It is becoming increasingly common — to my great dismay — to find one of two scenarios in both Catholic and Public schools in the United States when it comes to its exploration of great literature. The first is that … Continue reading
Category: Great Writers
Joe Sobran, Apologist
Joseph Sobran (1946-2010) was an American public intellectual and conservative thinker who spent more than twenty years of his life on the staff of National Review before being unceremoniously dumped from that esteemed publication. It seems he wandered too far … Continue reading
Tolkien and Reality
It shall come as a surprise to no one that I am a great fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. Having discovered The Lord of the Rings in Junior High (thanks in no small part to having been introduced to C.S. … Continue reading
A Miscalculated Demolition: Evelyn Waugh’s 1942 Wartime Letter to His Wife
Some Modern Catholic (or Neo-Modernist) Churchmen have advocated –at least since Pope Pius XII’s 1950 Encyclical, Humani Generis, or soon thereafter — “the demolition of the bastions,” seeming to refer to a timely removing of the barriers between the Catholic … Continue reading
Hilaire Belloc’s Memorable 1911 Depiction of a Sussex Squire: Fuller of Brightling
One year after Hilaire Belloc’s four-year term in the British House of Commons (1906-1910), he published The Four Men: A Farrago (1911), wherein he memorably depicts the robust and eccentric and magnanimously generous Squire Fuller of Brightling, an honored native … Continue reading
Maurice Baring’s 1927 Novel on Russia and Wartime Manchuria: Tinker’s Leave
Ten years after the sacred events at Fatima, Portugal, as well as a full decade after the 1917 Bolshevik revolutionary takeover in Russia, Maurice Baring — who knew the Russian language very well — wrote another book on Russia (and … Continue reading
Saint John Eudes and the Middle Age Controversy Over the Immaculate Conception
I am reading Part One (of three parts) of The Wondrous Childhood of the Most Holy Mother of God by Saint John Eudes. It is a masterpiece of filial devotion to the Mother of God, reflecting on her holy childhood, … Continue reading
Evelyn Waugh’s Comic Muse in Scoop
Two years before he was to die in early April of 1966 on Easter Sunday after Mass, Evelyn Waugh wrote a new Preface to his pre-War 1938 novel, Scoop.1 In that brief 1964 Preface and retrospect, he recalls the atmosphere … Continue reading
The Sage of Milford: Remembering Andrew Rothovius
Autumn is, for me anyway, an acutely nostalgic time. I think of the New England and New York of my childhood, of cool crisp weather and falling coloured leaves — and these memories are all the more vibrant when faced … Continue reading
Asking Candid Questions About Fundamental Convictions: Josef Pieper
While slowly reading the second of the three volumes of Josef Pieper’s Memoirs, Not Yet the Twilight (Noch Nicht Aller Tage Abend), I came more and more to think of him as a cultivated and disciplined man who so graciously … Continue reading
Hilaire Belloc: Walking, Inns, and the Recovery of Europe
On this 64th anniversary of the death of Hilaire Belloc (and fitting Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel), I thought to select a few passages from our beloved friend’s versatile writings both before and shortly after World War I: … Continue reading
Joseph Pearce and the ‘Boromir’ Option
The Imaginative Conservative, Joseph Pearce: In a recent essay for the Imaginative Conservative I wrote about what I called the Mercutio Option, based on the character in Romeo & Juliet who cursed both the warring factions in Verona, the Capulets and the Montagues, suggesting that, … Continue reading
Maurice Baring Presents Xantippe
This short essay proposes to consider, not only the above-mentioned Major B.K. and General de Castelnau, but also Maurice Baring himself, as “one of God’s gentlemen,” as one whose own generous and chivalrous character is marked by a sincere, deep, … Continue reading
The Slow Fruitfulness of His Heart of Mercy: L. Brent Bozell, Jr.
Through the prompt kindness of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, I recently received a gift copy of Daniel Kelly’s book that they had just published on L. Brent Bozell, Jr., entitled Living on Fire After at once reading the book, whose … Continue reading
Cardinal Manning: Honour
While attempting to retrieve a memorable 1909 Hilaire Belloc essay (“The Missioner”) for a College student — to be then conveniently found in a 1926 Anthology entitled Representative Catholic Essays — I unexpectedly saw and read for the first time … Continue reading
