Chesterton Outmoded?

Reader takes up some sort of "Outmoded" book challenge, takes Napolean of Notting Hill off her shelf, and discovers she has a first edition!

The American Cecil Chesterton Society

This took me by surprise when I discovered it today.

Our Mr. Chesterton

I enjoy this feature of the magazine (Gilbert) very much. I like the personal anecdotes. Probably because I like the person of Chesterton so much. And his heroic virtue of....oh, that's another post, sorry ;-)

In this issue, we have a note from E.C. Bentley, a close friend of Chesterton's, describing the notebooks filled with Chesterton's writing, from very early on. I would love to see the book that they wrote together, taking turns writing chapters. And the item that he hated having anyone read his work while he was present....well, I thought I was the only one. ;-)

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.

If you live in or near Ro"chesterton", NY...

A conference which includes Chesterton.

Scholarship Winners

One thing I love to read each year in Gilbert is the Gilbert and Frances Scholarship winners essays. The latest Gilbert had two essays, by Spencer Howe and Alex Ogrodnick.

Naturally, as a homeschooling mother, I enjoyed Spencer's article: "The Attack on Parents as Primary Educators."

If parents abdicate thier role as teachers of their children, then external influences will inculcate the young with popular and one-sided views on the most controversial and disputed dogmas, including political involvement, history, religion, and morality.

Not bad.

Alex's article, "Of Beaatitudes, Money, and Gratitude" was a Chestertonian view of possessions.

I enjoyed reading these young authors work, and wish them the best in their future endeavors.

Gilbert's Vanity Plates seen in Arizona

Very cool. I think every state should have a Chesterton plate, and the proceeds should go to the ACS.

Gilbert Editorial

"The Nightmare--One Hundred Years Later"

If you own a copy of the book The Critical Judgements, you can read the contemporary reviews of The Man Who Was Thursday (TMWWT). Then, like today, some readers "got it" and some don't.

I remember Dawn Eden's talk at ChesterCon07, and she was talking about the influence of TMWWT. As she spoke, she held a copy of TMWWT in her hand. I was sitting in a place where I could see her hand, and the book, and I noticed that the book was able to lay flat (spine broken?), had many dogears, seemed to have underlines and notes on every page, and in every way showed signs of frequent reading. Dawn quoted to us several passages that had made a difference to her life.

Which brings me to a curious fact. The passages she quoted, were not the ones I underlined and remember. I have different sentences that mean much to me. And this is a great thing about Chesterton. He speaks to many different people in many different ways--using the same story. Amazing.

So, back to the editorial. Here we are, just completing a conference and an issue on a story that is 100 years old. Wonderful. Before the conference, we had a book discussion on line here about Thursday, and we discussed why it was called a Nightmare, which the editorial touches upon as well.

So, do you know what we are celebrating at ChesterCon08? The 100th Anniversary of Orthodoxy. I think maybe in about April, we'll start a book discussion of that, in preparation for the conference. Anyone interested in that?

Lepanto Novena Day 3

Chesterton's Potential Sainthood and Dorothy Collins' Remark

Seems below Gramps is determined to throw a wet blanket on the idea of Chesterton as a saint. Well, none of us really knows. That's why we have a church to think about such things. All we can do is produce evidence, give it to the right people, and they will decide, not us.

However, as I was reading this past weekend, I came across this curious passage in Aidan Mackey's new book, G.K. Chesterton: A Prophet for the 21st Century, With an Introduction by Dale Ahlquist:

"Again, he [Chesterton] so belittled his own powers that even those who knew him could be deceived. On several occasions, I [Aidan Mackey] asked Dorothy Collins, his secretary, who was as a daughter to Gilbert and Frances Chesterton, with which languages Gilbert had some familiarity. Each time I was assured that he had no knowledge whatsoever of any tongue other than English, other than a very few words of schoolboy French. Yet a reading of his Chaucer and other of his works clearly displays very sensitive knowledge of French and acquaintanceship with Latin. In fact, he translated a sonnet from the French of Joachim du Bellay so marvellously, that Mr. George Steiner....paid it...high tribute [which Mr. Mackey goes on to quote].

...I have since discovered that G.K.C. was awarded the Sixth Form ('A' Group) Prize for French at St. Paul's School in 1891...to have been the recipient of this award most certainly proves that he was brilliant at both written and oral French.

I merely relate Mr. Mackey's remarks as proof that even someone as close to Chesterton as Dorothy Collins may not have known him all that well.

