Did you notice?

In the new issue of Gilbert, there is a curiosity.
It's on page 21.

The last line written in the translation says "Encyclopaedia" but Chesterton's own hand reveals a different, and I think important, word: "Cyclopaedia."

What do you think? Could this be a reference to Gertrude's, Frances's sister's death?

Clock Day

Clock Day
by
Dr. Thursday

Clock Day is coming and the Congressman is fat
Time is unimportant when the Senate goes to bat!
If you think our clocks should stay in sync with noon by the sun's view
Then write* a letter to your rep
And God bless you!

[* In the modern age, you can amend this line to:
Then send an e-mail to your rep...]

God bless you, citizen, God bless you!
So write a letter to your rep and God bless you!

Clock Day is coming and the people give a howl:
Congress gives an order, so now what was fair is foul.
Such power has corrupted them, in all they say and do!
So send an e-mail to your rep
And God bless you!

God bless you, citizen, God bless you!
So send an e-mail to your rep and God bless you!

and, from GKC:

Anomalies do matter very much, and do a great deal of harm; abstract illogicalities do matter a great deal, and do a great deal of harm. And this for a reason that anyone at all acquainted with human nature can see for himself. All injustice begins in the mind. And anomalies accustom the mind to the idea of unreason and untruth. Suppose I had by some pre-historic law the power of forcing every man in Battersea to nod his head three times before he got out of bed. The practical politicians might say that this power was a harmless anomaly; that it was not a grievance. It could do my subjects no harm; it could do me no good. The people of Battersea, they would say, might safely submit to it. But the people of Battersea could not safely submit to it, for all that. If I had nodded their heads for them for fifty years I could cut off their heads for them at the end of it with immeasurably greater ease. For there would have permanently sunk into every man's mind the notion that it was a natural thing for me to have a fantastic and irrational power. They would have grown accustomed to insanity. GKC ILN March 10 1906 CW 27:139

October--Month of Mary and the Rosary

The Catholic Church is always celebrating something, either a saint's day, a feast day, a birthday, a martyrdom; and there are months dedicated to certain celebrations, as well. October has traditionally been one of "Mary's months" (the other being May, when May crownings occur) due in part to the events that occured in 1571 on October 7th at Lepanto.

So it is only fitting that a shop dedicated to Mary and the rosary should become interested in the American Chesterton Society's book entitled, Lepanto.

So, go check it out. Go to the Rosary Center and then to the click on "Books" and you'll see it there with a bright shiny yellow "New" notice.

A fellow Chestertonian sent this to me, and it is one of his many ways he quietly and anonymously helps the Chesterton society. Maybe you have a book store near you? Maybe you know the owner? Maybe you could see if they would like to carry the Chesterton society's books? Maybe you already do? Thank you. Every little bit helps.

Dr. Thursday's Feast of St. Francis Post

Francis, Francis and Frances: the Meaning of Light

We are now on the sixth day of our Lepanto Novena. These nine days provide a rich stellar display of feasts:

Sept 29: St. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, archangels
Sept 30: Doctor St. Jerome
Oct 1: DOCTOR St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower
Oct 2: Holy Guardian Angels
Oct 4: John Bernardone (an alias - but read on...)
Oct 5: St. Maria Faustina
Oct 6: St. Bruno
Oct 7: Our Lady of the Rosary (and the victory at Lepanto)

In fact, October 3 seems to be the only date of the new calendar without a saint - though in the old calendar that used to be Doctor Terry's feast. (Although it may be of interest, I have no time to go into these calendar shifts; I have enough of that at work. "Clock Day" is one of the true horrors for those of us who have to watch clocks... and it's not far off.)

I mention this stellar lineup because with our entry into October, there is a lot of excitement for those of us who think about the stars. There are always thrilling things to see on a clear night - now is the time when we can see the great Andromeda galaxy, some 2 million light years away! And soon we'll be into the very dramatic season when there are a whole lot of really bright stars all visible at once... Aldebaran, Capella, Rigel, Betelgeuse, Procyon, Sirius, Castor, Pollux, Regulus, Spica... and the splendid three-in-a-row, the Belt of Orion, called the "Three Marys" by some. (Oh, boy, I can't wait!)

