Have you been reading The Imaginative Conservative for some time now? Perhaps you read our thoughtful essays every day, as you yearn for deeper thinking about “the permanent things” that undergird Western Civilization and human life: philosophy, history, literature, music, the Great Books. Or perhaps you just peek at us on occasion as you tire of [...]
In early March of 1861, without Abraham Lincoln’s authorization, Secretary of State William Seward told Southern commissioners as well as the Northern press that Lincoln would not fight for Fort Sumter. When the Commissioners demanded to meet with a Lincoln official on March 14, 1861, Seward properly declined, but agreed, in a rather complicated fashion, [...]
This is the beginning of an extraordinary adventure, one that will bond the freshmen to each other for life and form the way that they experience the world of the mind and the tradition of the West, which is their home and birthright. I mean the West, of course, in the broad cultural sense, but [...]
The new principles that Simone Biles is introducing into sport may be more humane, more compassionate, and even more just than the outlook that demands any sacrifice in the pursuit of victory, but they may also shine with a less radiant luster. I have no wish to add my voice to the chorus of praise [...]
Watanabe Sadao never made art for popes and presidents. He made art for the humble Christian home. His simple style was not an affectation, but a true expression of his Christian faith. Like his father’s hymns, Watanabe’s prints were for living a Christian day, not for achieving artistic glory. Anyone who lived through the last [...]
Music liberates us from vulgarity, intellectual rigidity, and the tyranny of unexamined, popular opinions about music and beauty. Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. –Plato Music transcends the classroom, the concert stage, and professional recordings. It pervades life. Mankind has long used music in all sorts of ways: [...]
Hilaire Belloc’s "The Path to Rome" takes the reader on a journey into himself and out of himself, a voyage of discovery in which home and exile are interwoven in a mystical dance of contemplation. In its pages we discover the Europe of the Faith, which was, and is, the heart of Christendom, and the [...]
The hardest decision of Abraham Lincoln's presidency revolved around the Confederate garrison stationed at Fort Sumter. On March 5, 1861, Abraham Lincoln, only president for a day, had to make a decision on what to do. Lincoln had a divided cabinet, a divided party, and a divided country. Half of his cabinet wanted war with [...]
The quest for tranquility is not found in a world of frenetic intemperance and agitated markets. Tranquility is an interior movement that presupposes a soul at peace. Wisdom is the virtue of seeking the highest cause of things. Only a society that facilitates wisdom can provide peace and order. Marketers typically create excitement around a [...]
Written to record a four-week, 750-mile pilgrimage from Toul, France, to Rome for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, "The Path of Rome" epitomizes Hilaire Belloc’s capacity for alternating the heights of sublimity, the depths of profundity, and broad belly laughs of old jokes. Although as a popular historian and religious and political polemicist [...]
By turns eager and reluctant to embrace newcomers, Americans in the twentieth century followed no uniform course of action. In 1919, when sections of almost every major American city were teeming with men and women who spoke a multiplicity of languages, former president Theodore Roosevelt, wondered whether the United States had not become a “polyglot [...]
In days of relative darkness, when shadows envelope everything, we should seek the light that is reflected and refracted in our neighbors. As an Englishman, I have a tendency towards sun-worship. There’s a very good reason for this. England is a gloomy country in terms of the weather. It rains a lot, and even when [...]
Pope Francis' new restrictions on the celebration of the "Old Mass" are made in the name of the “concord and unity” of the Church. But the pope's move is much more likely to steel the resolve of those who make the argument that the Roman Rite should return to its earlier form. Pope Francis’s Traditionis [...]
In our contemporary world of ubiquitous mirage, the skills of discernment are not only important, they are of vital benefit. "Likely stories" are a bedrock of classical education, and classical educators should endeavor to have students read them not because they believe students must be virtuous in order to go to battle against societal disintegration [...]