishes. But this fall chaos replied: “Maybe he burned his toast.” a jig on a small slab of Styrofoam descended thicker than the leaves and Maybe. Or perhaps one day Gilbert’s in the middle of the winter Pacific I have fallen behind in life. I realized household was “unexpectedly invaded during an ice storm—now ‘that’ if I did not submit a column, it might by infants of all shapes and sizes,” as sounds like fun! Which is strange, because when I was eighteen, go completely unnoticed, which would he relates in “The Real Journalist.” Of I could run two miles in twelve be a properly humbling experience. course, he immediately forgot about minutes on a humid July day...still Or the absence of my column might the article due and attended instead didn’t like it.” be heralded as an improvement for all to arbitrating squabbles over who sorts of good reasons; for one, after knocked down whose blocks, no doubt Foster: “’Running for fun’, even so much holiday overeating, we don’t administering honorable verdicts before I had anterior fractures of L1-3 vertebrae in 2000 & hip relish reminders of exercise. among the warring children. replacement three years ago, I also realized good reasons Just as he metes out principles was an oxymoron. Michael Stipe exist for contributors not to offer an of the highest morality, it occurs to of R.E.M. says it well: ‘I’d rather essay to a publication. When we read him suddenly that he has not written chew my leg off.’” through the Illustrated London News, his Saturday article; and that there for instance, we know there were is only about an hour to do it in. He The next twenty-three posts periods and occasions when Chester- wildly calls to somebody (probably between these two zanies imperson- ton, for all his prolific consistency, did the gardener) to telephone to some- ate a George Burns-Gracie Allen not submit essays. From January 17 to one for a messenger; he barricades comedy routine. May 22, 1920, Chesterton’s columns himself in another room and tears his Sometimes I am dreadfully were written by Hilaire Belloc, and in hair wondering what on earth he shall consistent at running (say five days the four-month period from February write about. out of seven), but like most things 12 to May 21, “J.D.S” replaced Ches- Absence of topic and lack of time in life, I get into slumps now and terton as contributor. April 23, 1928, create the dilemma: how to give the then. I wonder this time of year also reports no column for the week, world a present of “fifteen hundred whether it is mainly the wind. Not and there are other gaps. Without unimportant words.” just the wind by itself. It’s when I scouring the details of Chesterton’s Since, on short notice, I need to check the weather in the morning biography we could deduce that during offer a present of nine hundred unim- and notice not only that the temp these absences he was either on holi- portant words, while also attempting is 20 degrees or below, but that day, or occasionally reporting in sick. to interject the topic of jogging, let me the wind is 15 mph or above. The Then again, Chesterton may have suggest that, if there are good rea- excuse is begging to be used. And absentmindedly missed a deadline sons not to write an essay, or meet a I ponder silently: “I think I will not here and there. We could imagine deadline, or go to work (on occasion), hang myself today.”

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 25 : T h e b att l e w i T H T H e d r a g o n : arguments against usury. As Ches- terton observes, “The desire to see “The more truly we can see life as a fairytale, the more wheels go round involves the idea that clearly the tale resolves itself into war with the Dragon they will always repeat themselves. In who is wasting fairyland.” —G.K. Chesterton one sense it may be called progressive, since when the wheels go round the cart goes on. In another sense it may be called conservative, for in assum- ing that the wheels will go round it assumes that the wheels will not come off. But, above all, when the wheels Red, White, and Blues are really going round rapidly, they are generally in a rut.” I do not think By Kyro R. Lantsberger it is drawing too much of analogy to compare Chesterton’s dismal image of early a decade of warfight- Chesterton was writing during the twirling wheels of industry to the ing lies behind us since the the time when big industry seemed to churning and “recycling” of money opening blast of September be swallowing up the masses, send- over and over again, assuming that the 11, 2001. Mistakes along the ing them into lonely vigils in the dark wheel will perpetually remain turning. way and poor decisions have anti-cathedrals that were the factories Unfortunately perhaps it does, digging Nled to waning public support in the of the time to perform processes a deeper and deeper rut. fight against an enemy whose resolve divorced from the product. “If it The United States always seems to has not wavered. Both Houses of the comes to thinking, to questioning, to be a source of wonderment for Ches- U.S. Congress have passed national the use or abuse of speculation, no terton. “America is a very great living health care legislation despite some people have done it more than people and complex reality, and everybody of the largest and most vocal protests sitting on the bare ground and staring must apologise for having any impres- in the history of this country. Couple at the stars. No people have done it sions of it at all.” He rightly regards it this with an economy in recession as the only nation founded on a creed. and national debt at a level hardly Even compared to its Ango-national comprehensible, one could make the While it is true that tough counterparts of Canada, Australia, statement along with G.K. Chester- and New Zealand, the early history of ton that this nation is, without doubt, times force us to confront the United States sets it apart. Nations “America in a Rut” (ILN 08/02/1924). our inner vanities, and normally arise organically. A group At the time of Chesterton’s writing, of people sharing a common culture, America was in a small recession, a the easy seduction of language, geography, or even common slight dulling of the roaring twenties. materialism and the venial ancestors identifies itself as unique As Chesterton often reminds, progress and manifests itself over the course is not always improvement. Culture is misuse of resources, it is of history as a coherent political unit. not necessarily enriched by production also verifiable that times This is not the case with the Ameri- and consumption of resources; as a can experience. The United States matter of fact, usually it is restricted. of hardship sow the seeds is meant to be the political expres- As Chesterton notes, “progress in that ripen into upheavals. sion of a particular worldview. This machinery generally did occur where worldview has been under constant there was no progress in mentality... revision, repackaging, and reinven- The people without machinery have less than people engaged in the appli- tion since before the ink dried on been intellectual, independent, specu- cations of physical science to practical the Constitution; it is perhaps more lative, or sceptical, as you choose to commerce.” Oddly, it is the loss of accurate to say that the defining char- regard it.” When digesting the words manufacturing that many now lament. acteristic of the American nation is of Chesterton, and the complexities Our current malaise is far more nebu- a shared mythology and set of ideals of life in this world, for that matter, it lous, defined as a near-cataclysmic more archetypal than actual, a New is necessary to consider the seeming shutdown of the financial system World Athena sprung forth from the paradoxes of a situation. For while it is caused by the loss of money that never ideas of the Old World Zeus. “It is true that tough times force us to con- actually existed in the first place. It is no longer a question of our calling in front our inner vanities, and the easy easy to see the physical exploitation the New World to redress the balance seduction of materialism and the venial going on in a sweatshop labor situa- of the Old. We [Europeans] are the misuse of resources, it is also verifiable tion; more subtle to grasp until the New World, and we are upsetting the that times of hardship sow the seeds end is the exploitation of presumption balance of the Old; and it looks as if that ripen into upheavals, as we see in and overindulgence. It is no longer the balance of America were a good the story of the Bolsheviks. old-fashioned to revisit the classical deal upset.”

26 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : A l l i s u r v e y : own word is the Word of God. When “It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that it is thus sweeping the world, it comes to a remote and rather barbarous I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.” —G.K. Chesterton region somewhere on the borders of Russia; where it stops suddenly; smiles broadly; and tells the people there that they can have the strangest heresies they like...We might well sup- pose, therefore, that the Church says benevolently to these fortunate Slavs, From Out of the Past, “By all means worship Baphomet and Beelzebub; say the Lord’s Prayer back- Met in the Future wards; continue to drink the blood of infants—nay, even,” and here her voice By David W. Fagerberg falters, till she rallies with an effort of generous resolution, “—yes, even, if t has been a hundred and one years five years after Chesterton had become you really must, grow a beard.” since Chesterton burst on the scene a Catholic, he wrote an apologetic with his book Orthodoxy in 1908. work explaining why he had. The To repeat the title of the essay: He had already been attracting Thing: Why I Am A Catholic contains what do they think who think such attention with essays—particularly a an essay entitled “What Do They a thing? Iset of controversies with Mr. Blatchford Think?” Chesterton is moved to ask The reason why Chesterton, “the three years earlier—but I think most the question so he can exercise one of hapless Catholic journalist,” despairs biographers treat the publication of his favorite pastimes, which is to back of explaining The Thing to these critics Orthodoxy as a benchmark. the discussion up one step from heat is because he does not know at what A century plus a year. Seems to light, from prejudice to grounding end of the sentence to begin in order like a long time ago, an impression assumptions. to untangle their knot of confusion. confirmed by looking on the Inter- The occasion for this question was “What is the good of his laboriously net, which contains a list of things in a sentence in an article of a London beginning to explain that a married the decade following this benchmark. paper which “stated that Rome tolerates, clergy is a matter of discipline and Instant coffee in 1909, conveniently in her relation with the Russian Uniats, not doctrine, that it can therefore be followed by a pop-up toaster ten years ‘strange heresies and even bearded and allowed locally without heresy—when later. 1913 saw two advances in fash- wedded clergy.’” Chesterton found all the time the man thinks a beard as ion, the modern zipper and the bra. himself staring at those eight reveal- important as a wife and more impor- Something slightly more useful for the ing words on the page. “Only a wild tant than a false religion?” He wonders advance of civilization came in 1916, unreason, about the whole way the thing what apoplectic shock the critic may stainless steel. And exactly one decade [Catholicism] hangs together, could go into if he saw “a bearded Francis- after Orthodoxy came the superhetero- thus make even the joints and hinges of can walking through Wimbledon.” dyne radio circuit, something you can’t that rickety statement rattle and creak I do not know how many Angli- appreciate in itself but which became with laughter.” He began to see behind can priests and bishops wear beards, a standard component in every radio the phrase the misunderstanding in the but I think the most recent gesture by and television. mind of the writer. There follows an Pope Benedict XVI would be willing Such a list of items may put the instance of classic Chestertonian prose, to accept their beards if he has gone reader in the frame of mind received one of my favorites: so far as to also accept their wives. by walking into an antique store and At this writing, the newspapers are There is in the world, they would seeing dusty doilies and rusted radios. tell us, a powerful and persecuting abuzz about the creation of Personal “The nineteen hundreds,” we gasp. I superstition, intoxicated with the Ordinariates for Anglicans who desire lived through half of them, but a near impious idea of having a monopoly to enter into full communion with decade’s residence in the twenty-first of divine truth, and therefore cruelly the Catholic Church. I read, “Roman century makes them seem distant, crushing and exterminating everything Catholics are to allow married men indeed; even more so, I imagine, for else as error. It burns thinkers for to become priests in a radical con- grade-schoolers who have no conscious thinking, discoverers for discovering, cession to attract recruits from the memory of writing a “one” and a philosophers and theologians who troubled Anglican church.” And “the “nine” in the dateline. differ by a hair’s breadth from its new churches’ bishops will be confus- So how does it happen that I find dogmas; it will tolerate no tiny change ingly named ‘Ordinaries’: they will or shadow of variety even among Chesterton meeting me on the road be almost like real Roman Catholic its friends and followers; it sweeps ahead, instead of the road behind? the whole world with one encyclical bishops, except that they may be In 1929, about the time the yo-yo cyclone of uniformity; it would destroy married, like their clergy.” From out was reintroduced as a fad and Clar- nations and empires for a word, so of the past, Chesterton meets us in ence Birdseye introduced frozen food, wedded is it to its fixed idea that its the future.

