Getting Back to Poet and Lunatics

One of my prize gifts from the ChesterCon07 is this wonderful and helpful book, called G.K. Chesterton: The Critical Judgements. Before I go on discussing Poet & Lunatics, I wanted to see what the reviewers said about the book in its own time.

Here are some excerpts:

Gale, the poet and painter, who is the hero of these tales, often expresses his sense of well-being, and of the sanity of the world, by standing on his head...

Many of these stories deal with men who are mad or on the verge of madness; Gabriel Gale has a sympathy with these unfortunate people, because he knows what has sent them to the verge of beyond, and believes he knows how to bring them back. Gale knows the dangerous moment when a man fancies that he is not a creature, but a god; and in these episodes from his life Mr. Chesterton tells of his adventures in bringing such men to sanity, or discovering their crimes or preventing their excesses.

Gabriel Gale's old friend, Dr. Garth, figures in many of the stories, and is certainly one of the best Watsons ever invented...

I didn't realize Dr. Garth was a Watsonian figure, did you?

June 28th

The love of Chesterton and Blogg, 1901-2007

Today, Thursday, June 28, is a most important day to Chestertonians everywhere. And so we shall again interrupt our attempt to resume some kind of natural flow in our discussion of everything to discuss this most important and wonderful of days - and somehow such things are best discussed here, out in the E-cosmos, on a blogg. (All Chestertonians must spell it thus.)

For, if as some of us hope, one day both Gilbert and Frances are canonised, it might suitably be today rather than June 14, which would serve as their feast day. Yes, for today is their wedding anniverary, when Chesterton and Blogg became one in love and in the sight of God and Man.

(Another time I might comment on how useful that would be: a statue of the two together, books piled at GKC's feet, a pen in his hand, and a cigar in his mouth, but their hands joined and smiles on their faces. Useful, I say, both as a shock, and as an inspiration.)

But for today, let us listen to GKC's biographer, Maisie Ward, recall this loving couple, starting with just a little of our dear Uncle Gilbert's letter to our dear Aunt Frances, telling of how this momentous occasion was brought about...

One pleasant Saturday afternoon Lucian Oldershaw said to GKC, "I am going to take you to see the Bloggs."
"The what?" said the unhappy man.
"The Bloggs," said the other, darkly.
Naturally assuming that it was the name of a public-house GKC reluctantly followed his friend. He came to a small front-garden; if it was a public-house it was not a businesslike one. They raised the latch - they rang the bell (if the bell was not in the close time just then). No flower in the pots winked. No brick grinned. No sign in Heaven or earth warned him. The birds sang on in the trees. He went in.

The first time he spent an evening at the Bloggs there was no one there. That is to say there was a worn but fiery little lady in a grey dress who didn't approve of "catastrophic solutions of social problems." That, he understood, was Mrs. Blogg. There was a long, blonde, smiling young person who seemed to think him quite off his head and who was addressed as Ethel. There were two people whose meaning and status he couldn't imagine, one of whom had a big nose and the other hadn't.... Lastly, there was a Juno-like creature in a tremendous hat who eyed him all the time half wildly, like a shying horse, because he said he was quite happy....

But the second time he went there he was plumped down on a sofa beside a being of whom he had a vague impression that brown hair grew at intervals all down her like a caterpillar. Once in the course of conversation she looked straight at him and he said to himself as plainly as if he had read it in a book: "If I had anything to do with this girl I should go on my knees to her: if I spoke with her she would never deceive me: if I depended on her she would never deny me: if I loved her she would never play with me: if I trusted her she would never go back on me: if I remembered her she would never forget me. I may never see her again. Goodbye." It was all said in a flash: but it was all said.

Some time later he wrote to her:

... It is a mystic and refreshing thought that I shall never understand Bloggs.

