tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2918791148352978822024-02-19T17:50:02.429-08:00The Hilaire Belloc Blog - the official Blog of the Hilaire Belloc Society. ''The mountains from their heights reveal to us two truths. They suddenly make us feel our insignificance, and at the same time they free the immortal Mind, and let it feel its greatness, and they release it from the earth.'' - The Path to RomeHilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.comBlogger240125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-60911508556619269092023-11-21T14:00:00.000-08:002023-11-21T14:00:34.180-08:00A Sussex Belloc - an anthology of poetry and prose...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_iNAsxRUuGdqvMd6-_XhnhuFL1Uf3bNHcIAt6hwTHLMsmIm1BmPIBEu12K5WuOQ-2B35Wm9lk2MbazIP8ZdGHnGuaTxvdX1LW4VYGHI9bfT3UqcE-Qi5_A5JBcpPuOIW0uPBJMkOdBb1tzlHkV683i0iatB7mkMTX5L5uAQuNQ4HfvkV1btl1C1WFuSou/s673/belloc%20anthology.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="446" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_iNAsxRUuGdqvMd6-_XhnhuFL1Uf3bNHcIAt6hwTHLMsmIm1BmPIBEu12K5WuOQ-2B35Wm9lk2MbazIP8ZdGHnGuaTxvdX1LW4VYGHI9bfT3UqcE-Qi5_A5JBcpPuOIW0uPBJMkOdBb1tzlHkV683i0iatB7mkMTX5L5uAQuNQ4HfvkV1btl1C1WFuSou/s320/belloc%20anthology.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><br /><p></p><br />The works of Hilaire Belloc are out of copyright – and local author David Arscott has seized the moment to produce an illustrated anthology of the master’s copious writings in celebration of his beloved South Country. Here you’ll find all of his Sussex verse, extracts from his history of the county, essays on the land and its people and extracts from his best loved book, The Four Men.<br />To buy A Sussex Belloc at £8.50 post-free, send a cheque to David Arscott at 1 Friars Walk,<div>Lewes BN7 2LE or email him at sussexbooks@aol.com to arrange a bank transfer.<br /><br />David’s companion volume, A Sussex Kipling, is also available at the same price.</div><div><br /></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-40985388110626664562023-11-21T13:18:00.000-08:002023-11-21T13:18:00.650-08:00'Hilaire Belloc: The Politics of Living' book review...<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZIxZ_W6pxQiAFi7MIpNTMfnyHjSvA7PJO3H2fvg8kuPAqs1r8LZvkuxAf9Iv8wy0IRKigwtzfHzGcSIr-iIc9akWbYOavEyubDpjgqzMPwGUxBJjPorgLJKAdTx1ur3T75JKil0XBTGAzxHXg6jBeEtV63JeTD5T8q9FnHRzgsYO6YPwgDLteeTA8RJsb/s653/HBScreen-Shot-2018-02-07-at-12.00.33.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="653" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZIxZ_W6pxQiAFi7MIpNTMfnyHjSvA7PJO3H2fvg8kuPAqs1r8LZvkuxAf9Iv8wy0IRKigwtzfHzGcSIr-iIc9akWbYOavEyubDpjgqzMPwGUxBJjPorgLJKAdTx1ur3T75JKil0XBTGAzxHXg6jBeEtV63JeTD5T8q9FnHRzgsYO6YPwgDLteeTA8RJsb/s320/HBScreen-Shot-2018-02-07-at-12.00.33.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/hilaire-belloc/chris-hare/9781897739327" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hilaire Belloc: The Politics of Living</a><a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/hilaire-belloc/chris-hare/9781897739327" style="box-sizing: border-box;">,</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Chris Hare, Blacker Limited, 2023, pp. 164, £15.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">.</span><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">‘When I am dead, I hope it may be said: “His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”’ When Hilaire Belloc penned his own epitaph he still had three decades of life ahead of him with little reason to worry seriously about posterity. Reading those words now in the seventieth anniversary year of his passing, they still amuse but seem far from prophetic. Of the more than 150 books he wrote, almost none are in print by mainstream publishers. Other than a dedicated following among Catholic traditionalists, he is read mostly for his Cautionary Tales for Children and some anthologised verse. As for the sins that have sullied Belloc’s reputation, the least pardonable is his anti-Semitism.</span><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Belloc has found admirable biographers in the likes of A. N. Wilson and Joseph Pearce and Chris Hare does not attempt in this persuasively reasoned study a further retelling of his life. Instead, he approaches his subject thematically. Through a series of discreet but related essays we are presented with critical reflections on Belloc’s private thoughts and public writings on a range of matters. Thus we have Belloc on religion, on politics, on war and peace, on mortality and, inescapably, on Jews. There is also an insightful interpretation of Belloc’s picaresque novel The Four Men.