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 27 : t h e D e t e ct i o n C l u b : promised you the hundred grand, and “The mystery of life is the plainest part of it.” —G.K. Chesterton then I reneged on the deal,” he said. “What then?” “Nobody reneges on a man who can make people disappear, James,” Pete replied, casually. “Think about that.” “Okay, then,” James asked, “how Vanished do you do it?” By John Peterson “Professional secret,” Pete said. James smashed his cigar into ames found his way across the equal payments; but if I remarry, my the ashtray. “I’m going,” he said. He darkened cocktail lounge and payments go to Wilma and I get zilch. threw down some bills and abruptly joined his newfound friend and So I always have to think twice before I marched off. He put the episode down drinking companion, Pete. haul off and belt her one.” to a brush with a man he had some- “Tough day?” Pete asked. Pete asked what would happen if how failed to realize was a joker with J“Is there another kind?” one of them died. James explained a sick sense of humor—if not a com- The two middle-aged tipplers had that the survivor gets everything in the plete lunatic. He would find a different become acquainted through their trust with no strings attached. bar for his after-work daiquiris and shared interest in dark-rum daiquiris “James, my friend,” Pete said, as be more careful in making any new on the rocks. At first it had led to no he signaled Millie to bring two more acquaintances. However, while riding more than a brief acknowledgement, daiquiris, “it happens that I have the home on the train, James reconsid- but in less than a week they were perfect solution for you.” ered. He knew full well that Pete was seeking out one another’s company “Forget it,” James said. “I’m no joker and that he wasn’t a nutcase. in the murky saloon known as Gor- not going to Fort Leavenworth on a “Late again,” Wilma said. “Cold don’s Smoker—a haven for business murder wrap.” He blew a cloud of potatoes and another roast cooked men who need a buffer between the bluish cigar smoke into the already down to mush. What was it this time, anxiety of work and the tedium of hazy atmosphere. Jimbo, the booze or the broad?” domestic life. “Suppose your wife just suddenly James wondered why Wilma’s James had two grievances. The vanished without a trace,” Pete said. remarkable tranquility had lately first was everything at the office. The “After seven years, you apply for a turned to waspishness. She knew he second was everything at home. Pete death certificate. There’s a hearing detested being called “Jimbo.” was unfailingly sympathetic. Tonight before a judge, and—voila!—you’re She went on. “I don’t have to put the home front was getting the single again. You marry Betsy, you col- up with this,” she said. “Either we get treatment. lect on the annuity.” a whole new game plan for this so- “The way you’ve described Wilma,” “As a day dream, it’s a winner,” called marriage of ours, or I’m going Pete said, “she doesn’t seem half bad.” James said. to get a whole new life. Or are you too “She’s not bad,” James said, light- “Did I ever tell you what I do for drunk to take my meaning?” ing an oversized cigar. “She’s boring. a living?” Pete asked. James realized “Hold on, Wilma,” a desperate I wish I could spend more time with that he knew almost nothing about his James said. “I don’t know how things Betsy.” friend. He was not really sure how that got so bad between us. Look, I’m going Both men were in their middle for- had happened, since they had spent so to spend more time at home. Let’s ties, and James had decided that Pete, much time talking together. “I make put an addition on the house—a party in comparison with his other friends, people disappear,” Pete said. “Poof, room or something.” was an unusually witty companion. At gone—no sign of a struggle, luggage To his surprise, Wilma seemed least he was during hours they spent still in the closet, kettle whistling on quite taken by the notion. “Why, drinking together before the evening the stove.” James stared at his friend James,” she said, “that’s a lovely idea!” commute. James had somehow failed as if the man had just grown horns. “I’ll take tomorrow morning off,” to notice that his new friend was not so “You put a hundred thousand he said. “We’ll go to the bank and much a good talker as a good listener. bucks in checking,” Pete continued, arrange for a home-equity loan to “Why don’t you dump Wilma and “and I do the rest. All you do is play the cover the costs. Then we’ll find an marry Betsy?” Pete asked. part of the concerned husband. You architect and a contractor.” “I would, but Wilma’s uncle left her won’t have to tell any lies, because you The bank was only too happy to a retirement trust. That’s the reason really won’t know anything about it.” come up with the home-improvement I married her in the first place. It’s a James continued to stare at him. “Well, loan. The bank would have advanced million-dollar annuity and it kicks in think it over.” them twice the amount they needed, ten years from now when she’s fifty- James decided to see where this even were it for no more serious a five. If we get divorced, we each get bizarre idea was leading. “Suppose I purpose than buying lottery tickets

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had James and Wilma been interested in the crock-pot. “Wilma?” Now where paying the bank back for the loan in that sort of recreation. had she gone? money I passed along to Pete.” James When James sat down at the The next morning he called hadn’t thought to ask his lawyer what familiar table in Gordon’s that eve- the police. “Look,” he said, “this is would happen to the legacy if Wilma ning, Pete was all apologies. “Look,” embarrassing. My wife has vanished. were somehow to reappear after he he said, “I shouldn’t have suggested She walked out last night before I got was remarried. you let me handle your Wilma prob- home, and she didn’t take any luggage. With the hundred thousand dollar lem. You’re not that kind of guy, and I know what you think it probably payoff in hand, Pete stopped visit- I’m just glad we’re still on speaking means, but my wife is not like that.” ing Gordon’s Smoker. For one thing, terms.” The ensuing investigation was slow he did not want to see any more of “I’ve got the one hundred grand,” to start and halfhearted at best. Wives James. For another thing, he hated James said, taking out another cigar disappeared all the time. Eventually a dark rum daiquiris on the rocks. And and forgetting the newly lighted one forensics team was sent to the house third, he was enjoying the tourist he had just placed in the ashtray. to look for signs of foul play. After a scene and favorable exchange rate in “What’s the next step?” year, the police closed the file. James Paraguay. His lovely companion was “We just shake hands on it.” had to admit that Pete really knew his enjoying it too. James hurried home. He did not business. “When we get bored with this,” want another catfight with Wilma, and “Now we just wait,” he told Betsy. Pete said, “we can spend some time in being late for dinner again would not “When we have a death certificate in Rio—what do you say?” help his cause. In the kitchen, he hand, we get hitched. A couple years “I’ll go anywhere with you,” Wilma found something aromatic bubbling after that, we cash in, and I start said, “as long as James isn’t there.”

toy theaters Chesterton was fascinated The Toy Shop Customer’s Casebook By Steve Miller by the toy shop. It is a place of wonder and power in The Napoleon of Notting A Toy Shop Christmas Hill. Here the toys are not fantasy but reality seen from a great distance. A The Shop of Ghosts green Bayswater omnibus is pass- ing through a huge desert. A blue toy shop customer finds Gleaming Cohort, as “The Shop elephant is blue with distance, not a strange shop where the of Ghosts: A Good Dream.” It paint. The black doll lives in passion- toys seem real and the is found in Volume XIV of G.K. ate tropical foliage. The red Noah’s ark proprietor refuses to be Chesterton Collected Works is “really the enormous ship of earthly paid for his wares. by Ignatius. salvation riding on the rain-swollen AThe Mystery. When will Noble Allusions. (1) The story sea, red in the first morning of hope.” Father Christmas die? brings comfort (maybe joy) to those The Opening. “Nearly all the Subplot. How long has the dingy fearful of the War on Christmas waged best and most precious things in the toy shop been in existence? by the ACLU and other proponents of universe you can get for a halfpenny. Other Characters. Charles Dick- political correctness. Father Christmas I make an exception, of course, of ens, who wants to know the location does not exist to bring us a “winter the sun, the moon, the earth, people, of the grave of Father Christmas; Sir holiday.” As that noted Jewish phi- stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. Richard Steele, who thought Father losopher, Theodor Geisel writing as You can get them for nothing. Also I Christmas dying when he wrote of Sir Dr. Seuss, demonstrates in his tome, make an exception of another thing, Roger de Coverley and his Christmas How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the which I am not allowed to mention Day; Ben Jonson, who thought King holiday transcends presents, trees, and in this paper, and of which the lowest James had put an end to Christmas; roast beast. The true spirit of Christ- price is a penny halfpenny. But the and Robin Hood, who saw Father mas is family, friends, and fellowship, general principle will be at once Christmas dying. which prove Charles Dickens’ observa- apparent. In the street behind me, for Location. A very small and dimly tion about Father Christmas at the end instance, you can now get a ride on lit toy shop in one of the grayest and of the story to be correct. (2) Chester- an electric tram for a halfpenny. To be leanest of the streets of Battersea. ton peoples the story with characters on an electric tram is to be on a flying Publishing History. “The Shop from the Merry England he loved and castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite of Ghosts” was first published in The which he celebrated in A Short History a large number of brightly coloured Daily News in 1906. In 1909 it was of England. The English Christmas is sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can included in the collection, Tremen- the force which can unite Robin Hood, get the chance of reading this article dous Trifles. In 1926 it appeared in a Ben Jonson, Sir Richard Steele, and for a halfpenny; along, of course, with selection of Chesterton’s writings, A Charles Dickens. (3) Like his beloved other irrelevant matter.”

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hero. But Doc Ford has a past as an Chesterton’s Bloodthirsty Heirs ex-CIA assassin and a present includ- “I should enjoy nothing more than always writing detective ing the vigilante killing of a football stories, except always reading them.” —G.K. Chesterton star who committed rape and murder. Therefore, it is not surprising when he by Steve Miller helps foil the kidnapping of a female U.S. Senator by a group of Cuban Jeffrey Archer. is credible as a man of ex-torturers. The Cubans manage to A Prisoner of Birth humble origins who uses capture a teenage essay contest winner (2008). If one steals, practical wisdom from who turns out to be almost more than one should steal from the London streets and the criminals can handle. A chase the best. Jeffrey Archer the discrete counsel of from Long Island to Florida ends with does not disguise that Swiss bankers to attack the boy buried in a box with a limited his novel is a modern the wealth of his enemies. supply of air and Doc Ford trying to retelling of The Count But as the story twists and rescue him while dodging a murder of Monte Cristo. The turns, the question is who charge. In his quest, torturing a wit- perpetrators of the will destroy whom first? ness with a guilty past causes doubt injustice sending Danny Archer is a popular author whether Ford can be the true hero of Cartwright to prison for whose experience includes the saga. The novel has a cliffhanger 22 years call themselves serving as a Member quality and perhaps a feeling that the the Musketeers Club. of Parliament, and two reader is being asked to hang off a few In his prison education program the years imprisonment for perversion of cliffs too many. Whenever a peril is Edmond Dantes’ stand-in reads the justice stemming from a libel ver- seemingly resolved, a new one springs original book by Dumas. As stated dict obtained by perjured testimony. up to replace it. Also, in an interview, Archer saw his key Belmarsh prison where these villains from an plot dilemmas as contriving a cred- Cartwright is sent island nation can elude ible departure from the escape-proof was Archer’s first stop a federal manhunt but Belmarsh and providing his hero with during his own incar- cannot operate a boat. the financial resources necessary for a ceration. His talent is The tale shows more diabolical revenge. The escape parallels to create characters originality than most, that of Dantes from the Chateau D’If. interesting and complex however, and raises a few The treasure requires machinations as enough to seem real. questions about what the complex as the cunning retribution. government does in our The novel recognizes, as the Dumas’ Randy Wayne name. Doc Ford com- original sometimes did not, that intel- White. Dead Silence bines feelings of guilt ligent villains are not fools and will (2009). A bespectacled with the efficient ruth- discern the existence of a plot against marine biologist may lessness of an intriguing them and its likely source. Cartwright seem an unlikely action anti-hero.

