Common Sense

First, I want to thank Dr. Thursday for that moving story yesterday. *sniff*

Secondly, picking up on the What's Wrong with the World discussion, I am wondering how to define "common sense".

I grew up with a mother who firmly and solidly believed in common sense; I know this because my lack of it was regularly the cause of her to say:

"Use your common sense!"

in a rather exasperated way.

I wasn't sure then just exactly what she meant. I *knew* I wasn't born with this "common sense", in my case, anyway, maybe I was unusual, I had to learn it. So, to me, it couldn't have been that "common".

I really didn't feel that I learned common sense until I began to read Chesterton. But I still have trouble defining it. Any suggestions?

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

Over on The Blue Boar, our esteemed magazine Editor asks, "Where Were You" on Tuesday September 11, 2001?

September is rich in memories, for many reasons... the memory may be somewhat distorted by the way I have chosen, but perhaps it has just enough Chesterton in it to justify my selection.

And yes, in case you are wondering, this is almost exactly what happened, though Joe, Al, and Ian are imaginary. And the Control Room (alas) no longer exists.

The Doctor, however, is all too real, though out here in the E-cosmos, he is known by another name...

--Dr. Thursday

Joe the Control Room Guy
in
"A Famous Date"

"...a date that ought to be among the most famous in history - September 11, 1683..."
-- H. Belloc, The Great Heresies

"...part of what historians call 'the specious present' for Muslims."
-- in an essay by W. Cinfici in The Annotated Lepanto

It was a Tuesday in the fall of 2001, 08:01 by the big red master clock in the corner of the Control Room of a cable TV company somewhere in the greater suburbs of southeastern Pennsylvania. Joe checked over the four big display screens which showed the status of the hundreds of computers in the Field - computers which played the commercials on some 40-odd cable TV networks. Normally scheduled for nights, Joe had the day shift today, having swapped with Al, who was home with his wife and new daughter. All the displays showed normal status - all the telltales were green, so things were running fine. The ever shifting eyes of CUSTOS the system guardian were placid. In a long row of equipment racks below the four big screens, 48 black-and-white monitors showed the various cable networks, a random flashing collage of entertainment and information. Nothing abnormal there. Joe nodded to Jeff, his supervisor, who was talking on the phone, then he went out to the lunchroom to get some coffee.

Joe nodded to co-workers he passed - some in the halls discussing current projects, some sitting in their cubicles talking to customers.
"Ain't seen you for a while, Joe - on days now?" someone asked.
"Just while Al's out this week," he explained. He got some donuts from the vending machine, helped himself to the coffee, and headed back to the Control Room.

Joe was looking over the displays again when Bill from Traffic came in pushing a cart loaded with dozens of video tapes. "Whole lot of spots today, Joe," he said.
"A little early in the week, aren't they?" Joe asked. Bill only shrugged and left the room without a word. Joe shrugged too, then pushed the cart over to an encoder, and began the boring task of converting the tapes into the electronic form for satellite distribution to all the remote locations where they were needed.
He had just put in the first tape when Jeff came over. "Hey, Joe - I have a meeting with my boss, so it'll just be you in here for a while. Everything looks fine right now, but 'Doc' said to let him know if PUMP goes down - he's back in the lab if you need him."
Joe nodded and Jeff left for his meeting. It sure was great to have someone around who took care of the machinery. Joe had talked to "Doc" several times, day or night - he was the developer of the company software, and PUMP was the main satellite transport program, so named because it was the "heart" of their system. Joe didn't even have to watch anything; the CUSTOS monitor had a special audio alert to warn him if something failed. He sat back and began the encoding.

Tape followed tape as Joe worked. Then a woman's voice stated: "Attention: Pump is not running." Joe got up and looked at the big screens - sure enough, the CUSTOS eyes were red, as was the little telltale for PUMP. He took a quick scan over the rest of the displays - everything else looked as it should - then grabbed the cell phone and headed back to the lab.

* * *

Joe went into the lab - it was kept colder than the Control Room because of all the racks of test equipment. The Doctor, in a white lab coat, stood by one of the racks, talking with Ian his boss - they were looking at a new piece of equipment, connected to a row of 16 tiny tv monitors.
"Hey, Joe," Ian said. "What's up?"
"Pump just went down, and Jeff said to let Doc know."
The Doctor nodded. "Thanks Joe - yeah, I had to fix something, and I expected this. Just hold on while I..." He turned to a keyboard and typed furiously.

"Hey, what's that?" Ian asked. "Looks like a plane just hit one of the world Trade Towers."
Joe peered intently at the little screen.
"Some kind of disaster flick? the Doctor commented, busy with the machinery.
"Nah - it's one of the news networks," Ian said, switching the machinery to bring that network to the lab monitor. He turned up the volume and an announcer was talking about the strange event which had just occurred.
"This is strange," Ian said. "How's that PUMP situation?"
"Just ready now," the Doctor said. "It's already corrected and running fine."
"C'mon Joe, Doc; let's get over to the Control Room," Ian said. "Something's going on.

* * *

The three went back into the Control Room. As he glanced at the 48 little monitors, Joe knew something was going on. The same strange shot - a glimpse of a plane, then smoke billowing - was appearing on several different networks.
"Put it up on the big screen," Ian ordered. Joe sat down at the main console and pressed buttons, then adjusted the volume. On the big screen the horrible view was even more intense and nearby - it was strange to think that they were only a couple of hours drive away from it.

Then the view changed - another plane had hit the other tower. The reporter said something about a third plane hitting the Pentagon, and there was some report of yet another plane crashing somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Joe shivered slightly, not just from the cold of the Control Room. He looked up at the Doctor, who had made the sign of the cross. He's Catholic, Joe thought to himself. He heard the main door click open, and Jeff came in, followed by several members of higher management. No one said anything - all eyes were intent on the strange view being shown on the big screen.

But duty calls, Joe thought to himself. On one of the desk computers, he flipped through the various monitoring displays. Everything seemed to be running normally, except that there hadn't been any cues for some time. Joe understood - when the networks go to live coverage, they do not send the "cue" signals to indicate a time when a commercial could be played - and the machinery was dutifully reporting this unusual state. There was nothing to be done - something historic was occurring, and lesser matters were of no importance. Looking over the 48 monitors, Joe was surprised to see even the music-video networks were showing live coverage from New York - he had never seen so many networks all showing the same thing.

From among the higher management came a whiney pompous voice - "What a terrible thing. I am surprised that such things occur."

The room was silent for a moment, then Joe heard the Doctor's voice. "As Chesterton once said, 'I am never surprised at any work of hell." [GKC, "The God of the Gongs" in The Wisdom of Father Brown]

But he did not stop there. "Ian, I'm going home. I'll be at church - if you need me, I have my cell. God bless us all, and protect us."

"Amen," Joe murmured.

Chesterton Named Official Patron Saint of "Writing for Money" Blog!

Yes, and not without some help from this quarter and others who attend to this blog, thank you.

I've sent links and a short bio, which will be up shortly. If you are a writer or an aspiring writer, go check out Writing for Money.

Coming to you if you live nearby

And this if you live in New York City.

What's Wrong with the World?

Basically, the answer is that not enough people read Chesterton.

If they did, they would know what's wrong with the world.

I just got my order from the American Chesterton Society. I am reading What's Wrong with the World, and I also ordered the TV version of the Father Brown mysteries, which I will watch with my young Chesterteen in a week or so when our life allows. We are both looking forward to that.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to kick back and see just what is wrong with this 'ole world.

Chesterton mentioned as Archbishop Chaput officially opens new Catholic college in Wyoming

Thanks, Joe.

Yippee! A New Kevin O'Brien Mini-Mystery!