St. Louis Chums with Chesterton and Bums with Belloc

Ohh. I see a Dawn Eden headline there. ;-)
Those St. Louis Chestertonians are so lucky. Yes, I'm jealous.

UPDATE: Pictures of the chums and bums here.

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.

Letters

Note to Editor: Top of page 5: first class postage is now 41 cents. No wonder your letters to the editor come in so slowly. :-)

Gregory Bohen's letter to the editor is fascinating. And shows how widely spread Chesterton's stuff is. Here is a place in Texas, a place I am fairly certain Chesterton never visited (correct me if I'm wrong) which has two folders of over 500 handwritten pages of Chesterton's, including illustrations! What a find. I enjoyed reading Mr. Bohen's discovery and was glad to see some of the illustrations reproduced for our enjoyment. The best part was where he said the papers still smelled of tobacco smoke. (See pages 5-6 of the latest [July/August 2007] issue.)

Thursday's Dr. Thursday Post

The Wind: Setting the Volume to Max

As I have mentioned in last week's posting, there are a lot of memories connected with September. It was in September of 1969 when I first picked up a bow and began to learn the bass fiddle, also called the double-bass or string bass, the largest of the orchestral strings.

It was a lot of fun... I was never very good, but I did play in the high school stage band, and also in the string ensemble at college. That first practice we began with Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" and it was so awesome that I forgot to play, I was just so amazed by being "inside" the orchestra.

But my playing the string bass had another outcome: a good friend who is now the organist of a cathedral. He provided the musical talent when I built the pipe organ in my basement, and played at its first (and only) recital. From him, from our music teacher at high school, from a number of books, and from direct experience, I learned a lot about pipe organs, which have some strange associations with computers. Computer scientists aren't the only ones who care about numbers like 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, and 1 - but organists must also deal with two-and-two-thirds and one-and-three-fifths, the so-called "mutation" stops, which we can talk about another time.

The first thing one learns about the pipe organ is that it is two major parts: a collection of pipes sitting on a box full of compressed air (the "wind chest"), and machinery to control them (keyboards, stops, and so on). One must have at least five dozen pipes - because each pipe can make only one sound. An organ pipe is not like a flute or clarinet, which has a number of holes, and various keys covering those holes. In an organ, the music comes by having a "rank" - a set of 61 pipes, each made as similarly as possible to the others, except for its size - one for each of the 61 keys of the standard organ keyboard. (That's five octaves and a note, from the "C" 2 ledgers below the bass clef to the second "C" above the staff.)

Most organs have several ranks of pipes. Each rank will have its own shape, which gives that rank its particular "timbre" or tonal quality... again this amazing topic is something for another time.

But I tell you about this very high "system" view of the pipe organ for this purpose: all the keyboards and other various switches (called stop knobs or tabs) are arranged simply in order to control getting the "wind" (the compressed air) to each single pipe. The particular key pressed determines which size pipe - what pitch. The stop knob selects which rank of pipes - what tonal quality. Obviously, when you press several keys, you play a chord, and notes sound in harmony (let us hope!). And, when you pull out more than one stop, you get an increased and mixed tonal effect. This is the origin of the phrase - "pulling out all the stops" - which is called "full organ". In rock and roll, it is called setting the amps to "ten" ("eleven" if you are in "Spinal Tap"). The first album of the rock group "Rush" directs the listener to "set the volume to maximum for best results" (See here for more on that.)

Now it may seem surprising to go into such details about music on a Chesterton blogg. It is said that he was nearly tone-deaf: "Yet it was all but impossible to teach Gilbert a tune, and Bernard Shaw felt this (as we have seen) a real drawback to his friend's understanding of his own life and career. Music was to Shaw what line and color were to Chesterton; but to Chesterton singing was just making a noise to show he felt happy." [Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton 276, my emphasis] Father O'Connor, perceptive and careful, applies the scholastic distinguo: "[He] was tone-deaf, though most sensitive to musical rhythm or tempo. [O'Connor, Father Brown on Chesterton, 21, my emphasis]

But as usual Chesterton understood a lot more than we think.

To hear more about this, pull out all the stops and click here...


I think GKC would have greatly approved of the instructions from "Rush", or the "eleven" on the amps of "Spinal Tap" - because - of all things - he understood just what really happened on Palm Sunday.

