Ultimately the reason we should rejoice in the love of laughter as we rejoice in the love of friends is that laughter, like love, is a gift of God. There’s nothing worth the wear of winning Than laughter and the love for friends. These famous lines by Hilaire Belloc are personal favourites of mine but, [...]
Over the past few weeks, I’ve written essays on some significant anniversaries that fall in 2016, including the centenary of the Battle of the Somme and the nine-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. Now, as this year falls into Fall and prepares to go the same way as all its predecessors, I thought I’d remember another [...]
This year marks the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest conflagrations in human history in which more than a million men were killed or wounded. One of the lucky survivors was J.R.R. Tolkien, who described the battle as being an “animal horror.” Bearing the psychological scars of this horror for [...]
Although Hilaire Belloc and J.R.R. Tolkien had much in common, not least of which was their shared and impassioned Catholicism, it is intriguing that they should differ so profoundly on the importance of the Anglo-Saxons. Picture the scene. An expectant audience, which includes the great Catholic writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, awaits the arrival of another great [...]
One of the wonderful things about The Imaginative Conservative is the way in which it has become a powerful forum for thoughtful and thought-provoking writers to exchange thoughtful and thought-provoking ideas. There’s none of the knee-jerk and thoughtless reaction to events to be found on other cultural and political journals. Deo gratias! This does not mean, [...]
Many Catholics treat the High Middle Ages as a veritable ideal of civilization. But the medieval period produced problematic ideas about aesthetics, eccentric theories of economics, and dangerous assumptions about politics. Over a decade ago a then-acquaintance of mine inquired as to my economic views, my response being that I was “a distributist by default.” [...]
My reading is extremely deep and wide; And as our modern education goes— Unique I think, and skilfully applied To Art and Industry and Autres Choses Through many years of scholarly repose. But there is one thing where I disappoint My numerous admirers (and my foes). Painting on Vellum is my weakest point. [...]
Considering the unjustified neglect of Hilaire Belloc and the more recent renewal of interest, Fr. James Schall’s book, “Remembering Belloc,” which remembers the man and his genius, is most welcome. Remembering Belloc by James V. Schall, S.J. (192 pages, St. Augustine’s Press, 2013) […]
Multiculturalism is a thorny topic. It is also a topic on which any truly rational discussion is very difficult. The problem is that many people equate criticism of multiculturalism with racism. Since nobody wants to be accused of racism (quite rightly), it is easier and safer to avoid talking about anything that might get one [...]
One thing in this world is different from all other. It has a personality and a force. It is recognised, and (when recognised) most violently loved or hated. It is the Catholic Church. Within that household the human spirit has roof and hearth. Outside it, is the Night. —Essays of a Catholic by Hilaire Belloc (1931). [...]
G.K. Chesterton was once asked what he would most like to have with him if he found himself marooned on a desert island. He replied, somewhat whimsically, that he’d like to have a book on practical shipbuilding. In this, if not in too much else, I’d like to beg to differ with the great man. [...]
A review of From Christendom to Americanism and Beyond by Thomas Storck (Angelico Press, 2015) Thomas Storck is a well-connected man. Indeed there are very few men who are better connected. I don’t mean that he is well-connected in the sense that the world normally thinks of it. He does not have lots of powerful [...]
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda? Do you remember an Inn? And the tedding and the spreading Of the straw for a bedding, And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees, And the wine that tasted of tar? And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers (Under the vine of the dark [...]
On my many travels giving talks on topics related to Christian literature, I am often asked why the Christian Literary Revival of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has come to an end. Why are there no writers of the caliber of Newman, Hopkins, Chesterton, Belloc, Eliot, Greene, Waugh, Tolkien or Lewis today? Or, to cross [...]