From Dr. Thursday

Happy for more than a quarter of a billion miles

You can call it a year, or one solar orbit. If you calculate 365 days, each 24 hours long, with 60 minutes in each hour, and 60 seconds in each minute, you will get 31,536,000 seconds. But if you figure out the distance we have travelled during that time, you will get the even more gigantic figure of some 290 million miles, which is perhaps more easily phrased as "more than a quarter of a billion miles". This really adds up quick, when you multiply by your age... I've been flying for some 13 billion miles - too long to walk, but barely 1/2000 of the way to the nearest star. Whew.

As you might guess, I have had a major struggle to put this posting together, partly because of work, and partly because I wrote something else, quite long and emotional, which I have decided not to post. Instead you must be subjected to this posting, which (it is to be hoped) will induce a little laughter - or at least a few smiles.

In a previous post we recalled how "smiles" is the longest word of English (because there is a "mile" between the two S's!) and we looked at a few other long words, some of which were rather funny. Of course the synthesis of these two items (laughter and long words) leads to the famous modern magic fairy tale called "Mary Poppins" - where one hear nice long words (which I refuse to pronounce, or even spell!) - and one can see demonstrated with the full technicolor power of modern special-effects what happens when one takes one's self lightly... Hee hee. Tea parties on the ceiling, I ask you! Well, if Innocent Smith (of Manalive) can have a picnic on the roof, why not?

But let us proceed to something which links humor with the earth's orbit.

Perhaps you do not believe that the earth moves, not having seen proof... well, then why are you using the INTERNET, silly goose? You probably think this posting is about you - but it's not. (Hee hee.) It's about Chesterton, and his essay called "In Defence of Planets" and whatever else I can throw in in coordination and support of his ideas.

Now, there are two demonstrations for which we waited quite some time which tell us the truth of the motion of our earth - the first is called the parallax of the stars, and the other I omit for today. The idea of parallax is easily demonstrated, as you may know:

To Demonstrate Parallax:
1. Hold your arm out, with one finger raised.
2. Close one eye.
3. Look at the background of your room or office, or wherever you are, and note exactly where your finger is in relation to it.
4. Now for the "magic" - open the closed eye, and close the one which had been opened, and
5. You will see your finger "jump" against the background!

Alas, the even the closest stars are much further away than your finger - which is just at the end of your arm. And so it was not until 1837 that Bessel was able to measure the very tiny jump which just one star makes as we go from January to July - the equivalent of closing your left eye and opening your right eye.

But this is not funny - oh, no - but the idea of you sticking your hand out at work or school and blinking at it? Well, that is funny. But then these are the humiliations to which the true scientist will submit - for humility before the REAL WORLD is the first trademark of the Scientist. It is Jesus meek and humble of heart Who is also the storehouse of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (See Mt 11:29, Col 2:3)

Ah... but I said I was going to talk about Chesterton's essay. Well, after this depth, it may be too funny to turn to that, but here is a sample:

A book has at one time come under my notice called 'Terra Firma: the Earth not a Planet.' The author was a Mr. D. Wardlaw Scott, and he quoted very seriously the opinions of a large number of other persons, of whom we have never heard, but who are evidently very important. Mr. Beach of Southsea, for example, thinks that the world is flat; and in Southsea perhaps it is. It is no part of my present intention, however, to follow Mr. Scott's arguments in detail. On the lines of such arguments it may be shown that the earth is flat, and, for the matter of that, that it is triangular. A few examples will suffice: One of Mr. Scott's objections was that if a projectile is fired from a moving body there is a difference in the distance to which it carries according to the direction in which it is sent. But as in practice there is not the slightest difference whichever way the thing is done, in the case of the earth 'we have a forcible overthrow of all fancies relative to the motion of the earth, and a striking proof that the earth is not a globe.' This is altogether one of the quaintest arguments we have ever seen. It never seems to occur to the author, among other things, that when the firing and falling of the shot all take place upon the moving body, there is nothing whatever to compare them with. As a matter of fact, of course, a shot fired at an elephant does actually often travel towards the marksman, but much slower than the marksman travels. Mr. Scott probably would not like to contemplate the fact that the elephant, properly speaking, swings round and hits the bullet. To us it appears full of a rich cosmic humour.
[GKC, "In Defence of Planets", The Defendant]

Actually, this is by no means the funniest part - perhaps this is:

This sort of thing reduces my mind to a pulp. I can faintly resist when a man says that if the earth were a globe cats would not have four legs; but when he says that if the earth were a globe cats would not have have legs I am crushed.

But then, as GKC goes on to point out, he is not giving a technical study of physics - he has a somewhat larger, more comic purpose... (that is NOT a typo for cosmic! Hee hee)

it is not in the scientific aspect of this remarkable theory that I am for the moment interested. It is rather with the difference between the flat and the round worlds as conceptions in art and imagination that I am concerned. It is a very remarkable thing that none of us are really Copernicans in our actual outlook upon things. We are convinced intellectually that we inhabit a small provincial planet, but we do not feel in the least suburban. Men of science have quarrelled with the Bible because it is not based upon the true astronomical system, but it is certainly open to the orthodox to say that if it had been it would never have convinced anybody. If a single poem or a single story were really transfused with the Copernican idea, the thing would be a nightmare. Can we think of a solemn scene of mountain stillness in which some prophet is standing in a trance, and then realize that the whole scene is whizzing round like a zoetrope at the rate of nineteen miles a second? Could we tolerate the notion of a mighty King delivering a sublime fiat and then remember that for all practical purposes he is hanging head downwards in space? A strange fable might be written of a man who was blessed or cursed with the Copernican eye, and saw all men on the earth like tintacks clustering round a magnet.
[ibid.]

Well, perhaps if we, like the king, tried hanging upside down in space, we might begin to take ourselves lightly.

And then it would not just be "that Poppins woman" who would come in for tea. No, there will be other, rather more important guests, who call us to the good wine of the wedding feast [cf Jn2, Ap 19:9]: "If any one love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make our abode with him." [Jn14:23]

Happy they will be. So let us prepare well...

--Dr. Thursday

From a Brand New Chestertonian

Until yesterday, i knew nothing of G.K. Chesterton, except his name. Now, having heard a great talk by Dale Ahlquist, about the thoughts of G.K. Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense, i have a new appreciation of the concept, reality, potential, and advocacy of "common sense."

Indeed, does not common sense in ourselves and others make it possible for us to better experience relationships of simple love, goodness, wisdom, and truth? And, if not, is it possible we still lack the simple wisdom(faith?) that truth requires the spiritual qualities of love and goodness, as well as the mental qualities of knowledge and wisdom? And finally, in googling for some other thoughts and uses of "common sense," i found the following three views that seem consistent with my new found apprecitation of common sense, thanks to Mr. Dale Ahlquist:

1) The greatest error of teachings about the Scriptures is the doctrine of their being sealed books of mystery and wisdom which only the wise (snobby?) minds of the nation dare to interpret. The revelations of divine truth are not sealed except by human ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-minded intolerance. The light of the Scriptures is only dimmed by prejudice and darkened by superstition. A false fear of sacredness has prevented religion from being safeguarded by common sense. The fear of the authority of the sacred writings of the past effectively prevents the honest souls of today from accepting the new light of the gospel, the light which these very God-knowing men of another generation so intensely longed to see.

2) "Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted." So-called common sense or the best of logic would never suggest that happiness could be derived from mourning. But Jesus did not refer to outward or ostentatious mourning. He alluded to an emotional attitude of tenderheartedness. It is a great error to teach boys and young men that it is unmanly to show tenderness or otherwise to give evidence of emotional feeling or physical suffering. Sympathy is a worthy attribute of the male as well as the female. It is not necessary to be calloused in order to be manly. This is the wrong way to create courageous men. The world's great men have not been afraid to mourn. Moses, the mourner, was a greater man than either Samson or Goliath. Moses was a superb leader, but he was also a man of meekness. Being sensitive and responsive to human need creates genuine and lasting happiness, while such kindly attitudes safeguard the soul from the destructive influences of anger, hate, and suspicion.