I have quoted elsewhere one of the most profound comments ever made about the stars, and since it is very impressive, I shall quote it again here:

"Considered as a collector of rare and precious things, the amateur astronomer has a great advantage over amateurs in all other fields, who must content themselves with second and third rate specimens. For example, only a few of the world's mineralogists could hope to own such a specimen as the Hope diamond... In contrast, the amateur astronomer has access at all times to the original objects of his study; the masterworks of the heavens belong to him as much as to the great observatories of the world."
[Robert Burnham Jr., Burnham's Celestial Handbook, 5, emphasis added]

Of course, all Chestertonians will hear a mystical harmony with another link of gems and stars:

I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another one. [GKC, Orthodoxy CW1:268]

Remember that next time somebody comes up with terms like "parallel universes", "multiverse" or such nonsense.

But what is a star? A gem or jewel? A big ball of hydrogen being fused at themonuclear temperatures? Faint sky lights you can ignore when you're out at night? Something for experts? Or something else?

In order to find out, we ought to find the right expert. Hmmm...

A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good - " [GKC, Heretics CW1:46]

Yes, Chesterton tells us, "all depends on what is the philosophy of Light." OK. Then what is light?

Er... a wave or a particle, something moving at 3e8 m/s, a stream of photons, energy dependent on the frequency... Oh, sure, if you know some physics, you can write

E = m c²

c = l f

E = h n

all you want, and then there's Maxwell... (ooh!)

But we need the philosophy, not the physics.

OK! (Ahem.) But what does the philosophy of light have to do with Francis, Francis and Frances? Press here to find out.

Here is the pivotal quote by which I hope to disentangle myself.

In the words of G. K. Chesterton, who married Frances Blogg and took Francis as his confirmation name:

the whole philosophy of St. Francis revolved round the idea of a new supernatural light on natural things, which meant the ultimate recovery not the ultimate refusal of natural things.
[GKC, St. Francis of Assisi CW2:59]

One of the deepest and most mystical of all words I know is a word from ancient Greek - the word Qewria - that is theôria, where the ô is a LONG o. It is the word from which the English word "theory" is derived. I shall not attempt to define it or even begin to explore it - it would take more disk space than I have, both at home and at work. But among the many curious and deep things about it is the link to another Greek word which means "I see".

For the mental thing (whatever it really is) which is called "theory" (in its most general sense) might also be called "vision" or "contemplation" - somehow it is linked to a kind of abstract "seeing" within the mind. And that is where the Light - in its philosophical sense - comes in.

Ahem. You are lost. Doc, you're really tiresome today. Lots of Greek, lots of math, lots of physics. One of the DARKEST essays you've tried to read recently - right?

Perhaps I can enLIGHTen you. I will try an analogy.

I have an idea, wandering around in my head. I will NOT tell you what it is NOW - I will represent it by the @ sign. I want to tell you about my idea. So I say:

There is green at the bottom, and blue at the top. Standing on the green is a big something - the @. The @ faces left, and seems to be chewing something. There is a brass bell around its neck. The @ is black and white, and has horns. The @ makes a sound (I will spell it "moo"). Somebody comes to the @, does something I cannot quite make out, and soon there is a pail of milk.

Sure, you laugh. Oh silly Doctor, you could have said "cow" and saved yourself a lot of typing!

Is that beginning to make any sense?

Let's give Chesterton a try:

Out of some dark forest under some ancient dawn there must come towards us, with lumbering yet dancing motions, one of the very queerest of the prehistoric creatures. We must see for the first time the strangely small head set on a neck not only longer but thicker than itself, as the face of a gargoyle is thrust out upon a gutter-spout, the one disproportionate crest of hair running along the ridge of that heavy neck like a beard in the wrong place; the feet, each like a solid club of horn, alone amid the feet of so many cattle; so that the true fear is to be found in showing, not the cloven, but the uncloven hoof. Nor is it mere verbal fancy to see him thus as a unique monster; for in a sense a monster means what is unique, and he is really unique. [GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:149-50]

And again you say "horse" - very good. (I think his is better than mine.)

But what if the idea is something much more profound? What if the idea is something you have never seen, and will never see in this life?