A Policeman’s Lot Is controlled inner strength rather than flashy or sentimental theatrics. Not A Happy One The first episode of the series By Chris Chan (PS1) is arguably the best, although that fact should not put potential viewers off later installments. Here, Prime Suspect (1991-2006) and regrouping. The protagonist is Tennison has to fight for respect in a Jane Tennison, an ambitious detective misogynistic police department, prov- rime Suspect is a TV crime superintendent whose professional ing herself by catching a serial killer series, but it is also an epic successes seem to be inversely pro- who preys on women. Eponymous tragedy. Over the course of portionate to the disintegration of her prime suspect George Marlow (John seven installments more than private life and personal relationships. Bowe) seems a likely culprit, but as the ravages of murder, rape, and Helen Mirren has rightly received the investigation moves forward doubts Pviolence are chronicled. The heart of impressive acclaim and awards for her are raised even as hunches are verified. the series is in its central character’s performance as the embattled Tenni- Bowe’s performance rather brilliantly slow, cyclical pattern of unraveling son, propelled by striking reserves of blends a slight sympathetic touch with

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entry in the series to be composed W h od u n i T T h e o l o g y of three shorter telemovies rather than one nearly four-hour miniseries. Father Brown Relationships between mothers and on Satanism: children at three different stages of their development center in each of I know something about Satan- PS4’s episodes: infancy, adolescence, ism, for my sins; I’ve been forced and adulthood. The simultaneously to know. I know what it is, what best and most flawed is the third it practically always is. It’s proud installment, where the Marlow case is revisited in the light of new evidence. and it’s sly. It likes to be superior; The storyline is intriguing, but the it loves to horrify the innocent with actor brought in to replace Bowe lacks things half understood, to make the nuance that made the original children’s flesh creep. That’s why performance compelling. PS5 pits Tennison against a cocky it’s so fond of mysteries and initia- crime boss, and in PS6 she tries to cap- tions and secret societies and all a soupçon of unsavory menace. Tom ture a renegade Balkan war criminal. the rest of it. Its eyes are turned Bell adds another powerhouse perfor- PS7, subtitled The Final Act, has Ten- inwards, and however grand and mance as Bill Otley, a surly homicide nison investigating a young woman’s veteran who sees Tennison as an murder as her own alcoholism spirals grave it may look, it’s always hiding unqualified upstart (Bell makes wel- out of control and the mistakes of a small, mad smile. come reappearances in PS3 and PS7), the past confront her as she stumbles and Zoë Wanamaker shines as Marlow’s towards forced retirement. prickly girlfriend. The finale of the first The production team had to entry is the closest the series has to a make a calculated choice in craft- happy ending, although an unsettling ing the emotional climax of the final but believable final twist dulls the shine episode. Would Tennison make a full of Tennison’s triumph. acknowledgement of the role that her PS1 sets up themes that will echo own mistakes had made on her life, throughout the rest of the series: or would she lapse into a clichéd “my Tennison’s continual quest for career decisions were the right ones because success and respect, her on-and-off they were my decisions” speech? In cigarette and alcohol addictions, the the end, the difference is split: Tenni- continual failures of her romantic life, son makes an apologia for her life, but and the impacts of her mounting lone- Mirren’s face belies her words. As Ten- Throughout the series, only a hand- liness and depression. nison’s career dedicated to the pursuit ful of people are wholly likeable, PS2 focuses on a potentially explo- of truth comes to a close, we wonder if mainly police officers, relatives of sive case where a long-buried body she will discover the truth behind the victims, and members of Tennison’s stands to disrupt a black neighbor- mystery of her life, and whether she is own family. hood by flaming racial tensions, and capable of fully acknowledging these NBC recently announced plans new forensic technologies and office facts. In the end, some mysteries have to Americanize Prime Suspect. politics are introduced. PS3 centers on to go unanswered—various viewers will Regardless of the quality of the a disturbing world of child prostitution come to different conclusions. finished project, the results will be and murder. Both are solid and intrigu- One of the most striking aspects interesting on an academic level. ing productions, and if they never of the series is just how ugly it often is. Will the U.S. version simply go quite hit the emotional and dramatic There are no stately English country through the standard motions of heights of PS1, at least they are light houses with attractive colors and shocking sordidness and politically years away from being disappointing. gardens. Instead, we get shot after correct notes of female empower- Towards the end of PS3, Tennison shot of dirty streets, scruffy empty ment, or will it manage to seek makes a decision that will completely lots, graffiti-layered walls, and barren out and depict emotional truths change the trajectory of her life and mass-produced housing. Matching the commonly ignored on standard psyche, one which may potentially cost physically ugly settings are characters television series? No matter what her the sympathy of many viewers, or who are ugly internally, though not happens, the original Prime Sus- perhaps the aftereffects of her choice necessarily externally. If people are pect series will stand on its own as will make some people commiserate shaped by their environments, then an exemplar of the social and emo- with her. the series’ settings appear to produce tional costs of crime and unnatural The emotional fallout of this deci- a largely coarse and brutal people: self- death. sion carries over into PS4, the only ish, dishonest, and sexually obsessed.

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 31 : B o o K r e v i e w s : Even the call from Eunice Shriver. One day, out of the blue, Eunice Shriver called me. We talked about purgatory—really. Dorothy Day was a blessed com- panion each morning last summer. She reminded me that wherever we are, we Day by Day have to deal with people: we can either drag them down or pull them up—or Man often chooses evil because The Duty of Delight: The be dragged down or pulled up. it has the semblance of the good, Diaries of Dorothy Day because it seems to promise happiness. The phrase “the duty of delight” Edited by Robert Ellsberg What are hardships endured for comes from Ruskin. It was the title Marquette University Press, 2008 Him? Where he wants me to be, there Dorothy had planned to use for the 669 pages, $42.00 (hardcover) I must be happy. book she wrote following her auto- biographical, The Long Loneliness, a Because it is a book of medita- Reviewed by Dale Ahlquist title and book she feared too gloomy. tions, it will be a personal book for But she never used it. Robert Ellsberg n the day that I was born, whomever reads it. It certainly is wisely used it for these personal notes Dorothy Day attended a wed- for me. which she had ordered sealed until ding. I know this because I read I especially appreciate the fact that twenty-five years after her death. it in her diary. What resonated Dorothy helped bring into being an Dorothy knew the importance of was that at the wedding there idealistic organization and became its delight, and her diaries reveal a Ches- Owas a reading of an excerpt from G.K. driving force and most visible spokes- tertonian sense of wonder at God’s Chesterton. It was one of many strange man. She pursued something that simple gifts. Appreciating a tree out- connections I felt with Dorothy as I most people simply dismissed. People side her window. Watching a mother started each morning with her last thought her goals were impossible— cat chase crickets. Listening to the summer, following her life and her or merely foolish. She published a song of a bird. Enjoying lambs playing thoughts from the 1930s up until her periodical that was a money-loser. She in the field, or waves crashing on the last entry a week before she died in traveled around the country, meeting rocks. A snowy day, a rainy day, a clear November of 1980. When I finally and fascinating people. Was asked to give day, a quiet day. She saw past the dirt regretfully closed the book, I felt so talks on all different subjects, and and past the despair and found the grateful for the work of editor Robert often paid little or nothing. In between delight. Sometimes it is a duty, surely, Ellsberg that I called him up and trying to raise a family, she tried to but it is still a delight. thanked him. write. She got some nice recognition I could not help but be reminded There are all kinds of reasons to here and there, won respect from of the epitomal scene of Thornton dive into this remarkable work. It is unlikely corners; she was also subject Wilder’s play Our Town. In it the informative, inspiring, even entertain- to rejection and unbe- character Emily is given ing. It is the study of the life of a saint, lievable opposition from a chance to relive one the surprising struggles, the small expected allies. day of her life after she victories, the great disappointments, Along the way she has died. She chooses the dramatic adventures on the world’s attracted a lot of goofy her twelfth birthday. She stage, the deeper adventures of the people. She records a returns and suddenly interior life, a journey of faith, a jour- colleague moaning, “Why looks at everything with nal of prayer. does this movement utter amazement, as each Day reveals her understanding of attract all the crazy ones?” precious moment slips Chesterton’s definition of the mysti- Her answer: “If by too quickly, and she is cal Christian virtues, that love means people are slightly mad, overwhelmed. She turns loving the unlovable. She is pained by how much more attractive to the Stage Manager the loss of faith all around her, which it is that they should be and asks, “Do human she considers the greatest disaster. She mad for God.” beings ever realize life seeks to be more detached from the She would find solace while they live it? Every, world, to be more spiritual, even while in the Jesus Prayer, in classical music, every minute?” being up to her elbows in the world, in good literature, including a stiff dose The Stage Manager answers: serving others. of G.K. Chesterton. “Saints and poets, maybe. They Above all, The Duty of Delight is a One day Dorothy got a phone call do some.” book of meditations: out of the blue from Eunice Kennedy Saints and poets. Especially the Shriver. They talked about hell. God rewards us for so little effort. saints who were poets and the poets Yes, I could relate to all these Just a resolute turning to Him of our who were saints. Like G.K. Chesterton experiences, these trials and triumphs. wills. and Dorothy Day.

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throughout life, began very early. The Yes, You Can Go Home Again poem “The World Lover” reminds us of his childlike wonder at God’s cre- G.K. Chesterton Collected Works In addition to the many early ation, a sense of wonder that never left Volume X: Collected Poetry Part II poems Chesterton wrote prior to 1900, during his entire life. Compiled and Edited with an Introduction this second volume includes dozens And lastly, in his collection and Notes by Denis J. Conlon and dozens of ballades. Chesterton Greybeards at Play, the final poem Ignatius Press, 2008 seems to have been able to produce a stands out. Chesterton describes a 518 pages, $24.95 (paperback) ballade on the spur of the moment for walk through a field where he meets a any reason or occasion. little child, “the sage of whom I learn.” Reviewed by Nancy Carpentier Brown The early works are notable for a Already, his childlike innocence is few reasons. There are many works forming, as he learns to “see” through riolets, ballades, epic poems, which appear later in revised form in the eyes of a child. And the very last nonsense verse; published works, other collections. The early re-writes verse describes the child leaving his unpublished works, works com- inform us of a man who does indeed childhood behind, and wondering if plete and incomplete. Chesterton edit and rework his lines. His re-work- he can ever find his home again, now was a prolific master of the poem, ings can give an impression of how his that he’s turned his back on it (“home” Tboth as a serious work and as a tease mind was turning upon the problem, being a metaphor for childhood). for a friend. He wrote poems for pub- which is an interesting exercise. Chesterton seems to answer him: lication, expertly revising them again In addition, one is amazed at the yes, he can find his home again, by and again. He wrote poems as gifts for level of vocabulary in a young man of traveling forward all the way around birthdays, apologizing within the poem fourteen. Today’s teens wouldn’t be the world, for the world is round. This itself for making a poor rhyme. caught knowing words like profligate, combination of two ideas: that one can Many of his poems are already adamantine, paeans, warders, pennons; re-gain one’s childlike innocence, and collected in Volume X of the Collected few could use the name Mephistoph- that one can find home if one travels Works, but in the continual search eles in a sentence, let alone spell it. all the way around the world, repeat for Chesterton’s writings many more The early poems reveal a Chester- and are renewed in many a Chesterton poems were discovered, particularly ton steeped in history, interested in work. from his younger years. After the first events and especially death scenes of Those two themes, seeing the collection of poetry from Ignatius the past. There is a nice poem (“Not world through the eyes of a child, and Press appeared in 1994, Denis Conlon, in Vain”) that describes Chesterton’s wanting to find one’s way back home, with the help of Aidan Mackey, col- early love of books and reading by the are important in Chesterton’s life. lected enough works to fill another fire. In addition, these early poems Half the fun of reading this volume, and thus Part II (also referred show us a sixteen-year-old boy in love, volume is Conlon’s helpful footnotes. to as “X-B”) has now been published. writing about his current aching heart. For example, on page 394 he tells us, Chesterton penned around a Religious themes also are a common “Not a Man, Mrs. Whitehouse: Bonrick thousand poems during the course of thread woven all throughout the pages and Maud were names of cats.” And his life. His verses often look as though of poems, from early youth onward. on page 424 we are quite helpfully told they are his natural reaction to the Thoughts about God, angels, biblical that “L.S.D.” stands not for the drug people and events of his life. Here is a themes, and scripturally inspired words we think of, nor the Beatles’ song, but poem to celebrate “a certain evening.” are common. rather, “pounds, shillings, and pence— Another is penned “to Frances on Included in this volume are British currency.” the death of her sister Gertrude”; yet several snippets of plays or fragments This new collection gives us another describes “The Missing Link.” of scenes written by Chesterton, one insights into the life of Chesterton that Chesterton’s first two published assumes, for playacting with friends. no biography can. Who could grasp works, both in 1900, were small Saint Bartholomew’s Eve, The Junior how well Chesterton knew the people books of poetry, Wild Knights and Debating Club—A Morality, The Frances worked with at the PNEU Greybeards at Play. Greybeards is Almighty Man, and The Secret Garden (Parents National Educational Union)? reproduced in its entirety with Ches- of the Sultan of Egypt are included, as A Chesterton play finds humor in the terton’s illustrations within this new well as Shipwrecked Off Fairyland, antics of the workplace where Frances volume of poetry. Also included are which is both a play and a musical. toiled for five years during their long reproductions of the book of Clerihews There are many poems dedicated engagement. Many other insights can which Chesterton, Bentley, Oldershaw, to the Junior Debate Club, many be gained into the life of Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s father Edward, Maurice devoted to Frances or her work friends, Chesterton besides these. Collected Solomon, and Waldo d’Avigdor (all or their siblings, cousins, and adult Poetry Part II is highly recommended but Edward, members of the JDC) friends once married. for those seeking to understand Ches- produced under the title of Dictionary Revealed, too, are that Ches- terton, as well as to read more of his of Biography, richly illustrated by G.K. terton’s motifs, carried with him talented verse. Chesterton in 1893.