3) Jesus, was so reasonable, so approachable. He was so practical in all his ministry, while all his plans were characterized by such sanctified common sense. He was so free from all freakish, erratic, and eccentric tendencies. He was never capricious, whimsical, or hysterical. In all his teaching and in everything he did there was always an exquisite discrimination associated with an extraordinary sense of propriety.

From Richard S. in Michigan, who would love some feedback on his first commentary on GKC.

The ACS's own Kevin O'Brien in the news with his new initiative

Very exciting for the St. Louis area, and anywhere else the troop will travel. I'm keeping an eye on this.

If you are on the Chesterton Society mail list...

you recently got a letter in the mail. As I'd previously mentioned, the letter informed us that quite soon (October) the membership fee will have to go up. You probably noticed that postage rates increased recently (we did) and that translates into $$ lost each issue of Gilbert magazine. In an effort to continue to gain readership (as we are celebrating 10--TEN!--years of publication) and to ensure that we continue to publish the magazine, the annual membership fee (which includes a subscription) will be increasing soon.

That means if you are thinking about joining, join now. If you are thinking about subscribing, subscribe now. If you are thinking about donating, donate now. If you are thinking about making a sandwich, go do it. Then come back and join.

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

Chesterton quote at end of article

H/T: David Z

British Old Time Radio Broadcast of Fr. Brown: The Blue Cross

From the Radio Memories RSS feed:

British Old Time Radio Podcast 34 Father Brown in The Blue Cross
http://radiomemories.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=249354#

Direct mp3 download link:
http://libsyn.com/media/british/british34.mp3

This isn't a reading of the story, it's a dramatization with voices, and it is quite interesting.
H/T: Mike F.

Another cigarette card

H/T David, who asks, "Has anyone seen this image of the big guy before? "

Click the pictures to see them larger. I know this picture of GKC is new to me.

An Essay to read

John is a young Chestertonian, who attended the conference in 06 (and is one of the instigators of the shortcut "ChesterCon").

Iron Maiden and GKC??

From David:

I watched the Father Brown BBC dvd tonight. In the biography on GKC, they mentioned that he was a major influence on C. S. Lewis (we know that) and that Neil Gaiman based one of his characters in his Sandman series, Gilbert, on GKC (some of us know that). Then it stated that Iron Maiden excerpted one of GKC's hymns in their song "Revelation" from their album Piece of Mind.

The song is on iTunes and I was able to listen to the sample of 20 seconds. God willing, I will not have to listen to the rest of it. Perhaps there are some head banger Chestertonians who will do so and tell us about it.

Anyone willing or able to tell us more about this?

Checking out the St. Louis Chesterton Society

As I am currently in St. Louis, I thought I'd check out what's going on with the St. Louis Chesterton Society. Wow, folks, if you live here, you should be a part of this exciting group.

Kevin O. has been just awesome in scheduling GKC's "The Surprise" for presentation September 21-23 and bringing Dale Ahlquist (and Chuck Chalberg) into town for shows September 28-30. Put these dates on your calendar now.
Stop reading and do it!!!!!

Now this is exciting stuff! You lucky St. Louisians!

If You Live in the Area

Come hear a concert and help out the ACS.

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.

More Practical Distributism

OK, we've heard some things you can do as a consumer distributist. But what about a living & working distributist? One commentor made reference to this: you start doing your hobby, and work it gradually into a home business or self-employment opportunity. But what about some practical advice on how to do this? We have debts to pay off, children to raise; how does one get from corporate job to self-employed safely with a family? How many years is it practical to say that it takes to actually do it? And what if you're scared to leave the so-called security of a job that pays health benefits (and you have children or yourself with health problems or pre-existing conditions)--and you feel tied to the job that will pay the hospital bills?

Practical Distributism

Had an interesting conversation last night with a Chestertonian who wants to know how to put the principles of Distributism into practical action today.

I know you all are much more informed about distributism than I am, so tell me, how do we "do" distributism in this culture, in this world today?

Heard at the Art Fair...

Over the weekend, we were at an art fair (which is why I didn't post, being outdoors in the cold wet rain all weekend is not conducive to blogging) and one of our customers had a remarkable story.

Last year, she had told us that her dog had cancer. This is a precious dog. So, she was going through chemotherapy. For a dog. It was costing something like $4-7000 and of course, she had no doggy health insurance.

So, this year, I asked after the dog, knowing its importance to her, and she informed us that the dog had passed away.

But, she said, she had a grand send out. The dog had a full funeral, open casket, huge gravestone (with picture and the words "Mommy loves you very much") grave (in a human graveyard, with a section set aside for pets) and a minister who gave a eulogy. Price tag: somewhere around $6,000.

I didn't ask who attended the event, wondering what I would do if I ever was invited to such a thing.

It seems to me that something needs to be said about the increasing devotion and attention and money being spent on pets. I think it is a sign of our society's breakdown. When pets are given such high value, and families are neglected; when pets are given chemotherapy and children can't get health care; when pets are loved to such a degree over people; when money is spent on pets which might better be used to feed, clothe, shelter and care for humans; a society that has so much love to expend on pets, and so little to expend on other humans is a sick society. A person who says that their pet was worth more than most of the people she's ever met, is a person with sadly mislaid affections.

The other day, a hairball floated past me and onto a pathway that many people use for running, biking, and walking dogs. As I was walking behind a dog, it quite rapidly and disgustingly sniffed and then ate the hairball before I could react (which I would have tried to do, given time). Dogs are affectionate, but lacking in common sense because they aren't people. And they don't love back. If people mistake the affection of a dog for love, it tells a lot about what we haven't, as a society, learned about love.

Her Patronus is an Ibis: the Safe Middle Road

Nancy Brown's The Mystery of Harry Potter
Reviewed by Peter J. Floriani, Ph.D. (to whom I am grateful-Ed.)

J.K. Rowling's seven books of Harry Potter are complete. All its mysteries are now explained - or at least revealed, for sometimes even things in broad daylight remain mysterious: "The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid."[GKC Orthodoxy CW1:231]

In the end, of course, no one but God knows the design, the inner intentions of the author - she may not know herself. It may be, as Gandalf explained to Frodo about Bilbo's finding of the Ring, that the story was planned, and not by its author. Sometimes, in the writing of certain great stories, the true Author of the Story steps in and takes action, as GKC reveals in his play "The Surprise."

Yes, "by their fruits you will know them" [Mt 7:16] - but someone needs to taste the fruit. There are those who are curious about Harry, and wish to know the quality of Rowling's fruits. To assist these, Catholics and parents in particular, Nancy Brown has provided a short guide, The Mystery of Harry Potter: A Catholic Family Guide.

Brown's book takes a classical view of the HP sequence, the view Aquinas took of Aristotle: "I believe that there is a middle field of facts which are given by the senses to be the subject matter of the reason; and that in that field the reason has a right to rule, as the representative of God in Man. ...what man has done man may do; and if an antiquated old heathen called Aristotle can help me to do it I will thank him in all humility." [GKC, St. Thomas Aquinas CW2:429, emphasis added] Hence, Nancy Brown says: "if a fantasy of teenage children attending a school of magic can help reveal more about my faith and how I ought to live, I will use it, and be thankful."