It was for this reason - and here I hear the "Great Chorus" of two millennia of writers sing in harmony - indeed, it was for this reason that the Word was made Man - and this is the reason that we confess in our Sunday Creed that Jesus is "Light from Light". Or, as the priest says in the Preface for Christmas: "In him we see our God made visible and so are caught up in the love of the God we cannot see." It is the most wonderful of ideas - God - which has been set forth in the person of Jesus - and in Him this idea was elucidated much better than I could - or even GKC - could.

Alas, after 1100 years, the memory of this idea had gotten - well, maybe a little faded and torn around the edges. (Was that a black and white thing standing on something green, or perhaps a green thing standing on something black and white? Was the neck long, or the beard?) Remember, the idea was still around, and people still called it "cow" or "horse" or "Jesus" - but it was the fine and brilliant detail which had faded.

And then from a small Italian town God called forth a playboy-soldier, a troubador who liked to sing and dance - a young man named John Bernardone. (See October 4, above) He kept on singing and dancing, but he did it, and a lot more, for a whole new reason.

For in himself he made visible an image of Jesus. A man, a poor man, a happy man, a man interested in all things, but especially in other persons, and most of all interested in God.

It was this man, called "Francis" from his youth, who wrote one of the greatest love-poems ever written. He wrote it in a language which was just beginning to be its own fresh Italian instead of a very tired Latin. He wrote it very much like certain psalms or Bible canticles, or the ever-rich and ever-confusing first chapter of Genesis, simply by putting together a list. (I'd like to see your neighborhood cosmologist try that!) GKC told us that "The greatest of poems is an inventory." [Orthodoxy CW1:267] And in this love-song, John (aka Francis) Bernardone inventories all the things in creation, and put them - much like the brilliant Scholastics - into their proper order and place - that is, in their relation to God.

This song is the great Canticle of the Creatures, and here, at almost the very beginning, is the height of the description of light:

All praise be yours, my Lord, through all that you have made,
And first my lord Brother Sun,
Who brings the day; and light you give to us through him.

How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Please read those last two lines again:

How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Ah - perhaps now you can see! I hope these words of St. Francis have helped to shine some light on light.

Happy feast of St. Francis to all!

--Dr. Thursday

PS: Perhaps today you might try to read a little of GKC's own book about this wonderful saint. Don't forget that our bloggmistress Nancy Brown has a helpful Study Guide for GKC's book. I should warn you - you don't have to be a child to take advantage of it.

Lepanto Novena begins today

"For in just over a week, the date of October 7 shall again occur on a Sunday, as it did in 1571, when the young Don John of Austria defeated the galleys of the Turks in the historic battle of Lepanto. That Sunday morning, he had small hope for victory - the Turkish fleet was far larger; the forces of the West were hodge-podge, barely united under Don John's command. Their hope, such as it was, was based on the plea of the Pope, who had asked for prayers to be said - in particular, the prayer of the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, wherein the various mysteries of the birth, life, death and glorification of Jesus the God-Man are recalled.

The records tell of the dramatic moment after Holy Mass, soon after sunrise, when the forces of the West rowed into the wind, towards the sun, in the battle-array of a cross - facing the west-sailing galleys arranged in the Crescent of the Turks....

But then! Ah, how to make this pivot dramatic... Then as the historian Beeching puts it in a paragraph of just five short words:

And then the wind changed.

The wind swung into the west (as it did on Beacon Hill for Innocent Smith!) aiding Don John and thwarting the Turks - and hope sprang up for the forces of the Cross.

Yes, that battle was won. But we must still face evil - not fearful galleys on a sunrise sea - but the hidden Powers of Darkness. They continue to assault our world, our country, our cities, our families, our own lives - not with swords or guns, but with every spiritual weapon, to destroy peace, wipe out hope, darken faith, quench love.

Where can we go for aid?
"And they came to him, and awaked him, saying: 'Lord, save us, we perish'." [Mt 8:25]
We must pray - we must ask for the Spirit of light, of strength, of love. We must again appeal to the One Who directs the wind, Who came upon the Apostles in tongues of fire!
And Jesus saith to them: "Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?" Then rising up, he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: "What manner of man is this, for he winds and the sea obey him?" [Mt 8:26-27]
So, please join in the nine day novena of the Rosary, starting this Saturday, September 29, and continuing to Sunday October 7."--Dr. Thursday

Read more about it at the Blue Boar.

