Is it thy will that I should wax and wane, Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey, And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day? Is it thy will—Love that I love so well— That my Soul’s House should be a tortured spot Wherein, like [...]
As Thoreau’s “Walden” testifies in every chapter, man can live simply or extravagantly, in freedom or in bondage, at frantic speed or deliberate leisureliness, according to fashion and convention or in tune with higher laws, in the midst of beauty or drabness, a poetic life or mechanical existence, and either a human or dehumanized life. [...]
In July 1925, a young Swedish actress disembarked at New York harbour. She was nineteen years old and unknown, with little to mark her out from any of that day’s other arrivals. In less than two years, she would not only have become one of the most famous women in the world but would have also [...]
The great G.K. Chesterton had a huge impact on my embrace of Christian orthodoxy. It would, in fact, be no exaggeration to say that his was the greatest single influence, under grace, on my conversion. I was, therefore, highly gratified to discover, during the research for my book Literary Converts, that Chesterton also had a [...]
Considering the time we spend in our cars, there must be nothing wrong with a decent sound system, especially if this gift of modern technology can be used to counter the stress of the modern commute—the inevitable impatience, the tiresome finger tapping, and sometimes the snarling of the inner beast, cornered as he is by [...]
“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” —Virginia Woolf […]
To be deep in Rome is to cease to be Protestant. That is because to be deep in Rome is to be deep in history, and to be deep in history, as John Henry Newman wrote, is to cease to be Protestant. Visiting Rome this month I was plunged once more “deep into history.” Everywhere [...]
Every child should read Arnold Lobel’s stories of Frog and Toad. These stories are pure, unashamed delight. Once upon a time, all children’s stories were a pleasant romp, an indulgence in something lovely. Think of Mother Goose, The Wind in the Willows, The Tale of the Pie and the Patty Pan. As our times have [...]
I have been encouraged by Mr. Joseph Pearce’s two excellent essays, “How Many Loves? Arguing with C.S. Lewis” and “The Vulgar Mob: Arguing with G.K. Chesterton,” to offer up a little challenge to one thinker who has indelibly influenced my own conservatism. I have tremendous admiration for Roger Scruton’s courage in abandoning his academic career [...]
A nobler want of man is served by nature, namely, the love of Beauty. The ancient Greeks called the world {kosmos}, beauty. Such is the constitution of all things, or such the plastic power of the human eye, that the primary forms, as the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us a delight [...]
Not so very long ago, Best Beloved, it was a gray February afternoon, near about tea-time. The winter seemed to have ended, but the spring had not quite arrived; and so there, at the edge of the forest, the animals were in a quandary. The crocus had come and gone; while, running late from somewhere, [...]
Nothing is a Matter of Course Reports on the life and mission of orchestras and other institutions of classical music in our time make for vexed, sometimes dispiriting, reading. If you attend to them, as I have of late, you are likely to come across ledes like the following: Orchestras Feeding America is a project [...]
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; [...]
Once upon a time in the Western world, exposure to “the beautiful” was an important element in the development and formation of men. The ideal man was also an educated man, and an educated man knew something about, and appreciated, good art, good music, good literature, and good taste (and perhaps also good wine). The [...]