</span><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">A powerful motif across the chapters is Belloc the eternal outsider. Born in France but raised in Britain, he was at home and a stranger in both countries. As a young volunteer in the French military his fellow soldiers referred to him as ‘the Englishman’. Fiercely proud of his adopted home in the English south coast county of Sussex his Franco-Catholicism set him apart from its rustic folk. There was an element of self-sabotage about his situation. He privately supped at the tables of a social elite he publicly affected to despise. For all his desire for belonging, his restlessness took him on long travels far from his neglected family.</span><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">In a sharply perceptive chapter, Hare shows how Belloc was not even entirely at one with the Catholic Church of which he was such a staunch apologist. His was a religion less of intellectual doctrine than felt sentiment, especially in the ritual of the sacrament. For all his faith in Catholicism as the foundation of Western civilisation, Belloc had an abiding fascination with paganism. It was more than passing sentiment that caused him while sailing off the south coast of England to rhapsodise about ‘The Holy Moon’.</span><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">That veneration of the natural world pervades the most revered of Belloc’s novels, The Four Men. The tale of a quartet of travellers who make their way on foot across Sussex, is, as Hare observes, a celebration of a landscape threatened by change. In reconnecting with their home county, the wanderers are imbued with a sense of belonging planted deep in its chalky soil. Hare includes a quotation from Belloc that again alludes to a spiritual belief system unbound by orthodox Catholicism: ‘if a man is part of and is rooted in one steadfast piece of earth, which has nourished him and given him his being, and if he can on his side lend it glory and do it service, it will be a friend to him for ever, and he has outflanked Death in a way.’</span><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Did Belloc’s mourning of a landscape and way of life being lost to time make him a reactionary or a radically forward thinker? Hare deftly teases out the contradictions of his subject, showing how he can be read in different ways. Take his lamentation for a South Downs ceding to tourism, urbanisation and commercial farming. ‘Which of us could have thought, when we wandered, years ago, in the full peace of summer Weald, or through the sublime void of the high Downs, that the things upon which we had been nourished since first we could take joy in the world would be thus rapidly destroyed in our own time, dying even before we ourselves die?’ That utterance could have come as easily from a contemporary environmentalist as an Edwardian curmudgeon. Yet there is no sense in its fatalism that Belloc anticipated the conservationist agenda of our own era in a way true of fellow authors such as W. H. Hudson whose wandering across the South Downs also led him to warn of a disappearing countryside.</span><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">As for his own passing, Hare suggests Belloc retained a sense of humour and stoicism as he neared death. Some of the testimonies included in the book possibly imply otherwise. Such is true of a statement made by early biographer J. B. Morton who witnessed in person the way that Belloc ‘when trapped into exposing his deeper feelings, regained his balance, as it were, before you had noticed what happened.’ Belief in an eternal life did not entirely reconcile Belloc to the grief that came from the early death of his wife Elodie and the sacrifice of a son to each of the World Wars.</span><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">If, as Hare argues, Belloc can still at times sound modern, then he was in other respects on the wrong side of history. His regressive attitude towards women’s rights, not discussed in the pages of the book, is a case in point. So too most obviously is his anti-Semitism. Hare is admirably dispassionate in his assessment, setting out the cases for both the prosecution and defence and allowing the reader to reach their own decision. The book does not hold back in detailing Belloc’s infatuation with Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Belloc gushed over Il Duce’s ‘excellent experiment’ in governance, proclaiming it a successful defence of a European civilisation otherwise crumbling into decline and ruin. Instrumental in that collapse were, in Belloc’s mind, the ‘international financiers’ of no national affiliation who conspired to cause scandals and wars for their own commercial profit. Hare could also have mentioned Belloc’s insistence on the guilt of Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus decades after the French government had overturned his notorious conviction for treason. On the side of the defence is the fact that Belloc was an early and outspoken critic of Adolf Hitler’s regime in Germany. Here Hare wisely reminds us of A. N. Wilson’s observation that there was a wilful blindness towards the affinities between Nazi political doctrine and his own prejudices.