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I was writing about would never use any other word.’” A “type of artistic A Good Biographer is racism,” Gooch sniffs, “worked well for her.” By saying that she always Hard to Find presented blacks with dignity, Gooch as the impact of her lupus on her may be signaling that it’s okay for Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor writings. Gooch’s treats O’Connor’s enlightened, educated folks to read By Brad Gooch Catholicism descriptively, sometimes O’Connor despite her use of the word New York: Little, Brown, 2009 uncomprehendingly, without delv- “nigger” in her fiction. 448 pages, $30 (hardcover) ing deeply into how it underlies her Similarly, when Gooch writes Reviewed by James G. Bruen, Jr. stories. “Much of my fiction takes its that O’Connor was “opening up character from a reasonable use of the to Teilhard, and moving beyond ike Chesterton, Flannery unreasonable, though the reasonable- while never abandoning an absolute O’Connor was an artist, and ness of my use of it may not always Thomism that some felt ‘too straight- not merely of the written word. be apparent. The assumptions that jacket,’ or old-fashioned,” what “I don’t know how to write,” underlie this use of it, however, are does he mean? Does he really mean O’Connor told the adviser to her those of the central Christian myster- that her views evolved but never Lhigh school newspaper, recounts Brad ies. These are assumptions to which changed? Or, again, is he again Gooch in Flannery. “But I can draw.” a large part of the modern audience merely sending a signal, telling the In Mystery and Manners, O’Connor takes exception,” O’Connor once said. enlightened they may read O’Connor commented on the propensity of “Belief, in my own case anyway, is the despite her Catholicism? writers to draw. “I know a good many engine that makes perception operate.” Brad Gooch, professor of English fiction writers who paint, not because A more thorough biography would at William Paterson University, is gay; they’re any good at painting, but explore such statements in depth. he has written previously on gay inter- because it helps their writing. It forces Lorraine Murray’s recently published ests, such as “finding the boyfriend them to look at things. Fiction writ- The Abbess of Andalusia paints the within.” In Flannery, his proclivity is ing is very seldom a matter of saying spiritual portrait of O’Connor and her reflected in his discussions of sexual- things; it is a matter of showing things.” writing that Flannery lacks. ity, and he seems disconcerted by From childhood, Flannery Two of Gooch’s statements appear O’Connor’s apparent chastity. He does, O’Connor was defiantly different, to be the key to understanding his however, allow O’Connor to speak, a taciturn loner who was to find approach to Flannery O’Connor; they and she is eloquent: “As for lesbian- herself at home in the thirteenth definitely color it. ism, I regard that as any other form century with Thomas Aquinas. In “No matter what routines she did of uncleanness. Purity is the twentieth Georgia, O’Connor stood apart and privately, in her stories she always centuries [sic] dirty word but it is observed others who became grist for presented blacks with dignity,” writes the most mysterious of the virtues.” her stories. Her adult friends were Gooch. His statement is patronizing, Unable to portray O’Connor as a from elsewhere, drawn by her writ- as if he said she always presented lesbian, Gooch presents her as sexu- ing. Writing slowly and meticulously, Indians as noble or gays as supe- ally repressed and naïve, with a lesbian she produced a small corpus of work. rior. O’Connor would have recoiled friend pining in unrequited love for her. “‘She was very serious about her mis- from this generalization. When “a sion in life, and had a sort of destiny,’ student complimented her digni- says Barbara Hamilton. ‘She knew fied, respectful portrayal of a black she was a great writer. She told me so servant,” Gooch recounts earlier, many times.’” “Flannery’s answer went something Although she wrote two novels, like this, ‘No. That’s just the way O’Connor is best known for her short he was.’” O’Connor recognized the stories. With a wry sense of humor, dignity inherent in each person as a “weird imaginings,” and contrari- creature and child of God, but also ness, she is known for the grotesque, depicted fallen nature. Original sin which, given her artistry, is praise. As and free will suffuse her stories. Her Chesterton noted in The Everlast- approach thus makes some people ing Man, artists understand that one uncomfortable. The poet John Crowe branch of the beautiful is the ugly, Ransom visited her writers’ workshop the grotesque. Gooch thoroughly and and chose one of her stories to read artfully describes O’Connor’s upbring- to the class. “When Ransom came ing, family, education, literary style, across the word ‘nigger’, he refused work habits, literary friendships, and to read it aloud, substituting the word the real-life observations and situa- ‘Negro.’ ‘It did spoil the story,’ Flan- tions that underlie her stories, as well nery complained [later]. ‘The people

34 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 He then ends Flannery on a personal have led her to enlightenment: it’s Room”), teaching (“Goodbye, Mr. note with a schmaltzy proclamation of acceptable to read O’Connor despite Chipstein”), and many other subjects. his own homosexuality. her racism and her religion. Those Whether the essays are strictly Brad Gooch’s Flannery is a unfamiliar with Flannery O’Connor’s literary or not, what makes them pleasant read, but my estimation of body of work should begin instead work is the peculiarly “sharp taste it waned as I reflected on what I had with A Good Man is Hard to Find, a for comic incongruity” that Epstein found. For Gooch, O’Connor’s talent collection of her short stories (among himself lays out in his highly pol- trumps her medieval, backward faith. these are masterpieces), and, as she ished prose. Epstein can write finely And, of course, had she not died so said in Mystery and Manners, “just try honed and precise definitions of art young, well, Teilhard de Chardin would to enjoy them.” for Marcel Proust, but dismiss Sartre’s criticisms with the jauntiness of a college student: “Not smart, Sartre.” The sensibility is in many ways that of Chesterton and Shakespeare, which dictates that about the highest and The Incomparable Joseph most serious subjects we must tell jokes. And with Epstein, the jokes are In a Cardboard Belt! Essays Epstein’s cult is also necessarily very funny. Personal, Literary, and Savage small. Responding to a grandchild’s Epstein’s skeptical turn of mind By Joseph Epstein query whether he was “slightly can provide both the funniest and, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007 famous,” Epstein said that indeed to the religious believer, the most 410 pages, $14.95 (paperback) he was, “except no one quite knows frustrating aspect of reading him. On who I am.” Though he is famous for the funny side, the section labeled Reviewed by David Paul Deavel writing “familiar essays,” reading one “Attacks” includes takedowns of some of the longer Epstein pieces requires of the biggest gasbags of the century— ince my mid-twenties I have a certain cultural knowledge that men like Edmund Wilson, George been a member of a small but extends beyond the realm of televi- Steiner, or Harold Bloom. Concerning very devoted literary cult dedi- sion and music trivia. He is, indeed, the third figure, a supposedly great cated to the finely-honed writing a literary man whose tastes run both literary critic: “Bloom is altogether of Joseph Epstein. Epstein made to the purveyors of minor classics like too self-regarding to be among the Shis living for many years teaching Beerbohm and Lord Berners as well as most critical appreciators of literature. literature (without the pretensions of to the mountains of high modernism Most of the time one can’t get around tenure or a doctorate) at Northwestern like Proust. This set of essays, unlike Bloom himself to a clear view of his University and editing The American his earlier collections, includes both subject. Reading him is like watching Scholar, jobs at which he no doubt strictly literary essays on characters a man pirouetting in front of a steamy succeeded, but his real identity is as such as the above, as well as familiar bathroom mirror with a much too the finest (some say only) familiar essays about eating out (“Memoirs of a small towel around him.” Hilarious, essayist in America. His sixth volume Cheap and Finicky Glutton”), vacation but absolutely accurate as a diagnosis. of familiar essays, In a Cardboard travel (“On the Road Again, Alas”), Epstein’s joke about Bloom is that he Belt!, shows that even past seventy he reducing the number of books in his is George Steiner “without the sense still has it. apartment (“Books Won’t Furnish a of humor.” Catch Steiner’s next piece What, you might ask, has the man in the Times Literary Supplement and got? What is it that makes that small find out why Epstein says that “more group who love him keep coming back humorless than Steiner human beings for more? What made the friend who do not come.” introduced me to Epstein decide to The frustrating part of his skepti- date a woman merely on the basis cism is that Epstein sometimes gives of her love for him? (Epstein, that the impression that he has used the is.) The answer might be found in rather less personally demanding Epstein’s description of the criteria religion of literature as a way of avoid- for membership in “The Max Beer- ing an attempt at the questions we bohm Cult.” “Membership in the cult all must face. With all due respect for requires a strong penchant for irony, and understanding of his worry that a skeptical turn of mind, and a sharp literature is “what gets lost when ideas taste for comic incongruity.” Such a are extracted too cleanly from liter- cult, as Epstein notes, is necessarily ary works” and his deep distrust of very small and “always in danger of the reductivism of most intellectuals, guttering out—but never, I’m happy to Epstein’s skepticism sometimes seems report, quite doing so.” to get in the way of finding the wisdom

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he says he looks for in literature. sadly remarked to Epstein, “we’ve but that for him patriotism, “English- Although he poignantly outlines the never spoken about matters of the ness,” and Christianity were “mutually power of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s work heart.” Despite his often penetrating dependent and reinforcing.” in its driving sense that “[n]o human reflections on social, mental, and emo- This trinity, in turn, stood against drama has been devised that can tional life, Epstein himself hasn’t yet a counter-trinity of cosmopolitanisms compare or compete with the drama of gone as deep as he could in probing (at least two of which remain powerful salvation,” he admits in another essay the wisdom of man. today). These are imperialism, inter- that “oblivion” is what he suspects Beerbohm never liked being called nationalism, and pacifism. Chesterton, waits for him at the grave’s edge, the “incomparable Max.” “Compare the Christian patriot, deployed his though he’s never found any certainty me, compare me,” he’d say. How “fighting faith” against all three during about it, or if God exists. does one compare the incomparable a lifetime when they took turns loom- I’ve always been haunted by his Joseph? Though not probing to the ing very large indeed in the life of recollection in an earlier essay about deepest levels of life, he remains an England and the world beyond. his friend, the eccentrically brilliant, inseparable companion to the rest of Cosmopolitans, then and now, but somewhat more religiously certain them. If you’re not part of the cult yet, claim to love humanity. Fair enough. Edward Shils. Shils on his deathbed you’re in for a treat. But problems quickly arise when they have to deal with actual human beings. The key problem, as Chesterton often pointed out, is that cosmopolitans hate the very things that ordinary people love, things like “flags and drums and The Politics of Politeness drinks and crowds and bonfires.” It must be conceded that the young Chesterton was a cosmopolitan of sorts during his brief flirtation with Christianity, Patriotism, and Nationhood: G.K. Chesterton was nothing if not imperialism. But once it dawned on The England of G.K. Chesterton polite and unfashionable and anti-fas- him that imperialism had nothing to do By Julia Stapleton cist. If Julia Stapleton is right, and in with protecting England and every- Rowman and Littlefield, 2009 the main she surely is, the ever-polite thing to do with wielding power, he 238 pages, $32.95 (paperback) GKC was more than slightly unfashion- rapidly abandoned it. able in his own time. And if GKC was All brands of cosmopolitanism Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg and remains right, and in the main he come in for Chestertonian criticism surely is, he would still be dismissed t is much the fashion today to in these pages. Kipling, the imperial- as thoroughly unfashionable today. separate and debunk the very ist, “admired,” rather than loved, He might even be accused of fascism. commitments that were joined and England. Tolstoy, the pacifist, spoke It’s likely that he would continue to celebrated by the young (and not “bewildering nonsense” when he politely accept the dismissal—and deny so young) G.K. Chesterton. Today claimed to have the “same love for all the accusation. IChristians are commonly encour- men.” And Wilson, the international- Which came first for Chesterton? aged to regard patriotism as somehow ist, promoted a League of Nations that Was it Christianity or patriotism or beneath them, if not also beneath Chesterton thought could be more what Stapleton terms “nationhood?” contempt. When patriotism is deemed Stapleton herself opts for patriotism. In acceptable at all, it is only accepted fact, her central argument is that Ches- on strictly secular terms. And nation- terton’s “ancestral disposition toward hood? The term itself smacks of patriotism was instrumental in guiding nationalism, an even more reprehen- him to [sic] the Christian fold.” If not sible “ism” than patriotism. If genuine truly a Christian until he had thought emotions of patriotism have at best a his way there, Chesterton was always a questionable place in polite company, patriot, even when he was an unthink- politicized displays of nationalism ing one. This is not to suggest that he have no place at all. Nationalism, after did not have to search for England all, strikes many as uncomfortably as he searched for God. For search close to the ultimately reprehensible he did, “beneath...multiple layers of “ism” that is fascism. And polite (read concealment, denial, and mistaken fashionable) company is by definition identity.” anti-fascist. Its default position is label- The thrust of Stapleton’s story is ing its enemies as fascist. Could polite to recount this search, a search which company ever so much as imagine that culminated not just in the discovery the term might be legitimately applied that he was a Christian and a patriot, to itself? Never.