That is the truth of it ... that this remarkable family atmosphere ... this temperament with its changing moods and its everlasting will, its divine trust in one's soul and its tremulous speculations as to one's "future," its sensitiveness like a tempered swords vibrating but never broken: its patience that can wait for Eternity and its impatience that cannot wait for tea, its power of bearing huge calamities, and its queer little moods that even those calamities can never overshadow or wipe out: its brusqueness that always pleases and its over-tactfulness that sometimes wounds: its terrific intensity of feeling, that sometimes paralyses the outsider with conversational responsibility its untranslatable humour of courage and poverty and its unfathomed epics of past tragedy and triumph - all this glorious confusion of family traits, which, in no exaggerative sense, make the Gentiles come to your light and the folk of the nations to the brightness of your house - is a thing so utterly outside my own temperamentthat I was formed by nature to admire and not understand it. God made me very simply - as he made a tree or a pig or an oyster to perform certain functions. The best thing he gave me was a perfect and unshakable trust in those I love.

It is well that we laugh in comparing God's making of GKC as he made an oyster, for humour played a role as well:
On his wedding morning, GKC stopped in a local store to buy and drink a glass of milk - which he explained in his autobiography as "a reminiscence of childhood. I stopped at that particular dairy because I had always drunk a glass of milk there when walking with my mother in my infancy. And it seemed to me a fitting ceremonial to unite the two great relations of a man's life." (CW16:44). He also stopped at another store to buy a revolver! He explained that too: "I did not buy the pistol to murder myself - or my wife; I never was really modern. I bought it because it was the great adventure of my youth, with a general notion of protecting her from the pirates doubtless infesting the Norfolk Broads, to which we were bound..." In a letter from that place he began: ""I have a wife, a piece of string, a pencil and a knife: what more can any man want on a honeymoon." Of course he was anticipating his dictum in Orthodoxy: "The greatest of poems is an inventory." CW1:267.

Elsewhere, GKC writes about how Man and Woman are:

...two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of "Beauty and the Beast". Every man has to find out that his wife is cross - that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness: for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else's sanity.
[GKC, The Common Man 142-3]

So today let us recall that great day when the "selfish beast" called Gilbert Chesterton married the "madwoman" called Frances Blogg. Though the fruitfulness of their marriage was not to be in merely biological progeny, they have given forth a bountiful harvest in fruits of the spirit: fruits seen in their radical effect on people like their secretary Dorothy Collins, like the Nicholl family, and (more recently) like Aidan, Dale, Stratford, Martin, Frank and Ann Petta, Frances Farrell, Fr. Boyd, Fr. Jaki, Fr. Schall, and vast flocks of younger nieces and nephews. Fruitful, also, in inspiring converts like Joseph Pearce, Dawn Eden, Alec Guiness, and many others.

And thus the work of Gilbert and Frances goes on. What are you waiting for? Come join our family!

God made thee mightily, my love,
He stretched his hands out of his rest
And lit the star of east and west
Brooding o'er darkness like a dove.
God made thee mightily, my love.

God made thee patiently, my sweet,
Out of all stars he chose a star
He made it red with sunset bar
And green with greeting for thy feet.
God made thee mightily, my sweet.
[GKC to FBC CW10:351]

Tomorrow is an important day

It has to do with the marriage of Chesterton and a blogg...no, no, I mean a Blogg. And a birthday. Two birthdays, as it is also my father's birthday, and several other Chestertonians also have birthdays tomorrow.

UPDATE: Somehow the date was wrong on this post, the birthdays are June 28th (but happy birthday to Candlestring's father today!

More About Dawn Eden

I don't feel I did Dawn Eden justice. She was a great inspirational speaker, and what a gorgeous smile. She has one of those smiles that just won't quit, stretching all the way across her face and lighting up the room.

Dawn not only gave a great talk, but she also gave a quite memorable and hilarious toast at the closing banquet. Anyone who was there will never, I don't doubt, be able to hear the word "Bay-o-WOLF!" again without thinking of her wonderful toast and thoughts about drinking mead for the first time.