</span><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hilaire Belloc: The Politics of Living is an astute and highly readable study that illuminates its subject in all his complexities. What it may lack in original research it more than compensates for in the suppleness and depth of its analysis.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Clive Webb is Professor of Modern American History at the University of Sussex. His book Vietdamned: How the World’s Greatest Minds Put America on Trial, will be published by Profile Books.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">This review has been taken from The London Magazine. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-1561024332445869172023-10-23T13:41:00.001-07:002023-10-23T13:41:35.317-07:00Hilaire Belloc's 'The Four Men' - stage adaptation by Ann Feloy...<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAlsF52oxXvlJq56WCtElVwK4leF8aTnGGMH9t6Kaa8-PdlGr_00hGcaC7tCptDKmMbtDXeGyHWR8FRFvvqQk_wDWCcEHMM97VYSV4cwmChthbK9bXdbIbyWo9FQfhtvHccdnuJrTVE9nYo1XhqIfUhTnhNE12baNLYx_6v-7A1c8ccHjEVpjL2ScMLF2P/s930/belloc%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="930" data-original-width="661" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAlsF52oxXvlJq56WCtElVwK4leF8aTnGGMH9t6Kaa8-PdlGr_00hGcaC7tCptDKmMbtDXeGyHWR8FRFvvqQk_wDWCcEHMM97VYSV4cwmChthbK9bXdbIbyWo9FQfhtvHccdnuJrTVE9nYo1XhqIfUhTnhNE12baNLYx_6v-7A1c8ccHjEVpjL2ScMLF2P/w284-h400/belloc%202.jpg" width="284" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-54354399076344802992023-09-20T13:21:00.000-07:002023-09-20T13:21:09.927-07:00 Monday 25th September at West Worthing Baptist Church, 45 South St, Worthing BN14 7LU.<br /><br /><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGuwAUy1B-YiKx1Naju1VOnWII7EwAMZdxWGbvfu1vBzfn-Csgf8uIGFZt8A9ZkgzBEfZh1EYIHzjiS0mKyt4EwTAwNQO35Y1oKn_ikqq4RBvMaKhkym32VbzkbnGEygabAcyubFykhXyS7qg1iuntUDAH2e2u-e3cDC7Iu409FHuyJNDFvS2it70YYwZ5/s1024/Belloc%20on%20boat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="634" data-original-width="1024" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGuwAUy1B-YiKx1Naju1VOnWII7EwAMZdxWGbvfu1vBzfn-Csgf8uIGFZt8A9ZkgzBEfZh1EYIHzjiS0mKyt4EwTAwNQO35Y1oKn_ikqq4RBvMaKhkym32VbzkbnGEygabAcyubFykhXyS7qg1iuntUDAH2e2u-e3cDC7Iu409FHuyJNDFvS2it70YYwZ5/w400-h248/Belloc%20on%20boat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Chris Hare will be giving the following free talk on the evening of Monday 25th September at West Worthing Baptist Church, 45 South St, Worthing BN14 7LU.<br /><br /><br /><i>Hilaire Belloc: the paradox of belief -</i><div><i><br /></i>'Hilaire Belloc is not much remembered today, and when he is, it is usually for his comic verse for children, or his outspoken views, many of which are now very unfashionable. In this talk I will look at Belloc's religious, spiritual, and mystical beliefs. He was a devout Roman Catholic, who would broach no compromise with 'modernism.' Yet he also wrote movingly about the elemental power of the natural world, in particular, the sea and the moon. He regarded the finding of springs from which great rivers flow to the sea as a 'holy' experience. He was greatly concerned with both the decline of Christianity, as he saw it, and the threat posed by materialist lifetstyles on creation. A modern audience may be surprised to find Belloc less archaic than they expect, but instead speaking to very modern concerns about social justice, the environment, but most of all, on the safe passage of the human soul.'<br /><br /><br />The talk starts at 7.45pm.<div style="outline: none !important;"><div style="outline: none !important;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; outline: none !important;" /></div></div></div><br /></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-48772889297157765932023-07-31T13:12:00.001-07:002023-08-01T13:18:44.456-07:00'Hilaire Belloc: the politics of living' by Chris Hare (published by History People UK) - reviewed by Mike Hennessy (the Chairman of the Hilaire Belloc Society)...