36 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 accurately defined as a “League to Chesterton also worried that two of “Englishness?” Once again the answer Abolish Nations.” these three would continue to weaken would likely be “no.” Chesterton welcomed Presi- England in the future, namely the Ref- In keeping with the general tone of dent Wilson’s belated decision to ormation and Islam. Christianity, Patriotism, and Nation- join England’s fight against Prussian In a chapter titled “Authenticity, hood, which reads like the doctoral “barbarism” in 1917. Sadly, Stapleton the English, and the Jews,” Stapleton dissertation it might well have been, notes, the “principles of patriotism is properly hesitant to label Chesterton Stapleton chooses her words very and nationhood” for which Chester- an anti-Semite. But she is not at all carefully. In fairness to her, she is not ton fought lost “much of their cutting hesitant to flirt with such a judgment— preoccupied with labeling her sub- edge” following the Great War. This Chesterton’s conception of “English ject as anything other than a faithful was a risk that Chesterton was will- authenticity” may not have been Christian, a solid Englishman, and a ing to take at the time, given his defined by anti-Semitism, she purports, loyal patriot. More than that, unlike the long-standing conviction that England but surely was “colored by it.” She Prussians he forever opposed, Chester- would ultimately have no choice but to criticizes his “sweeping generaliza- ton’s sense of “Englishness” was rooted wage war against a Prussia-dominated tions about the inability of the Jews in a cultural—not a racial—conception Germany. to integrate into the nations in which of “nationhood.” Unfortunately for him While the heart of Stapleton’s they settled, or to inspire confidence in and for the rest of the world, the Great treatment of Chesterton’s England their loyalty.” War that was World War I first exacer- deals with the pre-1914 period, she Could a Jew be a true English bated and then gravely worsened the does take her story to World War II patriot? In Stapleton’s judgment, Ches- very problem of Prussian racialism that by way of suggesting that Chesterton terton would answer “no.” But by the Chesterton had long warned against, would have welcomed Churchill’s war- same token could any non-Englishman thereby paving the way for a dema- time leadership. She also contends that satisfy Chesterton’s requirements gogue far worse than Frederick the Chesterton would have identified with for becoming an authentic English Great, Bismarck, or the Kaiser, and the the “notion of heroic national char- patriot by way of acquiring true greater war that was World War II. acter” that drove so much of that war effort, Churchill’s imperialist ambitions notwithstanding. At the same time, it is Stapleton’s judgment that the English story since World War II would not have been much to Chesterton’s liking. As she Lord Ivywood Lives…in Canada puts it, the very things that Chesterton championed, namely “patriotism, the English ‘soul,’ and nationhood,” have Shakedown: How Our Government political nightmare of Lord Ivywood in fallen on “stony soil” in the decades is Undermining Democracy in The Flying Inn. since the defeat of Hitler. In sum, if the Name of Human Rights In the late 1970s, Canadian post-World War I England was a disap- By Ezra Levant Human Rights Commissions (CHRCs) pointment to Chesterton, he would Toronto, Ontario: McClelland & Stewart, 2009 were formed in an attempt to prevent have looked upon post-World War II 232 pages, $25.95 (hardcover; discrimination against minorities developments as a disaster. $15.95, paperback) and to provide recommendations on Complicating Stapleton’s story public policy. Over the course of the even further are three additional, and By Chris Chan next three decades, however, CHRCs not necessarily unrelated, phenomena zra Levant’s Shakedown is a throughout Canada began to take on with cosmopolitan overtones all their book that is both infuriating new responsibilities and powers that own. These are the Reformation, Islam, and inspirational. The political were not delegated to them. In recent and the Jews. All drew Chesterton’s corruption that he describes years, these commissions have moved attention well before either world war, ought to enrage citizens of any beyond their original duties of investi- and each commands Stapleton’s atten- Enation, but Levant’s willingness to gating cases of potential discrimination tion in this book. Here Chesterton endanger his personal finances and to advancing an agenda contending continued to part company with polite position in order to protect the rights that the government has a right, duty, opinion. And here Stapleton begins to of all Canadians will endear him to and mission to eradicate behavior that part company with Chesterton. readers. Always intelligent and sympa- it dubs “hatred” through the trial, con- Stapleton contends that it was thetic, Levant creates a compelling and viction, and punishment of those found Chesterton’s judgment that two of endearing narrative that shows just to be insufficiently enlightened. these three phenomena had contrib- how prescient Chesterton could be: CHRCs were meant to serve as uted to weakening England during his the world of the Canadian bureaucracy legal advisories preventing discrimina- lifetime, namely the Reformation and in Shakedown replicates the twisted tion. People suffering from persecution the Jews. She further suggests that

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 37 : B o o K r e v i e w s : due to ethnic or religious identity were with well-honed arguments that savage In 2006, Levant, a lawyer, writer, to turn to these commissions for jus- CHRC assertions. and political activist, came under tice. Over time they have, under their Americans are likely to forget fire from a CHRC for publishing the own accord, assumed more and more that the United States is one of the infamous Danish cartoons of Muham- powers over Canadians (the precise few countries in the world, even the mad in his political magazine. When jurisdictions varying from province to Western world, to have constitutionally the plaintiffs in the suit tried to compel province) until today, acting as official guaranteed freedom of speech. Canada Levant to publish a lengthy rebuttal censors, CHRCs inform Canadians has no equivalent of the First Amend- essay and pay damages, Levant ignored that they cannot voice certain opin- ment. Indeed, as one Canadian official the popular wisdom and chose to fight. ions, that they cannot profess certain scoffed, “Free speech is an American Levant filmed his interrogations by religious beliefs, and that they cannot concept, so I don’t give it any value.” the CHRC, posted them on YouTube, offend members of “protected groups” Furthermore, many European coun- and started a blog (ezralevant.com) in for any reason whatsoever. tries routinely exert control over public order to sway popular opinion. Courts only in the loosest sense discourse in order to maintain their Levant’s practical tactics worked. of the word, CHRCs do not observe ideal of social harmony. The United He swiftly gained allies and, contrary to standard rules of law. In these tri- Nations has passed resolutions for all expectations, numerous legal rulings bunals, CHRC judges decide what is years at the pressure of certain nations, in Levant’s favor followed. CHRCs in acceptable and what isn’t based solely crushing debates and asking that general took a public relations beating on their own whims. Anyone can file criticisms of certain groups be judged from all segments of society. Although a complaint against anyone at any illegal hate speech. Perhaps no other significant progress has been made over time: even the most illegibly scribbled so-called Western democracy powerful the past two years, free speech still isn’t complaint is given serious treatment. enough to impose censorship has been free in Canada. Shakedown should be It costs a complainant nothing to given the means and institutionaliza- required reading for Chestertonians if accuse someone of violating human tion now found in Canada, and Levant only to provide evidence to the unwary rights, but defendants must pay for repeatedly calls for U.S.-style First that their man had preternatural legal costs themselves. Many individu- Amendment protections to be spread powers for identifying the social and als have gone bankrupt fighting an throughout the world. political problems of the future. accusation from someone who doesn’t like what they have to say. CHRCs are blatantly one-sided in the cases they accept; complaints of favored “minor- ity groups” are taken as a matter of course. CHRCs routinely prosecute Christians and political conservatives A Guide to Poetry For for alleged “hate crimes.” Christians, particularly Catholics, who try to file Those Who Hate It grievances with these commissions find almost invariably that CHRCs A Sudden Certainty and how great the big man Gilbert is, dismiss their suits immediately. By Dwight Longenecker but God forbid we should actually read Worst of all, truth is not a defense, kaufmannpublishing.com, 2009 his books and discuss them! A ten- nor is fair comment. Should a commis- 48 pages, $11.95 (hardcover) dency, I have heard, that exhibits itself sion believe that what a defendant says A Poem of the New Creation in other local societies as well. And the or writes or does exposes someone to By Peter Milward, S.J. one thing people have the most trouble “hatred or contempt,” the defendant kaufmannpublishing.com, 2009 with is poetry. Even members who may be subject to financial penalties 96 pages, $11.95 (hardcover) read Chesterton’s essays will flinch at or compelled to issue a public apology. his poems. Many people, even Chester- In extreme cases, a CHRC tribunal Mysteries and Stations in tonians, are suspicious of poetry. may order someone to cease certain the Manner of Ignatius Several months ago I reviewed kinds of communication altogether. By Pavel Chichikov for this magazine Divining Divinity, a CHRCs have decided who can enter kaufmannpublishing.com, 2005 collection of poems by Joseph Pearce, the public debate and who cannot, and 48 pages, $10.95 (hardcover) published by Kaufmann Publishing, what can and cannot be said. Their a small publishing house that has justification? Supporters contend that Reviewed by Kevin O’Brien dedicated itself to—of all things—collec- CHRC rulings remove hatred and ne of the surprising things tions of poetry. Now before you skim unpleasantness from the public sphere, about my local Chesterton to another article, or go running from and that restrictions on speech are society is anti-intellectualism. the room in terror, or laugh derisively necessary for the smooth functioning Members prefer to sit and gripe at the folly of such a business model, of Canadian society. Levant strongly about how awful the culture is, consider these lines by Father Dwight disagrees, and Shakedown is filled O 38 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : B o o K r e v i e w s :