It is quite clear that Brown does not urge this book as to supplant standard texts, nor even as an innovative augmentation. It is simply a popular story, by means of which significantly deeper, useful, and inspiring topics can be addressed. Any book might be so used - indeed, any book, no matter how holy its author, can contain complexities which can confuse or even misguide. One must take the safest approach, which is most often the middle ground. The saints often talked about "moderation in all things" - even the Romans had a epigram: "medio tutissimus ibis" which has nothing to do with the bird called "ibis" - it means "You will go more safely in the middle." Hence Chesterton pointed out "Unless that sagacious bird is allowed to be in the middle, there will be no place for the pelican of charity, the owl of wisdom, or the dove of peace." [GKC, ILN Jan 20 1912]

Ibis-like, Nancy Brown's book neither inordinately praises nor unthinkingly condemns the Potter saga. It has, like any compelling story, a danger of absorbing its reader and distracting from his duties, even from the truth. But because of its attractive treatment of real problems in an interesting and humourous setting, it provokes thought, and suggests contemplation of one's own actions - it can lead to renewed zeal, and the strengthening of the will against evil. True, these dangers and advantages are found in Doyle, in Verne, in Chesterton, in any book - but your child, your nephew, your cousin, you - want to know about Harry Potter now. Here is a place for you to learn - and without spoiling the clever detective-story surprises.

In reading MHP, as in reading HP, one has the sense of a much larger structure, a high and hidden framework. It is a curious coincidence that the author of the Harry Potter books, J. K. Rowling, lives in Edinburgh, about which GKC once said "it is sometimes difficult for a man to shake off the suggestion that each road is a bridge over the other roads, as if he were really rising by continual stages higher and higher through the air. He fancies he is on some open scaffolding of streets, scaling the sky.... The motto of Edinburgh, as you may still see it, I think, carved over the old Castle gate is, 'Sic Itur ad Astra': 'This Way to the Stars'." [GKC Lunacy and Letters 76] Such high bridges can be exceedingly useful as well as dangerous, and it is well to have a guide when facing them. Nancy Brown's book, which fittingly originated within her "Flying Stars" blog, reveals how the Harry Potter books, Edinburgh-like, can also scale the sky.

Feast Day: Assumption of Mary

Chesterton loved Mary, and wrote about her role in his conversion in this exerpt from "Mary and the Convert":

Now I can scarcely remember a time when the image of Our Lady did not stand up in my mind quite definitely, at the mention or the thought of all these things. I was quite distant from these things, and then doubtful about these things; and then disputing with the world for them, and with myself against them; for that is the condition before conversion. But whether the figure was distant, or was dark and mysterious, or was a scandal to my contemporaries, or was a challenge to myself----I never doubted that this figure was the figure of the Faith; that she embodied, as a complete human being still only human, all that this Thing had to say to humanity. The instant I remembered the Catholic Church, I remembered her; when I tried to forget the Catholic Church, I tried to forget her; when I finally saw what was nobler than my fate, the freest and the hardest of all my acts of freedom, it was in front of a gilded and very gaudy little image of her in the port of Brindisi, that I promised the thing that I would do, if I returned to my own land.

GK Chesterton: The Patron Saint of Working Writers?

Apparently, a Chestetonian is about to graduate and become a free lance writer, which seems Chestertonian.

God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

I had a letter from Mr. James Hannam, and I'm passing along his request. Here is his note:

"My continuing efforts to find a publisher for God's Philosophers have taken a new turn. While many publishers think it's a good book, they are not convinced there is a market for a work, however assessible, on medieval science.

So, I want to prove them wrong. I've set up a new web site where you can download chapter one of God's Philosophers. If you like what you read, then please also use the new site to register your interest in purchasing a copy when it comes out. This doesn't commit you to anything, it just allows me to show that a market exists. The resulting database will only be used to send a single email when the book comes out. It won't be used for any other purpose although it's just posssible that publishers will want to send of a few emails to verify the list is bona fide.

Also, it would be fantastic if you could point any like-minded friends towards jameshannam.com. Nothing succeeds like word of mouth recommendations. So if you want to see the historic myth that Christianity blocked the progress of science debunked, we need to get this book out and read.

Thank you all of you who register!

Who is Roy F. Moore?

In a mysterious turn of events, a seret agent has informed the Blogmistress (me) of a thought-provoking mystery(?) in the latest Gilbert magazine. This agent believes the mistake might reveal a pseudonymoninous personage amonst the Gilbert writers.

After all, who is Roy F. Moore? Has anyone ever met him? At a conference, anywhere? Supposedly he wrote a column in this months issue about Distributism. (see page 34). But a careful reading of the Table of Contents either reveals an editing error, or.... (dah, dah, dah--sung in decending ominous-sounding tones) the truth.

I'm off to do laundry and I'll leave you to discuss.

A Great Piece of News for all Dover and Chesterton fans

Dover has reprinted GKC's Tremendous Trifles!!!

This is a great collection of essays which originally appeared in the London Daily News; they are not yet in the CW. Among them are such delights as "A Piece of Chalk" and "What I Found In My Pocket" and (for those studying fantasy) "The Dragon's Grandmother" - but each of the 39 essays is wonderful and has its own power and insights...

Thanks for the info, Dr. Thursday.

UPDATE: The American Chesterton Society has just received a shipment of these books, and will put them on their site shortly for your odering purposes. Thanks for supporting the ACS by buying the books from us. ;-)

A hot Friday night..

Someone suggested beer, but we've been loading up a truck with art to take early tomorrow morning to an art show, which is something we've done for 10 years, and this year, we've done one every weekend since the beginning of June, and continuing till the end of September. Art is our 4 arces and a cow. We keep a lot of frame, mat, glass and supplies people in business, too. And we pray for the people who buy our work, because they allow us to live this way, which is a good life.

Loading up a truck is hot work, and since we leave early in the morning, now I've got to be off to read to my daughter before she goes to sleep.

I hope you all enjoy this summer weekend.

It's Thursday

Again I must apologise for writing so briefly - though perhaps some of you who have read my voluminous postings elsewhere wish I was always more brief. But I am busy writing something a bit different, (hee hee) in a language where I use rather more semicolons than GKC did. Yes, that's one of the Great Sins committed by our favourite "second-rate" author of detective novels, dull theology, rhyming poems and such trash. But I assure you, it is only because I myself use the semicolon correctly that I can tell you GKC's average semicolon use was 14.2 semicolons per 1459.5 word essay which he wrote for the Illustrated London News. Put that in your next journal article and smoke it!

Ahem. Well, since I have been trying to explore some of the books GKC wrote about, or mentioned, which are still available from Dover Publications, I ought to resume - but I haven't written one. Also, when I asked our esteemed blogg-mistress about current efforts, she mentioned she was hoping to resume our consideration of The Poet and the Lunatics - which unfortunately is not yet available from Dover.

So I will cheat. I will give you an interesting quote from Chapter 2 "The Yellow Bird", and suggest a Dover book which I have, and which I think GKC would have enjoyed purusing. First, the quote:

this particular artist, whose name was Gabriel Gale, did not seem disposed even to look at the landscape, far less to paint it; but after taking a bite out of a ham sandwich, and a swig at somebody else's flask of claret, incontinently lay down on his back under a tree and stared up at the twilight of twinkling leaves; some believing him to be asleep, while others more generously supposed him to be composing poetry. ... "If you look up long enough, there isn't any more up or down, but a sort of green, dizzy dream; with birds that might as well be fishes."
[GKC, "The Yellow Bird", The Poet and the Lunatics]

Here we see one of GKC's usual "inversion" tricks, recalling the kernel axiom from "Cinderella" - the words once uttered by a young woman in another context: "exaltavit humiles = "He has lifted up the lowly." [See Orthodoxy CW1:253 quoting Mary in Lk 1:52] But there is also a very funny swipe at the absurd anti-logic of Nietzsche and other death-eaters, who said: "Good and evil, truth and falsehood, folly and wisdom are only aspects of the same upward movement of the universe." To which GKC (even at an early stage) replied: "Supposing there is no difference between good and bad, or between false and true, what is the difference between up and down?" [See GKC's Autobiography CW16:154]

Ah - the book. It was suggested by Gale's perception of birds as fishes, and is simply a very beautiful study called Hummingbirds. The pictures of these tiny birds hint at the power called discrimination - the ability to tell both similarities and differences correctly - which is strengthened by such fantastic tricks. A poet who looks up into the trees and seeing birds as fish swimming in a green sea will be better able to know both fish and birds correctly. In a more modern context, the fantasy that a boy waves a wooden stick and says "Lumos" shines a light on the more mundane but far more magical flashlight, the distillation of thousands of years of work and thousands of years of knowledge. Or, as Gabriel Gale says in another part of that same story:

What exactly is liberty? First and foremost, surely, it is the power of a thing to be itself.
[GKC, "The Yellow Bird", The Poet and the Lunatics]

Didn't know you were reading an ontology textbook here, did you? Hang on the ride might be bumpy in spots but it's well worth the admission price.