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

Making a Prayer at the Cross Road

Given the curious and stimulating discussions about rock-and-roll in a previous post, I was going to write some nonsense about pipe organs (because I once built a little one in my house) or about playing bass (which I have tried, both bowed and electronic). But I shall defer that for a bit.

Instead, I ask you to go quickly to the blogg called Enchiridion and read a very rich and wonderful poem by a young Chestertonian named Sheila, whom I met at a past Conference. Also, please read, not my own witless comment, but her own sensible one. For she has latched on to a very important idea, and one on which we should spend some real thought. Hence this post. Click to read more - but please read her poem first.Here are the words I wish to consider:

My mom likes to go on about Incarnational theology, and I also like to think of Chesterton and the poetry of trains. Can we really say, in an A.D. world, that anything is unpoetic?
[From Enchiridion cited above; my emphasis]

Simply, the answer is - of course not! Everything is now poetic. We assert this truth, Sunday after Sunday, though unless we happen to know a bit of Greek, or perhaps histology, we would overlook it. For when we recite the Nicene Creed, we say "per quem omnia facta sunt" = "Through Whom [Jesus] all things were made." You see, the English word "poem" or "poet" comes from the Greek verb poieo which means "I make". The clue from the branch of medicine called histology is that the "hemopoetic" tissues are those in the bone marrow which make red blood cells.

I wish I had the time to go into a consideration of what some call the "anthropic principle" - the idea that the Universe was made with Man in mind (Man-the-species = anthropos in Greek). But it might be said (as GKC might say) how much more we might really call it the "Christic" principle: God made the Universe with Christ in mind!

But Man has also made things - and his making is also poetic. In a previous posting I hinted at some of the fantastic poetry of the Bridge... so what can "the poetry of trains" mean?
For me, there is one particular Potteresque scene which leaps to mind:

"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "...The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories."
[GKC, The Man Who Was Thursday CW6:478-9]

(Just in case you did not get it from the context, "Bradshaw" was the master-reference timetable for British trains.) Nor are trains the only magic we magicians have at our disposal.

Sheila mentions how her poem hangs from the highway lights - GKC also gave a splendid word-painting of such lights:

A great many people talk as if this claim of ours, that all things are poetical, were a mere literary ingenuity, a play on words. Precisely the contrary is true. It is the idea that some things are not poetical which is literary, which is a mere product of words. The word "signal-box" is unpoetical. But the thing signal-box is not unpoetical; it is a place where men, in an agony of vigilance, light blood-red and sea-green fires to keep other men from death. That is the plain, genuine description of what it is; the prose only comes in with what it is called.
[GKC, Heretics CW1:55]

Wow, read those words again, as I fear that perhaps you will not really think about this as you should:

Next time you are out driving, and you see a traffic light, be it red or green (we'll skip yellow) did you EVER consider it to be "the place where men in an agony of vigilance" have kindled the fires - be they simply electronic - with the rich colours of the sea or of blood - in order to keep other men from death!!!

No wonder we call them the CROSS roads.

It may be postulated - and may be true - that long ago, the demons hinted distortions of the truth to the ancient pagans, so as to further their twisted plots. But from very ancient times any intersection of three roads (like a T, especially at the divisions of farm-lands) was considered sacred, and shrines were erected there. That is why one of the names of the Roman goddess Diana is "Trivia" (Latin: "three ways"). But again! There is poetry, mystical poetry here, for we now know the Truth: He who said "I am the Truth" also said "I am the Way"! [Jn 14:6]

Chesterton as usual says it much better than I can:

Mythology had many sins; but it had not been wrong in being as carnal as the Incarnation.
[GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:308]

No, in an A.D. world, all things are poetic - all things, water and wine, bread and oil, words and stones, cars and roads... and us too!

As GKC says "The greatest of poems is an inventory." [Orthodoxy CW1:267] and it is no wonder that the last psalm (150) is simply a list of musical instruments - all of which are organized that they may MAKE harmony - to praise God. Like this:

Cars and trucks, praise the Lord.
Highways and roads, praise the Lord.
All manner of lights and signals, praise the Lord.
Machines and computers, praise the Lord.
Ye drivers and passengers,
Ye police and fire and emergency workers,
Ye automotive mechanics and fast-food makers,
Ye scientists and engineers,
praise the Lord, give glory and eternal praise to Him.
Amen. Alleluia.