grasped with a little research—or better tell us about the importance of prayer? yet a little reflection. Take, for example, Does God simply work automatically these lines by Fr. Peter Milward from A without us and without our calling Poem of the New Creation: out to Him, our yearning for Him, our desire to unite with Him in our deepest Then in the prayer of the Virgin Mary and most silent places? Appeared the angel Gabriel These few words, “Then in the Descending as if from distant ages prayer of the Virgin Mary,” imply what Bearing the promise long awaited it just took me a paragraph to spell out. Now at last fulfilled within her This is part of what poetry does. At first glance, though, the verse is Now look at a more difficult poem, not rhyming and the meter throughout and a tremendous one. This is from this book is irregular, and one wonders “The Proclamation of the Kingdom” by why this counts as poetry. It’s because Pavel Chichikov in Mysteries and Sta- poetry, even when not rhyming or tions in the Manner of Ignatius. clearly metrical, is at least an attempt To see the ripple in Siloam’s pool, to reflect the barely expressible Longenecker (from A Sudden Cer- The wheat that grows, the harvest and through words that are ordered and tainty), a student’s plea to his priest: the yield structured, its very order and structure Is to be shown the passing of the soul: No, no, Father, please don’t toss the reflecting the ordered and structured Here we are, we die, the tomb is mike nature of the poem’s subject. sealed like a DJ when you preach. Please In this case, there appears to be don’t be cool. nothing hard to understand in these But as the flowered galaxies decay, Please don’t ride a Harley motorbike few lines, but think about what Fr. The stone of death itself is rolled away, when you come to school. Milward is saying. Read the poem And as the ripples of Siloam die backwards for a moment—fulfilled Scales of blindness tumble from the Don’t wear red cowboy boots for within Mary is the promise long eye Pentecost, awaited borne by the angel Gabriel, and tell dumb jokes to be our pal. And as the wheat is sickled from the who appeared in the prayer of the Please don’t “high five,” stalk, Virgin. It is Mary’s prayer that brings say, “Sweet!” “Awesome!” “You suck!” The leper’s cured, the crippled beg- this about, her prayer that preceded or “You’re toast!” gars walk, her fiat, her yes to God. The poet is Don’t teach us how to jive. And as the servant stands from his telling us that before the offer and the sickbed, Don’t sing to the latest pop band; acceptance, before the fulfillment of Wine is Christ, infinity is bread. You don’t need to be hip and up to the promise that became the Incarna- date, tion, the field is prepared by prayer, Siloam’s pool is the pool in which Or come to our parties with a drink in by Mary’s longing for the Lord, by her Christ instructed the blind man to your hand, talking to Him in her heart, by her wash so that he would be cured. trying to relate. relationship with Him. What does this Chichikov shows us the ripples in this pool, the passing waves that pass and Play it straight. Say the black and do die away in the same way that wheat the red. grows and is harvested by the sickle, Refrain from politics and rainbow pins. itself an image of death. Even the very Pray for all of us, the living and the “flowered galaxies” decay—and in these dead, images we see the passing away of our and listen to our sins. very souls—“Here we are, we die, the “Say the black and do the red” tomb is sealed.” refers to the missal, which serves as But “the stone of death itself is the priest’s “script” for Holy Mass. rolled away,” and in the passing of the The priest says the words printed in ripples of the waters of Siloam, “scales black ink (his lines) and performs the of blindness tumble from the eye”—an actions indicated in red ink (a kind of image that encompasses not only all of stage direction). How much simpler life the miraculous cures of blindness by would be if priests would do that. Jesus, but also the cure of St. Paul, at So, you see, you can understand whose conversion and healing scales poetry. And the stuff that may be fell from his eyes. As the wheat dies harder to understand (such as “Say (and is “sickled”, a marvelous word), the black and do the red”) can be the lepers are cured and the crippled

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We are pleased to offer our readers another poem by the revered Aidan Mackey. This obituary for George Maxwell and its accompa- nying verses appeared originally in 1957 in The Distributist. —Ed.

are walking. And yet we are not left with images of healing and rebirth only, for the image of the “sickled” and sac- rificed wheat is carried through to the last line, where “wine is Christ, infinity is bread.” Notice how the poet weaves the images of death and despair into the images of life and health and resur- rection—how at the end even death itself is transformed as Christ, who is infinity, becomes bread (the Eucharist), the fruit of His death and that which sustains us. Now in pointing out to all of you poetry-haters and anti-intellectuals the merits of these verses, I am missing much of the point. For the meaning of any good poem, the revelations that come from meditating on any good poem, can not in all fairness be separated from the way the poem is expressed, from its words and meter. The beauty of Chichikov’s poem is not simply the beauty of its sentiments or its philosophy. Its beauty cannot be sev- ered (or you might say “sickled”) from the words and phrases that the poet so carefully chooses and, guided by the muse, arranges. The spirit of the poem and the stuff of a poem go together. The same can be said for people. We are composite creatures, souls enfleshed. We are walking poems. And in learning to understand poems, we can learn to understand much more than the poems themselves. Divining Divinity (2008) by Joseph Pearce is available from kaufmannpublishing.com for $10.95.

40 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : C h e s t e r t o n u n i v e r s i t y : correctness and multi-culturalism square in the face. Chesterton describes An Introduction to the Writings of G.K. Chesterton by Dale Ahlquist how the League of Nations was attempting to erect a sculpture as an International Peace Memorial. The Notes from an Island sculptor’s design was rejected because it contained a Christian symbol. It The Glass Walking Stick was not Buddhists or Moslems from Asia who objected, however; it was the .K. Chesterton lived on an Chesterton’s 1,600 Illustrated London Europeans. Pagan symbols could be island. It was called England. News columns were collected into used, but not Christian. Why they were And yet, he was strangely “envi- books during his lifetime. Almost two proud of paganism but embarrassed by ous” of another island, the one decades after he died, his secretary, Christianity was not well explained. But where Robinson Crusoe was Dorothy Collins, went to that vast mine Chesterton explains it. The problem is Gshipwrecked. It had something to do of uncollected “Our Note-book” essays not non-Christians from a non-Christian with the mystic in him, the longing for and put together this volume. It is culture, but anti-Christians from a quiet contemplation, for self-sufficiency, probably the least-known of the posthu- Christian culture. It certainly creates a for the poetry of limits, the romance of mous Chesterton books that Dorothy dilemma: in a culture created by Chris- thrift. It even had something to do with Collins assembled. tianity, what are the symbols for peace? why he enjoyed books. “This desire to The striking title comes from the Chesterton’s criticism of the nar- be wrecked on an island,” he writes, first essay in the collection (see page rowness of fads and fashions is itself 9), which evokes an image of Chester- partly arises from an idea which is at timeless, even as the particular fads tonian paradox, for walking sticks are the root of all the arts—the idea of sepa- and fashions change. He points out not normally made of glass. And sticks ration. Romance seeks to divide certain how people talk about change “as if the don’t normally walk, for that matter. people from the lump of humanity, as change were unchangeable.” the statue is divided from the lump of marble. We read a good novel not The latest opinion is always infal- in order to know more people, but in libly right and always inevitably wrong. order to know fewer. Instead of the It is right because a new generation of humming swarm of human beings, young people are tired of things, and relatives, customers, servants, postmen, wrong because another generation of afternoon callers, tradesmen, strang- young people will be tired of them. ers who tell us the time, strangers While the Chesterton essays are, of who remark on the weather, beggars, waiters, and telegraph-boys—instead of course, delightful, one of the best things this bewildering human swarm which about this volume is the introduction passes us every day, fiction asks us to by Arthur Bryant, the columnist who follow one figure (say the postman) succeeded Chesterton at the Illustrated consistently through his ecstasies and London News. Chesterton had written agonies. That is what makes one so the weekly “Our Note-book” column for impatient with that type of pessimistic thirty-one years, right up until his death rebel who is always complaining of the in June of 1936. Bryant was asked to narrowness of his life, and demanding fill in as columnist until a permanent a larger sphere. Life is too large for us replacement could be found. Apparently as it is: we have all too many things there was trouble finding that perma- to attend to. All true romance is an attempt to simplify it, to cut it down to nent replacement because Bryant filled plainer and more pictorial proportions. But the essay itself is about a most in for the next forty years. Between the What dullness there is in our life arises pleasantly surprising paradox: the trea- two, they wrote the “Our Note-book” mostly from its rapidity: people pass us sures of the poor. Keeping the theme column for seventy-one years. too quickly to show us their interesting going, there is another essay in the col- Bryant gives a glorious tribute to side. By the end of the week we have lection called “A Walking Paradox.” his predecessor: “Chesterton spent his talked to a hundred bores; whereas, if The remainder of Dorothy Collins’ whole life in teaching others how to we had stuck to one of them, we might selection includes a number of pieces live. Even today the sound of his name have found ourselves talking to a new about Spain and France, about English is like a trumpet-call. To him the world friend, or a humourist, or a murderer, literature and English history, includ- was a field in which one went about or a man who had seen a ghost. ing his columns following the deaths of doing battle with evil in order that good This passage comes from “The two monarchs, Edward VII in 1910 and might endure…If any literary name Inside of Life,” one of the Chesterton George V in 1927. of our generation becomes a legend essays in the collection called The On a prophetic note, there is transcending letters, it will, I believe, Glass Walking Stick. Only a fraction of one essay that hits today’s political be his.”

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 41 : F e a r o f f i l m : ever to give the Nazi salute when the occasion normally demanded it—none of these make a whit of difference to a certain type of self-righteous puritan who would arbitrate morals by treating mere inquiry and accusation as proof In Its Darkest Hour of guilt. In the case of some Allied interrogators, these were types of the Taking Sides (2001) be a small party to the evil. One other priggish fools Wendell Berry had in Directed by Istvan Szabo possibility is left—one often hopelessly Written by Ronald Harwood confused with the latter: Those who Reviewed by Art Livingston remain and say in the words of master conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, “I hen a person’s native would not leave my country in its dark- country deteriorates into est hour.” barbarism and tyranny, he After World War II, Dr. Furt- is left with two choices—flee wangler was held in custody and or remain. Fear may cause interrogated repeatedly; as a result he Wflight, and who would blame such a underwent three separate trials during move? Perhaps he leaves to join some the Allies’ de-Nazification effort and attempt to liberate his land, and the was acquitted every time. To under- world properly applauds him as a hero. score: he was thrice exonerated. Why Then again, he may stay, with sad three times? Furtwangler was Hitler’s adjustment. Much of human experi- favorite conductor. Even though he ence is like that, and even former saved many people, Jewish and other- enemies in battle tend to forgive such wise, from certain death, even though people eventually. Those who do not he finally fled Germany shortly before leave may fight openly and die almost he was to be labeled an enemy of the instantly, or quietly cooperate and thus Reich, even though he contrived not

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42 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : F e a r o f f i l m : mind when he wrote about historical at any pseudo-moralist who fancies major got off and escaped what was self-righteousness, those who tell them- himself the scion of political indigna- coming to him. selves “...if we had lived south of the tion. This statement is applicable not As the credits for Taking Sides Ohio in 1830, we would have owned no only to 1945 Germany, but also to rolled, one idea became implanted slaves; if we had lived on the frontier, 2010 United States: “If you are going in my mind. I had just been taught we would have killed no Indians, vio- to bully me like this, Major, you better an important lesson, and not the lated no treaties, stolen no land.” do your homework. You have no idea one I have been blathering about. I Taking Sides stars Harvey Keitel how impertinent and stupid your ques- too must learn not to feel about the as such a man, an American offi- tions are.” Major the kind of false indignation cer who is an insurance salesman Director Istvan Szabo gives the he put on constant display toward a stateside, and who has all but hanged Major the last word, and it is difficult great man. One image also remains the maestro in what we must call his for the audience not to blush for a man firmly implanted in my mind—that mind. This fellow makes the Ugly capable of such culpable naivety. In a of a foolish nonentity snapping Wil- American by comparison seem like voice over, he narrates the last lines of liam Furtwangler’s baton right into something depicted on the Grecian the movie, telling us how Hitler’s drum his face. Urn. So sure is this little man that he will trip up “the Fuhrer’s bandleader,” he employes every trick he learned from Gestapo Tactics 101; were he i N P r a i s e O F P h r a s e s to proceed any further he would ”Half our speech consists of similes that remind us of no similarity; picto- become something of a war criminal rial phrases that call up no picture; of historical allusions the origin of which himself. I think he does understand we have forgotten.” —G.K. Chesterton that much, but just barely. His German secretary and his Jewish- “Going bananas.” Mario Scarpa (1923–1987) American assistant are appalled at his cheap efforts at wit, his unre- The phrase seems an odd choice for conveying the idea that someone lenting (but thoroughly believable) is silly, crazy, or going berserk, for what bananas have to do with these boorishness, as well as his ham-fisted subjects is by no means clear. In a perfect example of folk etymology, some attempts at thuggery. have claimed the phrase is related to “monkey business” and stems from the Another famous conductor, we playful antics of monkeys and their love of bananas. But the truth seems no learn, had actually been a member less farfetched. of the Nazi party, but was not subject In 1968, comedian, impressionist, and television performer Scarpa, to any trial or harassment, and found using his stage name of Guy Marks, penned the words and music to one of work as a conductor for the three the silliest hit songs in the history of recorded music—a parody of the tame years Furtwangler was on the shelf and uninspiring lyrics so typical of the dance band era—and the earliest defending himself. Because Furwan- recorded use of “bananas” for “loony”: gler was Hitler’s favorite, however, the New York Philharmonic withdrew its offer for him to become its permanent Oh your red scarf matches your eyes. musical director. Furwangler never You closed the cover before striking. conducted outside Europe again after Father had the ship-fitter blues. the war, even after he had unmistak- Loving you has made me bananas. ably proved his innocence. I wonder what happened to that other conduc- You burned your fingers that evening tor, a guy named von Karajan? “Come While my back was turned. clean! What was your party number!” I asked the waiter for iodine, Toward the end of the film, Stel- But I dined all alone. lan Skarsgaard as Furtwangler at last responds in a manner other than a Oh your red scarf matches your eyes. measured and dignified response to the questions put to him. The secre- You closed the cover before striking. tary and the assistant lower their heads Father had the ship-fitter blues. in shame, with all the embarrassment Loving you has made me bananas. we often feel for the obtuse, their quiet anger tempered by a palpable Guy Marks appeared as a comic actor in films as well as TV, but his first revulsion they feel at the admixture of love was performing as an impressionist in nightclubs, on television variety ignorance with a touch of cruelty. The shows, and in Los Vegas casinos. audience feels relief when Furtwangler finally says what should be trumpeted

