Shakespeare stands as a colossus who straddles the centuries. It is not merely that he has survived the test of time; it is that his plays, and the truth and morality contained within them, transcend time. He was not of an age, but for all time! —Ben Jonson on William Shakespeare These famous words of [...]
It is all too easy in the darkened days and daze in which we live to become despondent. It is all too easy to forget the happy ending that is promised to those who keep faith in the God of the happy ever after. We who are not dumb and witless do not always need [...]
The indomitable Jane Austen has no love for “Bloody” Mary, but it’s intriguing and amusing that she sees her in the light, or should we say the shadow, of “Bloody” Bess, who would be her successor. There is no denying Jane Austen’s status as one of the greatest novelists of all time. Her works are [...]
Throughout the centuries Spain has done more than any nation to fight the Long Defeat and, in her heroism, has shown us many fleeting glimpses of the Final Victory. The poet Roy Campbell declared that Spain was “a country to which I owe everything as having saved my soul.”[i] Received into the Catholic Church in [...]
George Orwell’s "1984" was so successful and so influential that he was seen as something of a prophet. This dystopian novel was considered a cautionary prophecy of what would come to pass if future generations ceased to be vigilant in the guarding of their freedom. Someone to claim us, someone to follow Someone to shame [...]
Having celebrated the “mere genius” of C.S. Lewis, the wise man will want to spend more time in his presence and will invite others to do likewise. He is, for those who know him, the best of friends and the wisest of guides. C.S. Lewis was no mere Christian, nor was he a “mere genius”. [...]
In the final analysis, freedom is not possible without freedom of speech, and tolerance is not possible without the tolerance of texts with which we disapprove. The lack of such tolerance leads to the banning of books and the banning of people. Ultimately, so history proves, it leads to the burning of books and the [...]
What to do with the provocative and apparently silly question concerning Churchill’s sympathies with the Nazis? Surely it is simply absurd to associate the heroic wartime Prime Minister of the United Kingdom with the Nazi regime which he did so much to defeat. There are two ways of seeing reality. We can see it with [...]
In many respects, Hilaire Belloc can be seen as Chesterton’s other brother, with whom he neither argued nor quarreled. Such fraternal friendships are forged in faith and find their fulfilment in heaven. We can be sure, therefore, that, irrespective of their sins and weaknesses, they are now not merely brothers in arms but brothers in [...]
The difference between an argument and a quarrel is the difference between heaven and hell. An argument for something is the expression of a line of reasoning in support of a proposition. It is in this spirit that I dare to pick an argument with G.K. Chesterton himself, confident that it could never become a [...]
When Gandalf proclaims that Bilbo is no longer the hobbit that he was, we know that he is changed for the better. He no longer places his heart at the service of his worldly possessions but seeks instead those treasures of the heart to be found in wisdom and virtue. In a hole in the [...]
Contempt of neighbour takes many forms. One such form is chronological snobbery, in which we turn up our supercilious “progressive” noses at our ancestors. The past is deemed as inferior to the present and the people of the past are ipso facto inferior to those who happen to be alive today. Contempt of neighbour takes [...]
The tragedy is that the South’s tragic flaw—its defense of slavery—led to the defeat of its just demand for states’ rights and the consequent rise of the Federal Government, so that the original concept of the nation has been entirely lost. Recently, whilst staying with friends in Dickson, Tennessee, I came across an article in [...]
Poetry is the still, small voice of calm in a world gone mad with distraction. It finds us space to breathe. It allows us time to think. It takes us out of time and space into the realm of metaphysics. It takes us from the transient things to the permanent things, from the things of [...]