Dawn's wonderful story about the reading of The Man Who Was Thursday as a young innocent, and it's lasting effect on her as a book about rebellion really was profoundly moving, and also reminds us of how differently different things in Chesterton hit us at times in our lives when we need them.

I was very inspired by Dawn's talk, and hope if you're interested, you'll buy it.

Conference Coverage from a ChesterTeen

Read about it here.

Laughter

Here are Alicia and I proving that we were at the conference. ;-)

I was just telling some relatives over the weekend that one thing I noticed about the Chesterton Conference is that there is a lot of laughter. I told them I laugh more there in one day than at home usually in many weeks. And since laughter is good medicine, I feel the need to tell all of you planning to come next year, that the Chesterton Conference is good for your health. ;-)

Dawn Eden on the Conference

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

We have returned to the tempus per annum which some call "Ordinary Time" because the weeks are marked with ordinals (first, second, seventhy-ninth, ten-thousand-and-twenty-fifth, etc). This remarkable time, which is remarkable just as (for us Chestertonians!) the "common man" is remarkable, offers us the delights of anything and everything which is the one single subject of our interest.

But yes, perhaps I ought to say just a word or two about ChesterCon07 which has just ended - or I should say, has just completed... for it has not truly ended. It is just deferred. Someone has pointed out that these conferences are a tiny foretaste of "the Inn at the End of the World" - the one for which "the Good Wine has been Kept" - those of us who know about scripture remember that this coming banquet wil be a Wedding-Feast, and happy are those who are called to partake. I readily grant that, in our fallen state, we poor weak ones tend to make a mess of things, and even at a ChesterCon will find speed-bumps, and spilled wine or beer (or mead!), or talks we do not like, or talks we disagree with, and even, yes, even people who are bumpy or spilled or disagreeing or disagreeable. This reminds me of a very famous letter from GKC to his fiance:

11 Paternoster Buildings
(postmarked July 8, 1899)
... I am black but comely [See Canticle of Canticles 1:4] at this moment: because the cyclostyle has blacked me. Fear not. I shall wash myself. But I think it my duty to render an accurate account of my physical appearance every time I write: and shall be glad of any advice and assistance....
[GKC to Frances Blogg, quoted in Maisie Ward's Gilbert Keith Chesterton 108]

Hence, let us sincerely be sure to shall wash ourselves (cf. Rv. 7:14) before we get that invitation to the banquet.

So it might be useful for me to draw attention to one small matter.
Continue reading.
At least one speaker mentioned GKC's very important essay titled "If I Only Had One Sermon to Preach" which was printed in The Common Man, presently not in print - but can be found on line, and was also reprinted in On Lying in Bed and other Essays which is available from the ACS. I mention it because it is GKC's solemn sermon on Pride and Humility. I have just learned that the mere mention of GKC's sermon led to its being referred to in an actual sermon preached last Sunday. Clearly it has a very important lesson for all of us. Consider just this one excerpt:

Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making the truth the test. It is not pride to wish to do well, or even to look well, according to a real test. It is pride to think that a thing looks ill, because it does not look like something characteristic of oneself.

Yes, it can be easy to forget, amid all the verbal fireworks, the real reason for our meeting.

But all in all, it was a wonderful conference, and I met many friends there - some old, some new - some unfortunately not yet friends - nevertheless I will indeed pray for all of you, and hope that we shall all meet again, whether at a future ChesterCon, or at the Inn at the End of the World. Please likewise pray for me; I've used the cyclostyle.

Meanwhile, I shall resume my exploration of the books which GKC read, referred to, or commented on, and which are still available.