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4N0gkMjzehXTOQFlszPgEo9c8-KVC8NuIWQqrXL46vuGDj_y3nQFFngu246qNaSZewkziuYnvIT5E5J8A9lSipznYzC0VVOIxV8z0jAKkan1uJOolamHta1HzjLEw6EB3Syhr-wXZd3Fw14t_LdtkwpEnL0TG6yoW7jV9zmKMSjCW9cb8Q6wkvvHRVnl8/s390/Book-launch-Steyning-Bookshop-390x205.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="205" data-original-width="390" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4N0gkMjzehXTOQFlszPgEo9c8-KVC8NuIWQqrXL46vuGDj_y3nQFFngu246qNaSZewkziuYnvIT5E5J8A9lSipznYzC0VVOIxV8z0jAKkan1uJOolamHta1HzjLEw6EB3Syhr-wXZd3Fw14t_LdtkwpEnL0TG6yoW7jV9zmKMSjCW9cb8Q6wkvvHRVnl8/w400-h210/Book-launch-Steyning-Bookshop-390x205.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Chris Hare has done us all a great service by writing on
Belloc. His book<i>, Hilaire Belloc: the
politics of living</i>, which came out late last year, ought to serve as a
welcome invitation to those readers of today who have not yet taken up any of
Belloc’s works. For reasons quite complex and largely unjustified, Belloc’s
reputation has fallen significantly below that of his Catholic and other
contemporaries over the last few decades.
We have just passed the seventieth anniversary of Belloc’s death (on the
Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 16 July 1953) and there was no discernible
murmur of recognition or commemoration.
Apart from an ongoing general rustle of appreciation among those who
recall with affection his comic verse (mainly the <i>Cautionary Tales for
Children</i>), and especially among younger generations, he is almost
unknown. Thankfully, he is probably still
well enough known among the people of his beloved County of Sussex, more so than
anywhere else in the UK (which would please him), in large part because of the
enthusiastic endeavours of Chris Hare and his friends who keep his memory alive
there; and his name can still be found bruited about online among fervent
co-religionists (especially in the US) who cling to some of his more political
and polemical works with avidity. But
outside these groups he is but a dimly remembered name.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps this is the fate of most of those men who are
greater than any one of their books, or even greater than the sum of all their
writings. Sublime works often live on, carrying their creator in their wake as something
more than just a name. In Belloc’s case, it is impossible to point to any of
his books and say: “Here is the entire man!”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even placing perhaps his three greatest single works on top of each
other – <i>The Path to Rome</i>, <i>The Four Men</i> and <i>The Cruise of the
Nona</i> – I would assert that the pile reaches barely to Belloc’s waist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One finds the real Belloc through a <i>wide</i>
reading of his variegated works and then becomes enchanted by him, perhaps even
more so than with his writings; those books then remain one of the best ways to
keep company with him and to hear him speak. There is wisdom, humour, beauty,
wit and understanding in his books; but behind all of these things, giving them
spirit and substance is the figure, the personality: Belloc himself – a man,
with faults of course, but with great gifts, who lived a life of travel,
tragedy, some disillusionment and much intellectual combat, and who met with
exhaustion at the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Belloc</i> is
why we read Belloc (which makes him stand out from many other authors, whose
writings I may admire or feel deeply about, for whom I feel only a gentle
warmth at best). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And Chris Hare has done a particular service by showing us
this man – <i>Ecce homo!</i> – in a personal and affectionate way that I
believe no-one has done so well since the superb memoir written by J B Morton
only a few years after Belloc’s death. For he has weaved a very personal note through
Belloc’s life and writings and delivered a candid exposition of the man which should
charm even the sceptic and quite possibly the foe.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For Chris Hare, whom I must here admit to having known for
pretty much 20 years through membership of the Hilaire Belloc Society, sets out in his
short introduction to the book some of his own circumstances which echo
Belloc’s – his disillusionment with party politics and, more importantly his
own family’s tragedy – and how through the latter in particular he has been
drawn closer to Belloc whose writings helped support and sustain him at
critical times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many ways, the