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 43 : t h e d i s t r i b u t i s t : CEOs have always had the right to Economics as if People Mattered say whatever they liked, to support whatever candidate they wanted, to go to whatever rallies they wished, and to write letters to the editor when- ever they felt the need. That is, they enjoyed all the rights of free speech that every other citizen has, so long as they used their own money. But the CEOs did not want to be treated like any other citizen; Welcome to the Plutocracy they wanted something much more By John Médaille important: they wanted to use their companies’ treasuries—money that rightfully belongs to the investors and hief Justice Roberts laid out only at the sufferance of the judges. the workers—to control the political the basic principle of sound Alas, Hizoner violated his own process. Mark Hanna, the Republican jurisprudence as “if it is not principle to overturn, at a single King-maker of the early twentieth- necessary to decide an issue, it stroke, more than one hundred years century, said that two things were is necessary not to decide the of legislation and judicial precedent paramount in politics. “The first is Cissue.” In other words, courts should with the recent ruling in Citizens money, and I can’t remember what deal only with the issues presented United v. Federal Election Commis- the second one is.” That “second to them, and not go beyond them to sion. The issues before the court were thing”—and everything else—will soon “legislate from the bench.” The habit simple enough. A conservative political be forgotten by everyone else, since of judge-made law has saddled America corporation, Citizens United, wished to the new rule allows corporate execu- with some of its most dubious features, run attack ads against Hillary Clinton tives to use the company treasury such as abortion on demand. Without within thirty days of the Ohio primary, to influence political contests. Since judicial restraint, the judiciary replaces but this is forbidden by the McCain- these resources are measured in the the legislature as the ultimate source Feingold Act. CU found a clever way trillions of dollars, there will be an of our laws, and the legislature exists around the law: they produced an inexhaustible source of funds with attack movie, and then ran advertise- which to command the political ments for the movie, claiming they powers. But this money is supposed Although the First Amendment were not political ads within the mean- to be invested to increase the profits provides that “Congress shall make ing of the act. The FEC refused to go of the corporation. And it will be. along with the ruse, and CU sued. CU no law…abridging the freedom of Politics are treated like any other was merely asking the court to bless speech,” §441b’s prohibition on cor- investment and expected to get a its end-run around the campaign laws, porate independent expenditures is return, a return in the form of sub- and on these grounds the case was an outright ban on speech, backed by sidies and favorable tax treatment. originally heard. But the majority of criminal sanctions. It is a ban notwith- And as David Brooks noted, corpora- the court, for reasons not yet known, standing the fact that a PAC created tions also want rules which protect asked for a re-hearing of the case them from smaller and more nimble by a corporation can still speak, for on wider grounds, a re-hearing that competitors. In other words, they will a PAC is a separate association from was peculiar in that it took place on use the political process to control the the corporation. Because speech is September 9th, a full month before the economic process. an essential mechanism of democ- court’s normal session. With this rule, the corporations racy—it is the means to hold officials In ruling on the issues presented are formally in charge of the gov- accountable to the people—political to it, the court upheld the FEC against ernment of the United States. But CU. But on the issues that were no part speech must prevail against laws corporations are not capable of run- of the original case, they voluntarily that would suppress it by design or ning a country, save for running it into threw out restrictions against corpo- inadvertence. Laws burdening such the ground. Indeed, they can barely rate funding of campaigns, restrictions speech are subject to strict scrutiny, run their own enterprises without sup- that date back to 1907 and have been which requires the Government to port from the public purse. Now, the upheld by every court since then, in prove that the restriction “furthers a line between the corporate treasury test after test. This is not evolution, but and the public purse—already stretched compelling interest and is narrowly revolution, and a revolution predicated very thin—will completely dissolve. tailored to achieve that interest.” on some very peculiar grounds. America will be formally a plutocracy The court majority treated this —from Citizens United v. Federal and substantially a kleptocracy. as a “free speech” case. Yet, this is Election Commission Yet for all that, there is some jus- somewhat perplexing. As far as I know, tification for the court’s attack on the

44 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : th e d i s t r i b u t i s t :

campaign finance laws. Indeed, they one may examine. At least we would contempt for judicial restraint, are only recognizing what is practically know the truth of the situation, and original intent, and deference to an already established fact. Money while this truth may not set us free, it the legislature. The ruling is noth- will always find its way to power, and will at least let us know where we stand. ing short of a coup, a fundamental where there are large concentrations But we can go further in this change in the structure of the of wealth, they will come to own the truth-telling to include truth-in- America polity. It will work not only political powers; they will become the labeling. Each congressman will be to the defeat of democracy, but to state. The current miserable situation required to wear those NASCAR suits the destruction of what’s left of the in campaign financing is the result of which prominently display the names small businessman. From this day the last abysmal reform, with attempts of their corporate sponsors. So the forward, no one will hold office who to correct the problems of the previous typical congress thing might have does not have the approval of the reform, and so on back to the Tillman Big Pharma on his chest, Exxon on corporations, no small business will Act of 1907. All the law can do is to his ass, and the big banks running exist save by their sufferance. raise what roadblocks it can, for as up and down his arms. Each politi- But it will not last. Greed long as it can, until the powers that be cian would be required to begin and consumes everything, until it finally find a new way around the laws. And end each speech with the statement consumes itself. Corporations are then we begin again. “This message brought to you by incapable of running a govern- So what’s to be done? Well, if you ...” and list the names of his three ment, except for running it into can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Recognize top contributors. And each bill will the ground. The bankruptcy of this the reality that power follows property, be required to bear the logos of its country is already far advanced, as Daniel Webster noted. Allow the corporate sponsors. This won’t make and the process will be accelerated corporations to give as much as they politics any more democratic, but it by making it an open kleptocracy. like. However require that all donations might make it a lot more honest. So, welcome to the plutocracy; to any cause or candidate be instantly With the Citizens United ruling, enjoy while it lasts, which will not posted on the group’s Web site that any the court revealed the depth of its be long.

Modern Literature ;;The modern novel has gone through a series of stages, mood, which is in fact a primitive and almost prehistoric of which the first might be stamped with the general mood. (New York American, Feb. 28, 1934) motto of “Boys will be Boys.” Then came the earnest ;;Henry James’ long stories were much too long, but in late-Victorian novel of emancipation and the ethics of short stories even he had to stick to the point, though he sex, which might bear the motto “Girls will be Boys.” And was a little like a man everlastingly sharpening the point finally, we are left with the very latest psychological and of a pencil till it broke out of sheer sharpness, and he neurotic sort of novel, which seems to carry the cogni- patiently started again. (New York zance of “Boys won’t be Boys.” (New American, Dec. 16, 1933) York American, March 10, 1934) ;;It is not our light literature, but ;;Modern philosophy has taken the our heavy literature that is fraudu- life out of the modern fiction.( Illus- lent. (Daily News, March 23, 1907) trated London News, March 8, 1930) ;;In expressing confused ideas, ;;Whitman’s free verse had all the the moderns have great subtlety virtues of democracy; modern free and sympathy. It is in expressing verse has all the vices of aristoc- clear ideas that they generally find racy. (New York American, Dec. 9, 1933) their limitations. (Illustrated London ;;There is not any subject about News, Sept. 12, 1931) which a modern writer may not ;;I would rather have the man who write a play, especially if it is a bad devotes a short story to saying play. (Introduction to The New World of the that he can solve the problem Theatre) of a murder in Margate than the ;;Eugene O’Neill, apart from many man who devotes a whole book other talents and twists and turns to saying that he cannot solve the of invention, has hitherto been problem of things in general. (“Sher- the finest expression of a modern lock Holmes,” A Handful of Authors)

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 45 : C h e s t e r t o n ’ s m a i l b a g :

Gilbert Keith Chesterton Answers His Mail riddle is not found in the Pleiades at a certain distance from the earth, any more than it is in the earth at a certain distance from the Pleiades. Religion in Theatre and Your friend, G.K. Chesterton Science in Religion (“Ibsen,” A Handful of Authors)

; ; ; Dear Mr. Chesterton, principle of the speech and the reply Should Religion be in a Theatre? which is the bifurcation at the very Signed, beginning of all drama, which seems Dear Mr. Chesterton, G. Pshaw to have launched the Greek plays I have a simple question regarding before anyone knew that they existed, the doctrine of the Fall: “How could a ; ; ; and which still endures in the chief perfect man be able to fall?” services of the Christian Church. But Signed, whether or no these Scriptures origi- R. Blatchford Dear Mr. Pshaw, nally were plays, there is no kind of Whose Religion in whose Theatre? Dear Mr. Blatchford, doubt that they were turned into plays, If the religion of the Quakers (which All right. I have only to add one age after age, year after year, day after consists of quietude and listening for trifling question: “How could a perfect day, by the great majority of those who an inner voice) were presented at man be unable to fall?” Is it not evi- have professed and called themselves the Moulin Rouge, I should think it dent that a perfect man ought to have Christians for close on two thousand unfair to the Quakers. If, on the other power, courage, endurance, self-control, years. To say that Scripture must hand, the religion of the Thugs (which discrimination, and such things; and is not be put on the stage is far more consists of strangling people) were it not obvious that he would not have unorthodox and far more unhistorical practically presented at the Comedy them unless he was capable of being than it would be to say that it must not Theatre, I should think it unfair to the afraid of danger, or moved towards be read with spectacles or must not be Comedy Theatre. There cannot, in temptation, or perplexed with difficulty. put on a bookshelf. the flat face of history, be any Chris- A perfect man, in other words, must be Your friend, tian objection to Bible stories being able to fall, and not able to fall; we are G.K. Chesterton presented as plays. Unquestionably, a all of us trying (violently) to be perfect (Illustrated London News, Sept. 27, 1913) great number of them have that dual men, and yet the thing which we are giving at is a contradiction in terms. ; ; ; The question of Free Will is, of course, entirely of the same character. Dear Mr. Chesterton, Your friend, How do we know that G.K. Chesterton two and two do not make (Daily News, Nov. 14, 1903) five in the fixed stars? ; ; ; H. Ibsen Dear Mr. Ibsen, Dear Mr. Chesterton, At least as well as we The Hindus teach that the earth know there are any fixed stands on an elephant and the ele- stars. The very distinction phant stands on a tortoise. In your between fixed and unfixed capacity as Brahmin, how do you stars is only established by answer the taunts of those who ask, pages of mathematics; or, what does the tortoise stand on? in other words, by assum- Signed, ing about two thousand M. Singh times over that two and Dear Mr. Singh, two do not make five. That I answer sternly, “He stands on his there is a mental limit in dignity, and declines to answer imperti- man, at which mathemat- nent questions.” ics also become mysteries, Your friend, is quite true; but it has G.K. Chesterton nothing to do with a vulgar (New York American, Oct. 8, 1932) test of locality; and the