Today's book is Doré’s Illustrations for Ariosto’s "Orlando Furioso", available through Dover Publications. It is suggested by this quote:

...horse and man together making an image that is to him human and civilised, it will be easy, as it were, to lift horse and man together into something heroic or symbolical; like a vision of St. George in the clouds. The fable of the winged horse will not be wholly unnatural to him: and he will know why Ariosto set many a Christian hero in such an airy saddle, and made him the rider of the sky. For the horse has really been lifted up along with the man in the wildest fashion in the very word we use when we speak “chivalry.”
[GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:148]

Ludovico (or Lodovico) Ariosto, (1474-1533) was an Italian poet and dramatist. His best known work is the chivalric epic poem Orlando Furioso, (Roland the Mad) a sequel to Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato (Roland in Love); containing 50,000 lines of such things as magic, winged horses, evil Orcs, a trip to the moon on a hippogriff, and Christian knights, it is generally considered the most perfect poetic expression of the Italian Renaissance, and a principal model for Spenser's Faerie Queene.

In Orlando Furioso, the hero travels on a hippogriff, a mythological creature which is part eagle, part horse. There is also a flight to the moon in Elijah's chariot, which is drawn by winged horses. See pages 105 and 113 in the Dover edition. Here are some other suggestive GKC quotes:

The cow jumping over the moon is not only a fancy very suitable to children, it is a theme very worthy of poets. The lunar adventure may appear to some a lunatic adventure; but it is one round which the imagination of man has always revolved; especially the imagination of romantic figures like Ariosto and Cyrano de Bergerac.
[GKC, ILN Oct. 15, 1921 CW32:254]

We speak of the Renaissance as the birth of rationalism; it was in many ways the birth of irrationalism. It is true that the medieval School-men, who had produced the finest logic that the world has ever seen, had in later years produced more logic than the world can ever be expected to stand. They had loaded and lumbered up the world with libraries of mere logic; and some effort was bound to be made to free it from such endless chains of deduction. Therefore, there was in the Renaissance a wild touch of revolt, not against religion but against reason. Thus one of the very greatest of the sixteenth-century giants was almost as much of a nonsense writer as Edward Lear: Rabelais. So another of the very greatest wrote an Orlando Furioso which might sometimes be called Ariosto Furioso.
[GKC Chaucer CW18:328]

Let it be agreed, on the one hand, that the Renaissance poets had in one sense obtained a wider as well as a wilder range. But though they juggled with worlds, they had less real sense of how to balance a world. I am sorry that Chaucer "left half-told the story of Cambuscan bold" and I can imagine that that flying horse might have carried the hero into very golden skies of Greek or Asiatic romance; but I am prepared to agree that he would never have beaten Ariosto in anything like a voyage to the moon. On the other hand, even in Ariosto there is something symbolic, if only accidentally symbolic, in the fact that his poem is less tragic but more frantic than "The Song of Roland"; and deals not with Roland Dead but with Roland Mad.
[ibid CW18:330-331]

100 Years past TMWWT

ht: Joe

"A rather amusing thing was said by Father Knox on this point. He said that he should have regarded the book as entirely pantheist and as preaching that there was good in everything if it had not been for the introduction of the one real anarchist and pessimist. But he was prepared to wager that if [ The Man Who Was Thursday] survives for a hundred years - which it won't - they will say that the real anarchist was put in afterwards by the priests."

This is from Maisie Ward's biography,

Denny was there

and blogs about the experience. Sounds like I missed some great stuff Thursday and Friday.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Denny, for those who couldn't attend to get a little idea of what it is like, and for those that did, to relive an experience they'll never forget.

Blog Readers who attended the conference...

Please let me know who you are. Leave a message in the comments, leave a link if you have your own blog. I'm just curious to know how many of you attended. Thanks

Today, Please Visit Joe

and read his blogging about the conference.

Back home...

I finished out the conference by attending the "AAA" meeting, "Ask Aidan Anything" to which he immediately told us that wasn't true, as he couldn't be asked to be married, for he already was. Aidan has a great sense of humor, I loved him. I'll talk more about him soon.

During that same time, other people attended a talk on a new Chesterton High School. I'll also tell you more about that soon.