--Dr. Thursday

Back to Gilbert

One of the columnists I particularly enjoy reading is Kyro Lansberger. And this month's "Finding a New Horizon" was partiularly good.

I love hearing how people stumbled upon Chesterton, and this is one of those stories. Well educated, well read, summa cum laude in political science; found himself in a Yugoslavian village and discovered he didn't know nothing. Discovers Chesterton. Well, read the column to find out how that happened.

Suffice it to say, Chesterton is Kyro's "New Horizon" and he finds its been expanding ever since. Yep.

And now: The Bloggin' Editor: Sean Dailey!

Sean's new blog, go check it out.

Did this book ever get published?

Perhaps with a different title? This is new to me, yet the date is 2001.

Chesterton and Dorothy Day

Chesterton and Women at Home with their Children

This is an interesting article, making liberal use of a quote I particularly love of GKC's to make a good point about children needing their mothers when they are young. Now that my children are older, I wonder when "young" ends? They still seem to need me. ;-)

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

During the recent conference, there were break-out sessions, and I attended the Aidan Mackey talk, not knowing if he'd ever make it across the pond again. However, there was another talk that hour on Heraldry, given by Dr. Peter Floriani, and from what I heard, it was excellent. And that ties in with today's post. And now, Dr. Thursday.

I have heard (from people who have reason to know) that the seminar on heraldry at the recent Chesterton Conference proved to be of interest to those who attended. The topic of heraldry may seem a bit unusual for the typical Americans to express such an interest - but then that's just because it sounds ancient. As if someone were to say something crazy, "Hey, let's write software for a cable TV company, and put Latin quotes on the main screen!" Or for a mother to say to her daughters, "Today, let's have a picnic lunch on the floor in the playroom!" But then we're so very, very, very Chestertonian. (And I hope you are, too.)

Anyway, since I happened to be at that seminar, I can tell you that heraldry is actually very well known in America - though perhaps not by that name. There are those two yellow upside-down U shapes one sees at the side of the road - it makes one thing of clowns eating hamburgers. There is that little curvy check-mark seen on all kinds of clothing, which means one has paid money to a sneaker company in approval of their efforts. And so on. There are also what we might call the "inverse" forms, where people who know nothing of the laws of heraldry have broken them, and so have made their attempt at communication futile: like white trucks with yellow lettering. Or, even worse, a certain state license plate is a pale color, upon which the license numbers are printed in white - hence they are nearly unreadable, even from close-up.

But what is heraldry? Why does it matter to Chestertonians?Click here to discover more about heraldry.Heraldry is simply the art and the science of symbol, but particularly serving as an identifier of a person, and of a family. The "coat of arms" which is simply a decorated form of the old shield of a knight, told everyone - even those who could not read - who that person was, just as surely as the yellow U's or curvy check-marks indicate ... uh ... what they indicate. Remember, advertising is just a form of communication, and its first principle is identification. (See Romans 10:14-15 for a Biblical justification for advertising!)

Speaking as a computer scientist, the real delight in heraldry is that it comes with a very elegant and technical way of describing those decorations: what the heralds call the "blazon" - that is, the "code" which specifies the colors and shapes and arrangements of the design:

"A blazon, like a chemical formula, means one thing, and one thing only, hence, every heraldic artist can make a correct drawing from it..."
[Julian Franklyn, Heraldry, 41]

But what does heraldry have to do with Chesterton?

It would be possible to cite many illustrations from Chesterton's work about heraldry. He relates one of the most dramatic, and intricate, pieces of history in his book on Chaucer:

The fashionable world, as we should put it, was divided into enthusiastic factions over a quarrel which had arisen about the legitimacy of a coat of arms, which then seemed almost as thrilling as the legitimacy of a child or a last will and testament. The arms borne by the great Border family of Scrope, in popular language a blue shield with a gold band across it (I can say 'azure a bend or' quite as prettily as anybody else) was found to have been also adopted by a certain Sir Thomas Grosvenor, then presumably the newer name of the two. The trial was conducted with all the voluminous detail and seething excitement of a Society divorce case; reams and rolls of it, for all I know, remain, in the records of the heraldic office, for anybody to read if he likes; though I have my doubts even about garter King-at-Arms. But somewhere in that pile of records there is one little paragraph, for which alone, perhaps, the world would now turn them over at all. It merely states that among a long list of witnesses, one 'Geoffrey Chaucer, gentleman, armed twenty-seven years', had testified that he saw the Golden Bend displayed before Scrope's tent in the battlefield of France; and that long afterwards, he had stopped some people in the streets of London and pointed to the same escutcheon displayed as a tavern sign; whereon they had told him that it was not the coat of Scrope but of Grosvenor. This, he said, was the first time he had ever heard tell of the Grosvenors. Such small flashes of fact are so provocative, that I can almost fancy he smiled as he said the last words.
[GKC, Chaucer CW18:214-5]

But this is America, you say. Fine. Let's see what we can find there...

There is one of the United States called "Maryland", which has a very nice flag: red, white, yellow, and black - all kind of shredded into a curious pattern. But it is nothing more than a very elegant statement about a man and his family: a man named Cecilius Calvert, who became Lord Baltimore. His father's father had a coat of arms which is blazoned:

Paly of six, Or and sable; a bend counterchanged.

This means six stripes alternating yellow (gold) and black, with a diagonal stripe cutting through them which reverses the colors of the underlying stripes. And his father's mother, who was named Crossland, had a coat of arms which is blazoned:

Quarterly argent and gules a cross botonny counterchanged.

This means four squares, white above red, red above white, on which is imposed a cross with triple rounds at each end - and this cross reverses the colors of the underlying squares.

The Maryland flag is Lord Baltimore's which is blazoned: Quarterly Calvert and Crossland. Just so you don't struggle, here is what it looks like:
So now you know. And, if you would like more information, there are many books which will help, but for a start you can check out Heraldry in America by Eugene Zieber, available from Dover Publications.

Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis has people concerned

I've just heard from someone who has just heard from Dale, they are all OK. But let's continue to pray for all the families affected by yesterday's bridge collapse.

Chesterton Stuff on the Web

I wanted to let you know that Rich is putting up some GK's Weekly articles on his website for those interested in seeing some Chesterton that's nowhere else on the 'net. Here are the articles:

Wanted - More Homes
On Direct Action
An Excerpt From the Horror
More Hints On Free Speech
On Mr. Wells And Mr. Belloc
The Fortress of Property

Click on the link and scroll to the right side bar and down a ways, and you can read any of the above articles. Rich is also working on a book about Chesterton and distributism, doing research over at Christendom where the copies of GK's Weekly have a home.

Using Modern Technology...

The link above takes you to a slide show put together by the The ChesterBelloc Mandate Distributist Blog. Good job, guys.

The Perfect Child

Did you catch James G. "Gerry" Bruen Jr.'s story "The Perfect Child" in the latest Gilbert?