introduction sets the tone for the book as a whole – it is an admirable precis
of the author’s intentions and is both candid and clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given the way in which some of Belloc’s works
(often not his best, and ironically some of his most dated) are considered
close to Holy Writ by that aforementioned clique of Catholic controversialists
– and given how disparaged he has been by many of those who ought to have loved
him most (other co-religionists, now rather liberal and priggish), Chris Hare’s
admission that he has come not to apologise for Belloc but to write of him
“warts and all” is very welcome and – frankly, in the context – disarming.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The book is set out thematically – it is not intended as a
biography, as Chris Hare makes clear at the outset – and deals with the
personality of Belloc, his faith and early founding in classical literature,
history and myth, his love and evocation of landscape and the importance to him
of sacred places, his engagement with world of politics, as an MP and as a
writer, speaker and thinker, his widely-held reputation as an anti-Semite, his
experience of and response to the conflicts of the Boer War, Great War and Second
World War, and finally his declining years and how he foresaw so vividly in his
writings as a young man the loss and waning of powers that accompanies the
journey into old age. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost every page
carries at least one, often extended, citation either from one of Belloc’s
books or letters, or a description of an encounter with Belloc from a contemporary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I would give a talk on Belloc, I would
similarly festoon my speech with extensive excerpts: there is no better
encounter with the man now than through the medium of his prose and verse and
through the reminiscences of those who met him in life. We are not just our own
narratives, we are our voice and thoughts, our aspect and our gait; and our
words and the recounting of our encounters with others will reveal more about
ourselves than any summary of biographical details can. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And Chris Hare has chosen these excepts with care and with an
eye – and ear (Belloc’s own writings can read beautifully) – for how well they reflect
upon the themes he has set out, and in particular for how, even within
something as dry as Belloc’s political thinking, there is still a man, feeling
and breathing and giving life to what might otherwise seem at times but dusty words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His chapter on landscape and place, which focuses on <i>The
Four Men</i>, was one in which I particularly delighted – not least because of
all of Belloc’s single works it is the one which most captured my sensibilities
while a young man at university and to this day remains that which is most
imprinted upon my spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
fictional, almost dream-like, narrative of an autumnal walk across Sussex by
the four men of the title, Grizzlebeard, the Sailor, the Poet and Myself (an
Everyman of sorts) is deeply embedded in that blessed County’s countryside in
the years just before the Great War – to such an extent that, as Chris Hare
rightly points out, its landscape is in many ways the fifth companion of the
book: such is the evocation of place in this story by turns whimsical, melancholic,
riotous, satirical, elegiac, comic and poetic, that the reader feels in a very
particular way that he is accompanying the four men across the fields, through
the woods and down the lanes (and into the inns!) of the story with a vividness
that very few other books can give.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And this rootedness in place allows all the discursive
twists and turns of the conversation between the characters to somehow remain
tethered to the real – so that, just as the reader can feel the chill drizzle
of the evening or smell the woodfires, he can also feel the emotions that are
poured out in the companions’ tales together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As Chris Hare points out elsewhere in the book, while Sussex was a very
special place for Belloc – from his childhood memories of Nomansland near
Slindon to his dozen-or-so married then more numerous widowed years at
Kingsland, Shipley, many of Belloc’s essays feature a sacred or holy or blessed
place sometimes reached only in dreams – an adumbration, or foreshadowing, of
Paradise: of that <i>patria</i> of final peace and rest and happiness,