Other people attended a wildly popular session on heraldry, given by Peter Floriani, to high acclaim. Peter has studied these things, and knows a great deal about the symbolism of heraldic shields and such.

There was a fourth session but my memory has just failed me as to what it was.

After that, there was an interesting talk on Chesterton and Marriage, and the speaker, Steve, sat at my table for dinner and was a very interesting person to talk to, despite the fact that he's a lawyer. ;-)

After that, we had Mass in the Chapel, and then the banquet.

The table I sat at, well, I would have loved for it to have about 12 more chairs, as I wanted to sit with everyone I'd met over the weekend. As it was, I sat with Peter Floriani--a PhD computer scientist, David Deavel, some sort of doctoral candidate at Fordam University who writes articles on Harry Potter with his wife, Steve the lawyer, Judy, who has a sacred art gallery in Minneapolis, and Lily, a native of South America living in River Falls, Wisconsin, who also homeschools her children and helps her husband run a family business. An eclectic group, as only Chesterton could gather.

The food was great, but then began the entertainment. First, they had a sort of band, made up of Chestertonians on the guitar, mouth harp, banjo, violin and mandolin. Most of them weren't any good. I suspect the whole thing was done just so that we could be amazed at the talents of the young violinist. She was the daughter of one of the Chestertonians (the banjo player of all things, you would think his daughter would play the dulcimer or something) and although she looked to be about 9 or 10, she could play better than any of them, and didn't appear to need the sheets music as much as the older ones, who squinted dramatically during the performance, I suppose to evoke our sympathy; which it did not. ;-)

There was a very fine reading of a new poem about cheese by Rob, a very talented, and--pay attention young female Chestertonians--handsome writer of amazingly good and funny poetry.

There were more musical things, but then....my cell phone announced that Cinderella had to leave the ball. My children were ready to see their mother again, and be tucked into bed. So, sadly, I had to leave during the middle of it all, without saying goodbye to anyone. Hugs to everyone!

More soon.

Hi-light from Geir

Sigrid Undset --Kristin Lavrenstatter--is a "good cry".

Report from Dr. Thursday

I just checked my e-mail and saw I had this report from Dr. Thursday for the part of the conference I missed:

There are lots of great used books for sale. Very interesting stuff here.

On Thursday night:

1. Dale gave the opening talk on Thursday and GKC - how vital his work is today, even more than when he first wrote.

2. Then GKC himself spoke - (Chuck Chalberg in disguise, who does GKC on the EWTN show) - using The New Jerusalem he told of Islam, of his trip to the Holy Land, and a number of timely comments about this important topic.

Then we sang Happy Birthday to Dale and had cake.

This morning:

1. a talk by this lunatic computer scientist - there were all kinds of technical difficulties - "Science, you see, is NOT infallible!" he told us, quoting GKC. But most of his talk seemed to be about dragons and long words and The Phantom Tollbooth.

2. Due to circumstances, I missed some of this talk, about GKC and jogging past lamp-posts, and how the light from the street lamp gives a clue to GKC's view of reality.

Time is flying, and I must go. Thanks for your prayers...

--Dr. Thursday

Here at ChesterCon07

I'm blogging, right now, this very moment, from the lobby of the Brady Educational Building, where, at this moment, the Chesterton Conference is going on. David Zach and Peter Floriani are having a very deep and serious discussion near me about coffee mugs. Laura Ahlquist is doing the detail work for which she is known. Other people are milling about trying to decide which Chestertonian t-shirt they should buy. The conference t-shirt has the logo of this year's conference on it in bright yellow, very attractive, with the The Man Who Was Thursday quote on the back, "Chaos is dull" in very large print. Nice.

Well, how did I make it? We went to Milwaukee yesterday morning, got to the Lakefront show, and prayed. But we were rejected, so it must be God's plan that I should make it up here. We then drove to Minneapolis and the four of us set up the tent for the Stone Arch art show up here (our backup choice, and one we would have easily cancelled if we had gotten into Lakefront.) Then, Mike and the girls dropped me at the conference.