Ha, I wondered if it would end that way. The same way I've wondered how two beautifully in love deaf parents feel about having a "hearing" child, and how difficult that is for them, and yet...how wonderful, too.

A thoughtful story.

The Return of the Angels

There is a reprint of an article in the latest Gilbert magazine which hasn't been seen for 104 years, from the Daily News, March 14, 1903. Unless you happen to have an old copy of the Daily News, of course.

I loved it, and thought what an amazing time it must have been to be able to read Gilbert regularly in print, writing stuff like this 104 years ago! Such logic and clear thinking! It explains his whole conversion to the faith, even though he wouldn't officially convert until 1922. Still, this shows his acceptance of Christianity as true in 1903. He also discusses the faith of religion and the faith of scientism, evolution, rationalism and reason. You could have a whole High school level course just on this one essay.

And that's one of the things I love about Chesterton. If you haven't yet, hurry and get your membership with subscription (ask to start with June/July 2007 so you can read this Daily News article, worth the price in my mind) before the rates go up, which, I warn you as one who knows, it is going to soon.

Martin Responds

Martin Cothran responds to John Peterson's article on Chesterton the Answer Man.

Are You A Fan of GKC?

I hadn't really considered myself a "fan" of Chesterton's, since he's dead, the term didn't seem to apply in my mind. However, Chris Chan's essay in the current issue of Gilbert Magazine has me thinking I am. If there weren't this group, this "fandom" of Chesterton's, I think he would be quite obscure today.

So, are you a fan?

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

A Resounding Thwack with a Wooden Stick

There has been a lot of discussion recently about wands and wizards, about fairy tales and magic, about Chesterton and Harry Potter, about the uses of magic and fantasy and fiction.

Despite a very strong urge to delve into this topic, and a wish to write or at least to read a "Little Summa on the Story", some years ago my mother told me that I have other things to do. So I must proceed to do them.

But without violating my mother's directives, I want to help you, my dear cousins, to have a greater understanding of our dear Uncle Gilbert, and in my writing today I shall touch on a very strange and little-known piece of fantasy fiction which he delighted in.

It does serve as input to the larger discussion on fantasy, for after I read the book I shall consider today, I wondered whether it may have provided the source of the fist-fight of Ransom with the demonic being in Lewis's Perelandra

But that is not the mystery I refer to. Click here to discover more about magic.
I mean, simply, the mystery of Punch and Judy.

Punch? Whozzat?

Punch is a wooden hand puppet with a big nose, who appears in a popular street theater show - he does very little more than beat his wife, beat his baby, beat his dog, beat a physician, beat the policeman, beat the judge, beat the jailer, and beat the devil.

There are over 100 mentions of the name "Punch" in GKC's works, though a fair number of these refer to the famous magazine, and not to the famous street puppet. Like a number of other terms in GKC, "Punch" is something one feels one might understand - until one tries to explain what it is. It is a kind of miniature theater with hand-puppets, a form of street entertainment, which presented the same little show again and again, to cheers and delight of both children and adults. I am not going to give the complete details here - that is why I ordered the book! Nor am I going to try to explain it, or explain it away.

[Note: if you have ever seen the musical "Scrooge", there is a scene where Scrroge demands payment from a P&J puppetmaster... the ONLY time I am aware of ever having actually seen it!]

But "Punch" was something which GKC often took as a "given" - something known, as fundamental a reference to his readers as phrases like "Beam me up Scotty" or "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" and such are to us today. We "know" Dorothy Gale and Darth Vader; GKC "knew" Punch:

Dickens was a mythologist rather than a novelist; he was the last of the mythologists, and perhaps the greatest. He did not always manage to make his characters men, but he always managed, at the least, to make them gods. They are creatures like Punch or Father Christmas. They live statically, in a perpetual summer of being themselves.
[GKC Charles Dickens CW15:87-8]

Or consider this curious commentary on America:

America is a serious parody. America is an exaggeration not more comic, but more solemn, than its original. We are all acquainted with the ordinary notion of a caricature, in which certain features are treated more largely, but more lightly. Thus, let us say, a King is given an outrageously large crown, and he becomes a pantomime King. But we must try and imagine the reversal of this process: we must conceive, not something heavy taken lightly, but something originally light taken heavily and hugely. It is not that the King becomes a comic character by the enlargement of his crown; it is actually that Punch becomes a serious character by the further elongation of his nose. Ordinary people treat their institutions as jokes. American people treat jokes as institutions. Englishmen make a picture absurd by expanding it into a hoarding. America makes a sketch eternal by expanding it into a fresco.
[GKC, ILN Aug 15 1908 CW28:159]

(Oooh, an "English" term to examine! A "hoarding" is a fence of boards around a building used during erection or repairs, often used for posting bills; hence a billboard-like poster.)

I mentioned our infernal Enemy as being a main character in the saga of Punch and Judy. You may wonder why this is so - and wonder where P&J fits into the larger discussion of fantasy and fiction... but as you may expect, Chesterton already has an explanation:

Nothing so stamps the soul of Christendom as the strange subconscious gaiety which can make farces out of tragedies, which can turn instruments of torture into toys. So in the Catholic dramas the Devil was always the comic character; so in the great Protestant drama of Punch and Judy, the gallows and the coffin are the last and best of the jokes.
[GKC "The Fading Fireworks" in Alarms and Discursions]

I have no space to elaborate on this; there are numerous cross-references to be made here - OK, just two: he calls attention to the fact that the representations of Christian martyrs usually contain tokens of their torture... It is summarised in GKC's powerful epigram "The Cross cannot be defeated, for it is Defeat." [The Ball and the Cross] The other is the second-most-famous of all GKC quotes, to wit: "Satan fell by force of gravity." [Orthodoxy CW1:326]

But, as GKC liked to say how much more is the deeper mystery of these puppets which are made of wood! We hear the ancient chant from Good Friday:

Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pependit.

That is:

Behold, the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.

Remember that mundus = "world" is the usual translation for the Greek KOSMOS. We hear this same thought expressed even more powerfully in the Preface for the Holy Cross: "The Tree of Man's defeat has become his Tree of Victory!"

But we are speaking of Punch - or, I should say, GKC is:

I did like the toy theatre even when I knew it was a toy theatre. I did like the cardboard figures, even when I found they were of cardboard. The white light of wonder that shone on the whole business was not any sort of trick; indeed the things that now shine most in my memory were many of them mere technical accessories; such as the parallel sticks of white wood that held the scenery in place; a white wood that is still strangely mixed in my imaginative instincts with all the holy trade of the Carpenter. It was the same with any number of other games or pretences in which I took delight; as in the puppet-show of Punch and Judy. I not only knew that the figures were made of wood, but I wanted them to be made of wood. I could not imagine such a resounding thwack being given except by a wooden stick on a wooden head. But I took the sort of pleasure that a primitive man might have taken in a primitive craft, in seeing that they were carved and painted into a startling and grimacing caricature of humanity. I was pleased that the piece of wood was a face; but I was also pleased that the face was a piece of wood. That did not mean that the drama of wood, like the other drama of cardboard, did not reveal to me real ideas and imaginations, and give me glorious glimpses into the possibilities of existence.
[GKC Autobiography CW16:54-55]

For more on this wonderful English icon which so delighted our Uncle Chesterton, see Punch and Judy: A Short History with the Original Dialogue available from Dover Publications.

Editorial

This Gilbert is the Summer Movie Edition. The editorial is about "The Trouble with Hollywood" and mentions three movies, Sunrise, The Crowd and Street Angel as among the greatest films ever made.

I've never heard of any of them, nor seen them. Anyone else? I may have to take a trip to Blockbuster.

My new Gilbert arrived!

Prepare to discuss tomorrow.

St. Louis gets a blog of its own

Check it out here. Congratulations, St. Louis!

Back home...