reference to which in those last lines of the Benediction hymn, <i>O Salutaris Hostia</i>,
would bring Belloc to the point of tears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Place, its evocation and suggestiveness, features prominently in another
chapter of this book, entitled “An enduring faith”, which intelligently explores
the tensions within and nuances of Belloc’s faith and spiritual temperament. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Whereas significant attention has been given to Belloc’s political,
social, economic and to some extent historical thought, less has been written
about his other works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In so many ways,
there is a lot still to unpack from these less didactic writings, material that
often seems casual (like his essays) but into which he poured himself and his
thoughts and feelings in a very intense way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And, more suggestively than explicitly, Chris Hare’s book opens up that
possibility of new avenues of approach to Belloc the man – renewing, or revivifying
the knowledge and memory of him and his works, to try and explain how they can
sustain and feed the spirit and mind, of how a man now seventy years dead can yet
still keep us company along a road much of which will have been familiar to
him, through the pangs of youth, the quiet joys of settled life, and towards
our final end, a journey with all of its accompanying joys, frustrations, small
triumphs and sometimes deep tragedies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Mike Hennessy<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>July 2023<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>In order to purchase a copy of this book please go to: </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span><a href="http://www.historypeople.co.uk/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" style="background-color: white; color: #338fe9; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; outline: none !important;" target="_blank">www.historypeople.co.uk</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-3927444167772672972023-03-15T14:21:00.002-07:002023-03-15T14:21:30.406-07:00Interview: “The Politics of Living”Richard Vobes interviews Chris Hare about his new book, ‘Hilaire Belloc, the politics of living.<div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ISKIG3P_SYI" width="320" youtube-src-id="ISKIG3P_SYI"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Libre Baskerville"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span><p></p></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-39745765141398158962022-11-16T12:25:00.000-08:002022-11-16T12:25:14.597-08:00Historian Chris Hare will offer a talk 'Hilaire Belloc, The Man, His Writings and His Legacy' at the Coronation Hall, Reynolds Lane, Slindon, BN18 0QZ on Saturday, November 19 at 2pm.<br /><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxn2-2J_WqVaFN1UWQm4geej-TrWiKFm219MJV8WUAmqLaRoGArlJ1VYWIskQwEWyl0v7NQR-qal9q8BOFXdKjy6igdcQ3-n57VFWXnZ-7tZ_PBokPZek6MDkCBHXjIIzRxIRoQxKtBJ2NhFmaKmF5tLiSkT7z41AN5PlBBfY6MIzn2BHf_S0obBpTA/s990/chris%20hare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="659" data-original-width="990" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxn2-2J_WqVaFN1UWQm4geej-TrWiKFm219MJV8WUAmqLaRoGArlJ1VYWIskQwEWyl0v7NQR-qal9q8BOFXdKjy6igdcQ3-n57VFWXnZ-7tZ_PBokPZek6MDkCBHXjIIzRxIRoQxKtBJ2NhFmaKmF5tLiSkT7z41AN5PlBBfY6MIzn2BHf_S0obBpTA/s320/chris%20hare.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> Historian Chris Hare will offer a talk 'Hilaire Belloc, The Man, His Writings and His Legacy' at the Coronation Hall, Reynolds Lane, Slindon, BN18 0QZ on Saturday, November 19 at 2pm.<div> <br />Leigh Lawson, vice-chairman West Sussex Archives Society, said: “Hilaire Belloc spent his boyhood in Slindon and the last 48 years of his life in Shipley. His Sussex connections are very strong as was his enduring love for the county. </div><div><br />“Chris is a popular local historian and singer of folk songs. He also sings with Littlehampton- based shantymen, The Duck Pond Sailors. Throughout 2018-19 Chris, assisted by Emily Longhurst, led a Heritage Lottery Funded project Belloc, Broadwood and Beyond, a series of workshops which included learning some of the songs written by Hilaire Belloc and which culminated in a concert in Rusper Church. Chris will be reading some of Belloc’s poems and singing at least a couple of his songs during the talk.<br />“The talk has been arranged by West Sussex Archives Society, which supports the work of West Sussex Record Office. Non-members are welcome to attend the talk, which costs £6 and includes tea or coffee and biscuits. Email inquiries to contact@wsas.co.uk.”