Yes, and tomorrow we'll add some more verses - until the End, when the psalm will stand complete, and then we shall all sing it together.

--Dr. Thursday

The Bridge and the Beloved

From Dr. Thursday:

Much as Jesus called attention to a piece of recent news ("How about those 18 killed by the falling tower in Siloe?" Lk 13:4) and GKC to the June 30 flooding in London including his then hometown of Battersea (ILN July 21 1906 CW27:238) our faithful bloggmistress called our attention to the recent disaster in the Twin Cities, so near to the home of our intrepid and daring friend Sunday - er - I mean the president of the ACS.

In a strange coincidence I happened to just finish re-reading the awesome Builders of the Bridge, D. B. Steinman's biography of John Roebling and his son Washington, who together with Washington's wife Emily are the three great ones whose dedication gave us the Brooklyn Bridge - considered the engineering marvel of the 19th century. These three were great engineers, amazing people, hard workers, heroic exemplars of America.

I wish I had time to review that book, or another text, also awesome - The Great Bridge by David McCullough - but as fascinating as these books and the Brooklyn Bridge are, this posting is about Chesterton, and I will try to keep on topic for once. (Yeah, right.) But perhaps as we pray for those who died or were injured in Minnesota, and discuss the important issues of civil Engineering brought to the fore by this recent event, we might ponder bridges in a somewhat larger - and Chestertonian - approach, for GKC tells us: "It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning." [GKC What's Wrong With the World CW4:43]
Click here to you wish to study the theory of bridges.
Near the end of 1907, GKC wrote about the death of a great English poet, Francis Thompson, who wrote one of the most mystical and entrancing poems I know - "New Year's Chimes". GKC's entire essay is a wonderful introduction, but I shall just give you the one relevant paragraph:

In one of his poems, he [Thompson] says that abyss between the known and the unknown is bridged by "Pontifical death." There are about ten historical and theological puns in that one word. That a priest means a pontiff, that a pontiff means a bridge-maker, that death is certainly a bridge, that death may turn out after all to be a reconciling priest, that at least priests and bridges both attest to the fact that one thing can get separated from another thing - these ideas, and twenty more, are all actually concentrated in the word "pontifical." In Francis Thompson's poetry, as in the poetry of the universe, you can work infinitely out and out, but yet infinitely in and in. These two infinities are the mark of greatness; and he was a great poet.
[GKC, ILN Dec 14 1907 CW27:603-4]

Where does the "beloved" come in? It is a very touching story, and one quite thoroughly in keeping with both the poetic and engineering aspects of bridges. Except for the hint in the paragraph I am about to quote, you will not find it in Chesterton's own work - but Maisie Ward tells us that "Gilbert stood on a little bridge in St. James's Park. It seemed to him in that hour to be the bridge of his first memory, across which a fairy prince was passing to rescue a princess. On this bridge he asked Frances to marry him, and she said yes." [Return To Chesterton 27-8] Indeed! But let us hear Uncle Gilbert tell us of that moment:

It was fortunate, however, that our [his and Frances'] next most important meeting was not under the sign of the moon but of the sun. She has often affirmed, during our later acquaintance, that if the sun had not been shining to her complete satisfaction on that day, the issue might have been quite different. It happened in St. James's Park; where they keep the ducks and the little bridge, which has been mentioned in no less authoritative a work than Mr. Belloc's Essay on Bridges, since I find myself quoting that author once more. I think he deals in some detail, in his best topographical manner, with various historic sites on the Continent; but later relapses into a larger manner, somewhat thus: "The time has now come to talk at large about Bridges. The longest bridge in the world is the Forth Bridge, and the shortest bridge in the world is a plank over a ditch in the village of Loudwater. The bridge that frightens you most is the Brooklyn Bridge, and the bridge that frightens you least is the bridge in St. James's Park." I admit that I crossed that bridge in undeserved safety; and perhaps I was affected by my early romantic vision of the bridge leading to the princess's tower. But I can assure my friend the author that the bridge in St. James's Park can frighten you a good deal.
[GKC, Autobiography CW16:151]

Wow. Leave it to GKC to use the most perfect symbol of unity in its most perfect manner!