I immediately came into this lobby, teeming with Chestertonians waiting for dinner. I first met Peter Floriani, who shouted with joy that I was able to come. He and Dale gave me welcome hugs. I hugged Geir, Sean Dailey, and met Beatriz and her brother Alejandro, from Mexico City; Beatriz has been reading this blog and her husband gave her this trip as a birthday present. She and her brother are the first people from Mexico to attend the American Chesterton Society meeting, although her brother lives in McAllen so technically, he's from here, still he was born there. They were introduced to Chesterton by finding a Chesterton book on their father's book shelf many years ago.

I then met David Zach, who's been reading the blog. He's a professional speaker who has some great ideas for Chestertonian coffee mugs, magnets, pins and other ways to make Chesterton more known. He's also been putting Chesterton Conference brochures up in coffee shops across Milwaukee, where he lives, which is wonderful.

Frank and Ann Petta are here. I have yet to meet Aidan Mackey, but plan to attend his talk this afternoon.

Last night, I attended Dawn Eden's talk, and met her. She is tremendously nice, sweet, and although she gets nervous and has a bit of a stutter, she had a great story to tell and told it well. I hope to get to talk more with her today.

But before Dawn's talk, we had a treat. A surprise. Jacinta VanHecke, age 14, recited the first book of The Ballad of the White Horse. I don't know how long it took (15 or 20 minutes) but I was fine until she got to the part where Mary is talking to Alfred, and says,

"I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

"Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"

when I totally teared up and cried. Peter was next to me wiping tears, too. It was really amazing to hear this young lady recite. Wow. She received a well-deserved standing ovation, and lengthy applause.

Then came Joseph Pearce, who is always interesing, mainly because I love accents, and he has a great one. He spoke about his new book Small is Still Beautiful which sounded quite interesting.

This morning, we got up, went over to the art fair, set up all the pictures and got things ready there. Then came back (let the girls sleep a little bit longer), got ready, and they dropped me off here. I regret to say I've already missed the first speech, but I did hear something funny about it from Jaime, who shared breakfast with me.

But I'm terrible at relating funny stories, so I will wait for Jaime to send it to me so I can get the story right. But it had to do with the fact that some thin men do a better job of letting their "fat man" struggle out than others. I think. ;-)

Now, I must get to Geir's talk.

I'm either heading for the conference today...

...or I'm not.

What a life! So uncertain. Everything else is, too, but this seems particularly so.

Meanwhile, check out what's happening today here.

I can't remember...

who said they'd be blogging from the conference. If you are, let us know and send me your blog's link.

Thanks.

Meanwhile, if you seach Google under "Blogs" and put in "Chesterton Conference 2007" you get some great links to people planning on going, planning on speaking, or planning on buying the tapes. If you can't go, you can get a taste of it this way.

This report in from Dr. Thursday...

Once again I am on the campus of the University of St. Thomas - on a Thursday, in the Year Who Was Thursday - just before the beginning of ChesterCon07.

Geir Hasnes is here, typing away on another terminal.

Aidan Mackey is here - he was looking for a cup of tea.

Joseph Pearce is on campus; I understand he is giving a talk to another organisation.

Luke Seaber is here; he had just finished checking his own e-mail.

Dale and the Ahlquists (G.K.'s back-up band) will be here shortly to set up and begin the excitement.

It is rather warm, but the sky is blue, and in the distance I can hear a street organ playing. (Well, if it isn't, there should be.) It gives an excitement which is not like any other....

For those of us not there....don't you wish you were there?

Across the Nation, they travel...

...ready to converge at St. Thomas University in St. Paul.

Let us pray for safe journeys. I hope to see you there. You can pray for that, too ;-)

Let ChesterCon07 begin!