Now, if that sounds like a Father Brown riddle, perhaps you have not yet read Tremendous Trifles, which is again available! Here is the solution:

I remember a debate in which I had praised militant music in ritual, and some one asked me if I could imagine Christ walking down the street before a brass band. I said I could imagine it with the greatest ease; for Christ definitely approved a natural noisiness at a great moment. When the street children shouted too loud, certain priggish disciples did begin to rebuke them in the name of good taste. He said: "If these were silent the very stones would cry out." [GKC, "The Tower" in Tremendous Trifles, quoting Luke 19:40, my emphasis]

As usual, there is something more to be discovered, if one takes the time. This is an example of where saying the Rosary can pay off - careful reading of Scripture, or real attention at Holy Mass have equal effects, but the Rosary is designed (ah, let use keep to our musical theme) to compose variations on a basso ostinato.

On that Sunday before Passover, as the palms were strewn and the children raised their voices, there was something more than just making noise - there was, to use a modern term, an advertisement, an attention-getter. Specifically the cheers and cries of "Hosanna!" called attention to something going on - to a piece of news - to a new event.

And, if one takes a look at the events exactly eight weeks later, one finds the exact same thing happening. But this time, the sound had a rather different origin:

And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, [the Apostles] were all together in one place: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming: and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. [Acts 2:1-2, emphasis added]

Wow. Talk about setting the volume to max!

Here we see that Someone has controlled the wind! The master Organist of the Universe has "pulled out all the stops" in order to call attention to something new. ("Behold, I make all things new." [Rv 21:5])

This new wind is so powerful, and yet so subtle that Chesterton could not help but call upon it in his own writing:

"How The Great Wind Came To Beacon House"

A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness, and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxication of the sea. In a million holes and corners it refreshed a man like a flagon and astonished him like a blow. In the inmost chambers of intricate and embowered houses it woke like a domestic explosion, littering the floor with some professor's papers till they seemed as precious as fugitive, or blowing out the candle by which a boy read Treasure Island and wrapping him in roaring dark. But everywhere it bore drama into undramatic lives, and carried the trump of crisis across the world. Many a harassed mother in a mean backyard had looked at five dwarfish shirts on the clothes-line as at some small, sick tragedy; it was as if she had hanged her five children. The wind came, and they were full and kicking as if five fat imps had sprung into them; and far down in her oppressed subconsciousness she half remembered those coarse comedies of her fathers when the elves still dwelt in the homes of men. Many an unnoticed girl in a dank walled garden had tossed herself into the hammock with the same intolerant gesture with which she might have tossed herself into the Thames; and that wind rent the waving wall of woods and lifted the hammock like a balloon, and showed her shapes of quaint cloud far beyond, and pictures of bright villages far below, as if she rode heaven in a fairy boat. Many a dusty clerk or curate, plodding a telescopic road of poplars, thought for the hundredth time that they were like the plumes of a hearse, when this invisible energy caught and swung and clashed them round his head like a wreath or salutation of seraphic wings. There was in it something more inspired and authoritative even than the old wind of the proverb; for this was the good wind that blows nobody harm. [GKC, Manalive, first chapter]

As you may have expected, I bring all this up for a purpose. 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.

Blatchford or Chesterton?

Mark Shea, Chestertonian writer, on Catholic Exchange.

Heads Up! Be Prepared to Pray

Check out the novena we're about to start here.HT Chestertonian and Dr. Thursday.

Christmas List Idea?

Rumor has it, these are available now. I know *I* would want one ;-)

What?

I was reading Tremendous Trifles, and came across this astonishing and puzzling line:

"Chesterton's and Francis (sic) Blogg's marriage to Walt Whitman.

(Editorial note: Female Frances with an "e", male Francis with an "i")

What? Gilbert and Frances were never married to Walt Whitman, heaven forbid! It took several readings to understand the sentence:

"Peter's lengthy essays cover every topic imaginable, from the meaning of "Ordinary Time" to Chesterton's and Francis (sic) Blogg's marriage (missing comma here) to Walt Whitman.

Just one little missing comma. Tee hee!

Write a letter!

Address your letter thus:

Rt. Rev. Peter Doyle
Bishop's House
Marriott St.
Northampton NN2 6AW
UK

My Lord Bishop,

and then state all of the many reasons you can think of why the cause of Gilbert and Frances Chesterton should move forward.

Thanks.

Proofreaders wanted for e-Chesterton

Their name even sounds Chestertonian-- "Distributed Proofreaders".