NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 8 April 1920, Page 26

NOTES

Chesterton and Belloc We wish to call attention to a series of articles on “Chesterbelloc,” contributed by Theodore Maynard to the Catholic World. If you admire the two valiant and doughty apologists for old, sane, beautiful things, in those days of Imperial corruption, you must read Mr. Maynard’s illuminating study of the writers to whose school he himself belongs and under whose flag ho has —et non sine gloria', himself adventured. In the February number he gives us a passage in prose and a poem from each, in which he thinks the personality of the writer is revealed best. From Chesterton’s Flying Inn, he selects this song of the wild Irishman, Dalroy, who sings as he marshals the army of English democracy for the final assault on the Mohammedan Prohibitionists : Lady, the light is dying skies. Lady, and let us die when honor dies; Your dear dropped glove was like a gauntlet flung When you and I were young, For something more than splendor stood and ease was not the only good, About the woods in Ivywood, when you and I were young. Lady, the stars are falling pale and small, Lady, we will not live if life be all, Fox-getting those good stars in heaven hung, When all the world was young; For more than gold was in a ring, and love was not a little thing, Between the trees in Ivywood, when all the world was young. Now, we agree with Mr. Maynard that no poem could -better present the ideals and the spirit of the genial philosopher who has fought so valiantly for such old, sane, sweet things as are sadly touched upon in the foregoing lines by the Irish Quixote. We hope it is a poem that no Celt can read without emotion. Mr. Belloc’s ego is supposed to be set forth in the following poem which comes into an essay after the author has told us of a priest who once preached a sermon on the words “Abba, Father,” and whose eyes

were lit by “the vision- of ; something distant; of rest as soldiers know it or writers when they end their books; of the tides of salt water and of death, the final rest” : • '• , ■We will not whisper : we have found the place Of silence and the ancient halls of sleep And that which breathes alone throughout the deep, The end and the beginning and the face Between the level brows of whose blind eyes Lie plenary contentment, full surcease Of violence, and the ultimate great peace Wherein we lose our human lullabies. Look up and tell the immeasurable height Between the vault of the world and your dear head ; That’s death, my little sister, and the Night That was our Mother beckons us to bed ; Where large oblivion in her house is laid For us tired children now our games are played. The Prose Mr. Maynard selects from Chesterton’s early book of essays, The Defendant, the following passage, in which the author defends the marriage vow: 1 “There are thrilling moments, doubtless, for (lie spectator, the amateur, and the aesthete; but there is one thrill that is known only to the soldier who fights for his own flag, to the ascetic who starves himself for his own illumination, to the lover who finally makes his own choice. And it is this transfiguring self-discipline that makes the vow a truly sane thing. . . . All around ns is a city of small sins, abounding in backways and retreats : but, surely, sooner or later, the towering flame will rise from the harbor announcing that the reign of cowards is over and a man is burning his ships.” It is a fine passage, but we lik? this one better: —- “When Christ at a, symbolical moment was establishing His Great Society. Tie chose for If is cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a coward, a snob—in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible.” The last sentence does not bear examination, but apart from its theology it is a fine passage. “Shuffler, cowax’d, snob—in a word, a man”that is not complimentary, but if any maxi looks into his heart and says it is false the same is a liar. It is a question of degree. And oh, the shufflers, and the cowards, and the snobs of New Zealand to-day ! Even in cur own household we find them abundantly. One word expresses all three: it is seofit//. Now fox* Belloc’s prose. It is a fine selection Mr. Maynard makes : a passage full of rhythm and music : one that stirs the soul amt fires the imagination as only Be Quincey or Carl vie could hitherto:

"But with the false step that produced the civil war, that made of the ardent and liberal West a sudden opponent, that in its final effect raised Lvons and alienated half the southern towns, that lost" Toulon, that put the extreme of fanaticism in the wisest ami most loyal minds— a generous and easy war was doomed, and the Revolution was destined to a more tragic and a nobler history. God, who permitted this proud folly to proceed from a pedantic aristoeracv foresaw things necessary to mankind. In th« despair of philosophers there will arise on either side of a great battle the enthusiasms which, from whenceever they blow, are the fresh winds of the soul. Here are the coming heroes and the epic songs for which humanity was sick, and the scenes of one generation of men shall give us m Europe our creeds for centuries. You shall hear the Chant, du Depart like a great hymn

in the army of /the Sainbre et Meuae. and the cheers of the men going down on the Venyeur; the voice a young man 'calling the grenadiers/at Lodi and Areola the noise of the guard swinging up the frozen hill at Austerlitz. Already the forests below the Pyrenees are full of the Spanish guerillas, and after how many hundred years the love of the tribe has appeared again above the conventions that covered it. There are the three colors standing against the trees of the North and the South; and the delicate' womanly face of Nelson is looking over the bulwarks of th*e Victory, with the slow white clouds and the light wind of ah October day above him, and before him the enemy s sails in the sunlight and the black rocks of the coast." That is the real thingisn't it, now? ~ a