Francis Thompson was not the only poet to ponder bridges and their building. A certain fraternity I know makes much of a poem about a bridge-builder who was "going a lone highway" and about a certain Greek conjunction... Curiously, its most recent history concludes with a poem by GKC - a poem which summarises all my own attempts at explanation:

For Four Guilds: II. The Bridge Builders

In the world's whitest morning
As hoary with hope,
The Builder of Bridges
Was priest and was pope:
And the mitre of mystery
And the canopy his,
Who darkened the chasms
And doomed the abyss.

To eastward and westward
Spread wings at his word
The arch with the key-stone
That stoops like a bird;
That rides the wild air
And the daylight cast under;
The highway of danger,
The gateway of wonder.

Of his throne were the thunders
That rivet and fix
Wild weddings of strangers,
That meet and not mix;
The town and the cornland;
The bride and the groom;
In the breaking of bridges
Is treason and doom.

But he bade us, who fashion
The road that can fly,
That we build not too heavy
And build not too high:
Seeing alway that under
The dark arch's bend
Shine death and white daylight
Unchanged to the end.

Who walk on his mercy
Walk light, as he saith,
Seeing that our life
Is a bridge above death;
And the world and its gardens
And hills, as ye heard,
Are born above space
On the wings of a bird.

Not high and not heavy
Is building of his:
When ye seal up the flood
And forget the abyss,
When your towers are uplifted,
Your banners unfurled,
In the breaking of bridges
Is the end of the world.
[GKC, Collected Poems 86-87]

Maybe it's time for us to get out the old hard hat and transit, and work hard towards real unity... for it is right to study civil engineering when a bridge has fallen.

--Dr. Thursday

PS: Just in case you wish to know a little more about the Brooklyn Bridge, or others, here are two from Dover which I have, and can thoroughly recommend: A Picture History of the Brooklyn Bridge and Bridges of the World: Their Design and Construction.

A Powerful Tribute to Cheese--A Long-Awaited Poem

The intrepid poet at ChesterCon07 was Rob MacArthur. His poem: Ballade Against Cheesemongery. It shall appear in the next issue of Gilbert Magazine; but for those three of us who still read this blog, I present to you: Rob MacArthur.

Ballade Against Cheesemongery.

The grocer’s, for $6.95 per pound
Havarti sells, in blocks of creamy beige
Bespeckled with unthinkables (well ground
Or crushed) like nuts, or wine, or sage
And rosemary. At this I briefly rage
Then pass it o’er for cheap varieties
My unsophistic hungers to assuage.
I do desire no vanity in cheese.

I go, and madness does not fall behind:
In tubs on frigid shelves they sell a paste
Suffused with cherries, or with garlic rind,
Or bacon. And withal there goes to waste
The sweetest cream that e’er Galthea placed
Between pastoral palms of devotees
In Arcady, whose name is here disgraced,
And who desired no vanity in cheese.

And lo! What woe behold I though I rail
Against whatever fiend devised this thing
Called Pepperjack, to make the righteous quail
With wax to mock and capsicum to sting!
My muse leaves me. I can no longer sing
Upon this sacrilege! (The poet flees.
He snatches Mozzeralla on the wing,
For he desires no vanity in cheese.)

Prince, you offer pepper-corned Edam
With citron-oil essence. Remove it please:
Its power my gut to sour, your soul to damn!
I do desire no vanity in cheese.

News has it that this young poet has many more such wonderful poems up his sleeve, and future issues of Gilbert Magazine will carry his work. If you don't have a subscription, it would appear as if now would be the moment to secure such future poetry.

Cheese

I hope you are having lots of American food this 4th of July, to which I wish you a happy and safe holiday, including, but not limited to, cheese.

Speaking of cheese, --and how smoothly she throws that into this sentence, eh?--for those of you enamored with the poetry of our young man Rob at the closing banquet at the Chesterton Conference, a poem devoted to tales of cheese, and hoping to see or read that poem again, I have good news.

A member of our Society has been in direct contact with Rob and has ordered him to send his poem in for publication, which Gilbert magazine will directly publish. If you do not have a membership, which includes a subscription, now is the time for all good men (inclusive) to come to the aid of their Chesterton Society. Join. Read. Eat cheese. Thank you.