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❏ Visa ❏ Mc ❏ Amex ❏ Disc # (Or include your check/MO) Exp. Date Signature : N e w s w i T H v i e w s : vary according to a person’s culture or nationality, and such subjectivity Compiled by the Gilbert Magazine News-Gathering Staff may be confusing. As an example, the handbook says evening in the UK connotes the hours between 5-7 p.m., when people have their main meal. But someone from the U.S. “might have their main meal earlier and for them evening may be an earlier time.” To which we in America say, “So stinking “When the real revolution happens, it what?” But Chesterton, ever the gentle- won’t be mentioned in the newspapers.” man, may have simply observed that moderns aren’t to be trusted with a FATHER OF THE YEAR, 2010 an outstanding assault charge in King living language. County, Washington, in connection DEBARY, Fla.—Police didn’t know with another hair-gluing incident NO FLAG ON THE PLAY why Jorge Garcia decided to inter- as well as a sex crime conviction in SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Speaking fere with a felony traffic stop at 2:45 Texas. While police were at a loss as of people who shouldn’t have gone into a.m. on New Year’s Day. What they to Walter’s motive, they were unwill- crime, a pair of burglary suspects in did know was that they didn’t care for ing to consider it a harmless pastime the process of fleeing pursuing deputies Garcia’s interference or his demeanor, and the TriMet Barber is now facing decided to cut across the football field so they ordered him back into his own additional felony assault charges. of a nearby high school. In what proved vehicle. After he refused the order, According to Chesterton, small- to be a masterpiece of timing, a group the sergeant at the scene ordered him minded criminals become criminals of sheriff’s deputies were practicing arrested, at which time Garcia made out of sheer conventionality. While on that very same field for an upcom- for his car and then refused to come he is far from conventional, we’d be ing game against local firefighters. out. When he saw two officers reaching hard pressed to accuse Walter of being When they heard there was an illegal for their Tasers, Garcia did the manly large-minded. procedure in progress, the sheriff’s thing; he grabbed his nearby infant, team tackled the suspects. When the held it in front of him and repeatedly THE CASE OF THE dust settled the suspects were facing a shouted, “Tase the baby, Tase the PHOTOGENIC PERVERT fourth and very long yardage, courtesy baby.” Officers managed to remove the WARRINGTON, England—Employ- of the justice system. child unharmed and convinced Garcia ees at an Adsa store discovered that Had they read more Chesterton, to be more compliant courtesy of two a spy camera had been installed in a the ill-directed burglars might have real- Taser blasts. light fixture in one of the changing ized the best way of getting home is to Chesterton once said that father- rooms. When Cheshire police exam- stay there. hood is a fact and to call a man a ined the camera’s data card they were father is to assert a fact. Let us follow surprised to find the enterprising per- FINALLY, A LITTLE COMMON SENSE our mentor and assert the fact that vert failed to shut off the camera while Garcia is no one’s idea of a father. STANFORD, Calif.—Thomas Sowell installing it and had provided them is a man whom G.K. Chesterton would with crystal clear images of his face. be comfortable chatting up over a few EVERY BOY NEEDS A HOBBY Police are searching for the suspect good ales. Those who follow his well- who, given his intelligence and atten- PORTLAND, Ore.—A woman written columns on Townhall.com and tion to detail, shouldn’t be that difficult riding the number 33 TriMet bus in elsewhere would likely agree. Sowell to track down. Portland recently came away with is a breath of fresh air and common a new, but most unwelcome look. PC POLICING sense all too lacking even in the arena Unbeknownst to her, the man seated of conservative punditry. That said, behind had quietly removed locks WARWICKSHIRE, England—What he recently wrote the following words of her hair throughout the journey. would the New Year be without a that are too good not to pass along. When she left the bus and discovered reminder of how political correctness “When politicians propose some hugely her loss she was able to dial 911 in is rotting our language and the culture expensive new program,” he said, “and time for police to nab fellow passen- in the process? Police in Warwickshire are asked how the government is going ger Jared Weston Walter. As it turned have been cautioned about using the to pay for it, a standard ploy over the out, Walter was suspected of being time-tested greeting, “Evenin’ all.” years has been to claim that they will the infamous “TriMet Barber” who Why, you may ask? Because accord- pay for it by eliminating ‘waste, fraud, for six weeks had been either snip- ing to the handbook Policing Our and abuse’...If you can do that, why ping or super-gluing women’s hair Communities, the meaning of terms haven’t you done it already?” during bus rides. Moreover, he had such as afternoon and evening can Are you smiling, G.K.?

48 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 : N e w s w i T H v i e w s :

DIVORCE, RETAIL STYLE Beasley, who passed out in his car fight. Upset that her husband was while at the pump of a Tennessee gas leaving her, Paulsen-Riat decided upon LONDON—“Divorce,” said Chester- station with a big batch of metham- her own version of a “shock and awe” ton, “is a thing which the newspapers phetamine cooking in the back seat. strategy that her estranged spouse now not only advertise, but advo- Also in the running would be the gas didn’t discover until he switched on cate…” Years after G.K. wrote this, the station employees who saw Beasley’s his 220-volt table saw. Regaining con- Debenhams Department Store chain car sitting at the pump for over an sciousness sometime later he realized is doing some advertising of its own. hour before calling police. the saw and the balance of his power Noting the popularity of greeting cards, tools had been re-wired, courtesy of parties, and cakes to “celebrate” failed the fair Carolyn who saw, like Chester- marriages, the retail chain figured the SPEAKING OF FAILED MARIAGES ton, that divorce and murder are both time was right to establish a “divorce OLYMPIA, Wash.—While it may desperate remedies. While she faces registry.” After all, said Peter Moore, have appeared she lost the duel that charges of domestic assault and mali- head of Debenhams retail services, “a was her marriage, Carolyn Paulsen- cious mischief, the former Mrs. Riat divorce means that one partner will be Riat was not about to go down without may have won the duel after all. leaving the marital home and therefore be left without any essentials in their new house.” He added estab- lishing a divorce gift list means “…family and friends can help C l e r i h e W C o r n e r The Imitators the newly separated begin their Clerihews from the Washington DC Chesterton Society new life.” Not to be outdone, Celebrating Famous & certain segments of the legal Chestertonians of D.C. Infamous Names with profession are also riding the Have fellowship, fun, beer, and ice tea. E.C. Bentley’s Elusive trend. The London law firm The discussions are lively as we share the selection— Light Verse Form of Lloyd Platt & Company has In true Gilbert style, there is no direction. begun offering gift vouchers —Cheryl Forbes, Ashburn, Virginia to those consulting them on divorce and they have since Patrick Kennedy, been swamped with inquiries. Please explain to me Once more Chesterton On what doctrinal distortion emerges as a prophet, for he You justify abortion. also said, “It may be, indeed, —Steve Moellering, Falls Church, Virginia that all the flowers and fes- tivities will now be transferred Clara Barton was a nurse from the fashionable wedding Who didn’t focus on the purse. to the fashionable divorce. Her instincts became the boss A superb iced and frosted Founding the American Red Cross. divorce-cake will be provided —Bernadette Macdonald, Woodbridge, Virginia for the feast…A dazzling dis- The Originator play of divorce presents will be President Coolidge The blackboard lessons from Fulton Sheen laid out…Toasts will be drunk, Objected to paying muleage Were wise, humorous, and ever so keen. the guests will assemble on the When the people of Nicaragua In the 1950s his style of delivery no one would balk— doorstep to see the husband Sent him a nice jaguar. Today, however, they’d throw away his chalk! and wife go off in opposite —Edmund Clerihew Bentley —Cheryl Forbes, Ashburn, Virginia directions.” Chris Matthews YET ANOTHER CLERIHEW: A humorous, Is unwise to choose CRIMINAL GENIUS unmetrical, biographical verse Someone to berate Who can excommunicate. MURFREESBORO, Tenn.— of four short lines—two closed Anyone familiar with the couplets—with the first rhyme a —Steve Moellering, Falls Church, Virginia “Darwin Awards,” given to those play on the name of the subject. Clerihew, who do humanity a service by Readers are invited to submit Can you removing themselves from the clerihews for “The Clerihew Write one that’s clever? gene pool, knows awardees Corner,” with the understand- Me? Probably never. must be deceased in order to ing that submissions cannot be win. If ever there was someone acknowledged or returned, nor —Steve Moellering, Falls Church, Virginia who deserved an honorable will all be published. mention, however, it is Nathan

Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity 49 : L e tt e r T o a m e r i c a : G.K. Chesterton in the New York American not occur to him that his own argu- ment destroys all liberty for men. It is Democracy Gone impossible to treat a dog like a citizen; it is impossible in the full sense to to the Dogs? treat a dog like a man. But it is much easier to treat a man like a dog. And this does not nec- recently read a most extraordinary I shall at last understand why it is essarily mean to ill-treat him like a dog. remark by a gentleman who appears said that Total Abstinence is essential Being kind to a dog, just as much as to be an expert on dogs, and who to true Citizenship. And when at last being unkind to a dog, is based on the says (I have no notion whether there dawns the happy day of Univer- idea that he is a dog and not a citizen; with any justification) that dogs sal Citizenship, in which there are no just as a Negro slave was not a citizen, Iare better treated in England than distinctions, then I shall be able to though both can be, and often were, in America. He may be right, for all go and buy a few Citizens, humanely treated with great affection. I know, but his way of putting it was enclosed in cages and scrambling Now all democrats today have to this, and it was printed in large letters: about on straw, in the shops and shows defend democracy; it is in great peril. “If I were asked to state the essential where they sell such animals. We have to defend it against mere difference between dogs here and in And if a female Citizen happens cynics and mere academic pedants; America, it would be that here the dog to have a large family, I may assist in also against real reactionary thinkers; is regarded as a citizen and in America deciding which of the little Citizens men of action who are men of genius. he is not.” shall be drowned; to say nothing of But above all we must defend it against When I read that, as a flash of possibly going in for the regular breed- this sort of sloppy and sentimental lightning will illuminate a whole ing of Citizens; and the mating of male extension of it. landscape, I understood all sorts of and female Citizens according to my Nobody wants dogs to vote. Cer- things. I understood the grave and views rather than theirs...It is all very tainly nobody wants dogs to rule. But essential importance of Citizenship; extraordinary, but there it is in black there are still people who do really want and why modern English education- and white. It is this to which the great men to rule even more than to vote; ists all want poor children to be given name of the Citizen has come. and not merely to hunt in larger packs special lessons in Citizenship; and why Of course the worthy expert did or live in more hygienic kennels. the leading articles tell us every day in not mean any harm. He thought he exactly the same words that we must was showing liberality to dogs. It did New York American, October 17, 1931 all remember to be Citizens; and why Citizenship has been put in the place of outworn things like religious or domestic responsibility. It also explained to me why the Citizens are treated as they are. When the process is complete, for instance, and we see Mr. Jones of Wim- bledon taken out for a walk on a lead, with a chain attached to his collar, so that he shall not rashly cross the road or loiter and lose his apportioned hour of exercise, I shall know that he is being treated as a Citizen. When I hear loud noises indicating that Mr. Brown is being violently scrubbed or shaven, because the expert on dogs thinks he ought to be, I shall realize that it is because he is a Citizen that he enjoys these attentions. When I find that Colonel Robinson is confined to drinking water, and has to drink it on his hands and knees out of a plain vessel placed on the ground and inscribed “Citizen” in large letters,

50 Volume 13 Number 4, January/February 2010 THE CHESTERTON REVIEW The Journal of the G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture Seton Hall University

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