And one thing I noticed while traveling: there is a real need for Chesterton out there. So we've got to keep on leading people to read his work, so that they--and we-- learn (or continue to learn) how to think.

So many of today's arguments aren't really arguments. They aren't reasoned responses to actual differences, they are opinions thrown left and right and no one listening to anybody else because they don't agree. And if one side can't "win" then frustration abounds.

An argument doesn't always mean that we'll get someone to come around to our point of view. An argument, first of all, is listening to what the other person has to say. Secondly, thinking about what that person has to say. Then responding to that person in a calm and peaceful way. "I understand that you are saying this....but have you ever thought about that?"

So many of today's arguments are just "You can't possibly be sane! Anyone who thinks that is crazy! This is the only way that anybody should think about x!" and reasonableness, we can see, is not employed.

Pardon my lack of presence here

I'm on the road at an art fair. The art fair hours are 9 to 9 each day. We had a tornado yesterday. (Everyone is ok and the art survived without damage.) I am doing 2-4 interviews a day, mostly on radio concerning my new book. Even now I await Portland Oregon to call and have me on the Victoria Taft show at 10:35pm my time (which is a balmy 7:35 their time, those lucky ducks!) and tomorrow am I will be on tv again, this time in Detroit at 9:15 EST on NBC (Local News 4).

May I please remind you to be kind on this blog while I'm away. Thank you.

Chesterton: The Answer Man

Can Chesterton answer all our questions? John sent me this previously published article in response to the combox writer in a previous argument down below.

“Chesterton as ‘The Answer Man’”
A Paper Prepared for the Chicago Chesterton Society in 1987 as reprinted in Midwest Chesterton News, December 10, 1990
John Peterson

Chesterton said more than once that he could start with any seemingly insignificant or random point and build his entire philosophy from that beginning. He says it quite clearly, for example, in his Illustrated London News column of February 17, 1906:

“A Philosophical connection there always is between any two items imaginable. This must be so, so long as we allow any harmony or unity in the cosmos at all. There must be a philosophical connection between any two things in the universe. If it is not so, we can only say there is no universe, and can be no philosophy.” [See CW, XXVII, p. 127]Continue reading.

He said this often, and he demonstrated it more often. You will think especially of his essay, “What I Found in My Pocket,” which Chesterton wrote for the London Daily News in that same year of 1906. It was later collected in the 1909 volume titled Tremendous Trifles. The essay describes how, on a long railway journey somewhere, he found ultimate lessons in a tram ticket, a box of matches, a piece of chalk, a pocketknife, and anything at all among the random litter as he searched through his pockets.

Some might say the whole meaning and charm of Tremendous Trifles is this Chestertonian ability to see the eternal in the trivial. You might as easily say it is the whole meaning and charm of all his journalism, his newspaper work—the Illustrated London News essays included. Why else would we meet here in Chicago Illinois in 1987 to discuss newspaper columns from London England of 1906? Why are we interested in Chesterton’s reaction to a series of childish pranks that occurred over eighty years ago in time, in a foreign country over four thousand miles away in geography?

I realize this is a fairly well worn path in Chesterton discussions and criticism. We all know that Chesterton finds eternal significance in cheese; or, to use the essay under discussion here, eternal significance in undergraduate mischief and student disturbances. But having said that, we have to ask one more question. Does Chesterton teach us the meaning of cheese or beer or student ragging and rioting? Or does he teach us how to see cheese and these other things in order that we ourselves may be able to find meaning in them? Does he give us meanings or does he show the way to find meanings?

Put another way, the question asks about using Chesterton’s Collected Works as a kind of dictionary or encyclopedia. What are we to think of beer? Look it up in Chesterton. What are we to think of student mischief? What are we to think of Charles Dickens? Or The Book of Job? Or Christianity? One can use Chesterton as a source of doctrine, and doubtless many do. But it is also possible to suggest that Chesterton’s lessons in how to think are more valuable than his lessons in what to think. His essay on “Undergraduate Ragging” offers us a chance to make and to study this distinction.

In this essay, Chesterton does not offer us a single point of view on student outbreaks and mischief. He offers us lessons in how to use student outbreaks in various ways to illustrate moral lessons—moral lessons of more than one kind. How are we to judge the students? On page 612 we are told that the moral test of student mischief rests on the answers to two questions. (One) are their victims also their friends? (Two) are their victims strong enough to defend themselves and to retaliate? If the answers are “no,” Chesterton says student ragging is mere cowardice.

My point is that after reading the essay we are much better informed about how Chesterton thought about these kinds of events but not so well informed about what he thought about them. The “what,” he leads us to understand, is not the issue.

Next, we have the medical students who attacked the “celebrated anti-vivisectionist monument” near Chesterton’s home in Battersea. On page 614 we find that “because the medical students were acting from philosophical or fanatical motives,” their case is “more interesting and valuable.” This leads Chesterton into an intriguing discussion of vivisection with which the column concludes.

Meanwhile, back on page 332 [the column of 11/24/06] we remember having heard of “the English schoolboy Allen who was arrested for having painted red” yet a different public monument—this time the statue of a Swiss general. About this student uprising, Chesterton says,

“The morals of a matter like this are exactly like the morals of anything else; they are concerned with mutual contract, or the rights of independent human lives. I have no right to paint the statue of Lord Salisbury red, just as I have no right to paint the face of Mr. Moberly Bell green, however much I think they might be improved by the transformation.”

This general statement of moral principle might have been applied to the medical students who attacked the anti-vivisectionist monument. Or it might have been applied to the undergraduate bullies who attacked the defenseless old maiden ladies.

Also, turning the discussion around the other way, the rules for student ragging which Chesterton formulated on page 613 might have been applied to the case of Master Allen who painted the Swiss general on page 332. It is evident, however, that Chesterton was not aiming at a universal “law of unruly students.”

We all probably fall into the habit of using Chesterton as an encyclopedia—asking for the great man to supply us with definitive answers to highly specific questions. The problem is, on any narrow question, Chesterton was likely to have had an assortment of opinions, the one to be used depending upon the controversy of the moment, the surrounding symbolism, or the weaponry to be found in the enemy camp.

We make Chesterton “The Answer Man” when we paraphrase him, or quote him in an inappropriate contexts, or otherwise use his authority when speaking on behalf of our own pet ideas. One suspects that the one-volume Quotable Chesterton is misused in this way: want to know what Chesterton thought about advertising or Zionism. Look it up, it’s in alphabetical order.

Scholars conduct serious arguments in the pages of The Chesterton Review over whether Chesterton would or would not have voted for Ronald Reagan.

Critics publish long volumes of summarization, as, for example, Chistopher Hollis’ The Mind of Chesterton, in which the author’s only evident purpose is to paraphrase Chesterton’s published books, boil the ideas down, and “explain” what he wrote, in the fashion of Cliff’s Notes.

When Chesterton said he could connect any two ideas in the universe, he might have had in mind the meanings of all the world’s separate, distinct, and individual things. He also might have had in mind the pathways between things, the secret but real ties which, he was confident, he could always discern connecting A to Z, soup to nuts, and undergraduate riots to the morality of vivisection.

Chesterton’s grandnephew, David Chesterton, wrote in 1982 that his uncle convinced him to be busy about searching for conclusions rather than forming conclusions. [See The Chesterton Review, February, 1982, pp. 51-56]

We know that David Chesterton went to the other extreme: he was an ideologue. More moderately though, a case can be made that Chesterton should be read less for the final word on passing events such as student riots, and more for fresh ways of thinking about student riots, or about any of the countless, random, passing news items that have colored daily journalism from Chesterton’s day to our own.

An atheist responds

Gerry Bruen sent me this response (written by someone else--Gerry just let me know about it) to a previous article in the Washington Post. He repsonds to the quote from Chesterton about Thor. Interesting reading.

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.

Chesterton in the News

At the end of this article on pacifism, HT David Zach.

And also, at the beginning of this article.

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

Another excellent post from Dr. Thursday, thanks so much for his Thursday work here.

Vice Squad

I am busy at present, and was unable to formulate an interesting commentary on another book in our serious of "Books GKC Read" which are available from Dover Publications. Don't worry there are plenty more to consider. But for today, since I have just seen an interesting post linking to a Chesterton quote about cigars, I thought you might enjoy this fragment of GKC, and also the story behind the story...

--Dr. Thursday

...numberless Americans smoke numberless cigars. But there does exist an extraordinary idea that ethics are involved in some way, and many who smoke really disapprove of smoking. I remember once receiving two American interviewers on the same afternoon; there was a box of cigars in front of me, and I offered one to each in turn. Their reaction (as they would probably call it) was very curious to watch. The first journalist stiffened suddenly and silently, and declined in a very cold voice. He could not have conveyed more plainly that I had attempted to corrupt an honourable man with a foul and infamous indulgence, as if I were the Old Man of the Mountain offering him the hashish that would turn him into an assassin. The second reaction was even more remarkable. The second journalist first looked doubtful; then looked sly; then seemed to glance about him nervously, as if wondering whether we were alone; and then said, with a sort of crestfallen and covert smile: "Well, Mr. Chesterton, I'm afraid I have the habit."

As I also have the habit, and have never been able to imagine how it could be connected with morality or immorality, I confess that I plunged with him deeply into an immoral life. In the course of our conversation I found he was otherwise perfectly sane, he was quite intelligent about economics or architecture, but his moral sense seemed to have entirely disappeared. He really thought it was rather wicked to smoke. He had no "standard of abstract right and wrong": in him it was not merely moribund, it was apparently dead.

The culture that is concerned here derives indirectly rather from New England than from Old America. It really does not seem to understand what is meant by a standard of right and wrong. It has a vague sentimental notion that certain habits were not suitable to the old log-cabin or the old home-town. It has a vague utilitarian notion that certain habits are not directly useful in the new amalgamated stores or the new financial gambling-hell. A man does not chop wood for the log-hut by smoking; and a man does not make dividends for the Big Boss by smoking; and therefore a smoke has a smell as of something sinful. Of what the great theologians and moral philosophers have meant by a sin, these people have no more idea than a child drinking milk has of a great toxicologist analysing poisons. It may be to the credit of their virtue to be thus vague about vice. The man who is silly enough to say, when offered a cigarette: "I have no vices," may not always deserve the rapier-thrust of the reply given by the Italian Cardinal: "It is not a vice, or doubtless you would have it." But at least a Cardinal knows it is not a vice; which assists the clarity of his mind. But the lack of clear standards among those who vaguely think of it as a vice may yet be the beginning of much peril and oppression.

[GKC ILN Feb 5 1927, CW34:250-252]

Now: Who is this Cardinal? Ah...

In The Master Diplomat subtitled "from the life of Leo XIII" by Rev. Robert Quardt (Alba House, 1964), page 105, is this:

For a time an artist was working in the Vatican who was an accomplished painter, but otherwise a rather irresponsible fellow. Leo knew this, but while he was watching the man at work one day, he became so enthused over hes capability that he wanted to reward him. This was done by offering him a sniff of snuff, which however, was declined by the artist with the very rude remark: "Holy Father, I really am not a victim of this vice." To this gauche remark Leo instantaneously retorted: "If this were a vice, you would have had it a long time ago."

Max and Gilbert

Denny has a wonderful post up about Max Beerbohm and GK Chesterton. The part that made a tiger of jealousy rise within me, though, was where Denny says he was "perusing the G.K. Chesterton folders in the British Museum a couple of years ago". This is a secret wish of mine, and Denny's already done it! Lucky guy. Go read his post, it's wonderful.

GKC Quoted at Opinion Journal

And of course, it's that quote again.

H/T David Zach. Thanks.

The Glow of the Conference

Well, the glow of the conference is wearing off for me, how about you? I was thinking, "What one thing did I take from the Chesterton conference this year?"

I think it is this: there are many roads which lead to Chesterton, and it is fascinating to hear about the different journeys.

I asked Dale if I could tell my tale at the banquet, and he said No, the banquet was supposed to be fun, silly, jokes and such, and my tale was a nightmare. But perhaps someday, you'll hear it and not think so. I think it is very funny.

So, what one thing did you take from the Chesterton Conference?

Does anyone besides me want to call the Chesterton Conference in 08 "ChesterFest"?

Dr. Thursday's Thursday Post

An American Poet

Over 200 times GKC invokes the name of Walt Whitman - in books from NNH to STA, from Browning to Chaucer, from Heretics to The Thing. An entire essay (ILN June 13, 1925, CW33:569) was about him, and it appears in Maisie Ward's biography of GKC over two dozen times, calling the discovery of his poems a "powerful influence in the direction of mental health" for the young GKC: "I shall never forget," Lucian Oldershaw writes, "reading to him ... in my bedroom at West Kensington. The seance lasted from two to three hours, and we were intoxicated with the excitement of the discovery." [Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton 50]
Click here to discover more about Whitman.We who delighted in the thrills of ChesterCon 2007 saw how it provides a foretaste, a vague hint, of what GKC calls the "Inn at the End of the World" (in Dickens CW15:209 and NNH CW6:371) and which the Bible reveals in somewhat greater detail. Among our many researches, we must consider how Chesterton saw this in Whitman's works:

The whole point of Walt Whitman, right or wrong, is that the great heart of man should be an inn with a hundred doors standing open. It is that there should be a sort of everlasting bonfire of special rejoicing and festivity for all men that come and all things that happen; that nothing should be thought too trivial or too dull to be accepted by that gigantic hospitality of the heart. [GKC ILN June 13 1925 CW33:572]

Perhaps even more important for us is how Whitman played a role in GKC's philosophical and spiritual development. GKC gave us some insight into this difficult and personal matter:

I hung on to the remains of religion by one thin thread of thanks. I thanked whatever gods might be, not like Swinburne, because no life lived for ever, but because any life lived at all; not, like Henley for my unconquerable soul (for I have never been so optimistic about my own soul as all that) but for my own soul and my own body, even if they could be conquered. This way of looking at things, with a sort of mystical minimum of gratitude, was of course, to some extent assisted by those few of the fashionable writers who were not pessimists; especially by Walt Whitman, by Browning and by Stevenson; Browning's "God must be glad one loves his world so much", or Stevenson's "belief in the ultimate decency of things". But I do not think it is too much to say that I took it in a way of my own; even if it was a way I could not see clearly or make very clear.
[GKC, Autobiography CW16:97, emphasis added]

This phrase "one thin thread of thanks" is one of the most important of the great Chestertonian motifs. It may be that GKC has added to the famous "five proofs" for the existence of God by giving us "the argument from thanksgiving"... certainly it is worth investigation. And just as Aquinas accumulated references, both in support and in attack of each of his questions, so too we shall have to lok at Whitman if we want to understand more about the Chestertonian motif of thanskgiving. Perhaps someone from the "American Whitman Society" (if such exists) might give us some insight into this poem by GKC, which somehow summarizes this entire point:

"Eternities"

I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head,
Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in His own strange book.

I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees.

In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.
[GKC, CW10:209]

I almost forgot! If you want to read some Whitman, you might check out Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass: The Original 1855 Edition available from Dover Publications.

New SQPN Harry Potter Podcast

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.

Only Chesterton...

"The plumber can find nothing wrong with our piano; so I suppose that my [husband] does love me."--GKC, ILN 9-28-1907

Only Chesterton can use a sentence like that to explain why science cannot explain the fall of man. I hadn't read that line before, Dr. Thursday tipped me off to it. It's a great sentence.