</div></div><br />Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-25253567322812683702022-08-16T12:00:00.000-07:002022-08-16T12:00:20.185-07:00The Duck Pond Sailors in Slindon...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qjxrhSoWvdc" width="320" youtube-src-id="qjxrhSoWvdc"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div> On Thursday 16th June 2022 – The Duck Pond Sailors gave a ‘moving concert’ around the little streets and woodlands of Slindon. In this video, they sing the ‘Sussex Song’, written by Chris Hare, as a sort of national anthem for the county, including all it’s great moments in history and folklore. The other song is G.K.Chesterton’s poem ‘The Rolling English Road’ put to the tune of ‘The Farmer’s Boy.’ Chesterton was a lifelong friend of Belloc, and the two men frequently met for walks in the South Downs. Belloc spent his boyhood in Slindon and wrote many essays about the village and its hinterland.Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-24667309944190973812022-07-19T14:00:00.009-07:002022-07-20T14:10:56.792-07:00An interesting find at a flea market in Chicago...<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMOGUbcIsdFWrd_Daykf_ovLyEItGesD2C_Lucz_zsNQxH1TDhHS2b4_qINhtZndzwjznJVDRm8s7y5VWexUWk4VTj5KMOnuZvTQ31sUqCvqgHnp9N7goDIdNkW5ihv096nLLxMax7PbO-IjGyC_1N5TPvPEhvz2pUklZ28SdFTzPlOxa7DlrcCkOMIQ/s3264/Belloc20220330_130353.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="1836" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMOGUbcIsdFWrd_Daykf_ovLyEItGesD2C_Lucz_zsNQxH1TDhHS2b4_qINhtZndzwjznJVDRm8s7y5VWexUWk4VTj5KMOnuZvTQ31sUqCvqgHnp9N7goDIdNkW5ihv096nLLxMax7PbO-IjGyC_1N5TPvPEhvz2pUklZ28SdFTzPlOxa7DlrcCkOMIQ/w225-h400/Belloc20220330_130353.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Matthew Ennis contacted me from America with some interesting information. He has come into the possession of some very interesting hand written poems accompanied by intriguing drawings. This is his story:</span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><i>'I got them at a flea market in the Chicago area that were amongst a bunch of other ephemera from the very early 1900s. I saw the elephant poem and connected it to Belloc, so I thought it may be his work since it's very professionally done and there's a whole book of the same, 24 pages and the fun simple poems are extraordinary.'</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Now the opinion of the Chairman is that the drawings are probably by Basil Blackwood. He writes:</span><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>'I still don’t feel able to say definitely HB. Still not found any examples of his writing in capitals. Some of the verses seem almost too whimsical/sentimental..I’m almost tempted to say (given that the drawings seem to be by Basil Blackwood) that they might have been composed by Elodie. At least some of them inspired by her. Not that I am conscious of her writing *anything* (other than letters to HB).'</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mike did go on to say that the drawings were definitely by Basil Blackwood. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Basil Temple Blackwood was the third son and fifth child of the first Marquess of Duffering and Ava (and Governor General of Canada). He was born in Clandeboye, Ireland.Which I suppose, given his background, made him Anglo-Irish. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Strangely enough, he later went on to become Private secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1916 (a poignant year in Irish history).</span> <span style="font-family: arial;">Before this, he went up to Balliol College - Oxford.This was B</span><span style="font-family: arial;">elloc's college as well. Whilst at Oxford, he became friends with Belloc.<br /><br />In 1896, Belloc approached Blackwood to illustrate his book of humorous children's verse, The Bad Child's Book Of Beasts. The book was an immediate success. Blackwood went on to illustrate several more of Belloc's books, including: The Modern Traveller (1898), A Moral Alphabet (1899), More Peers (1900), Cautionary Tales for Children (1907) and More Beasts for Worse Children (1910).</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Blackwood died in the trenches in 1917. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The manuscript is available for purchase. However, we cannot say for certain who wrote the poems (except for the Elephant which is definitely by Belloc) or who is responsible for the illustrations. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHUHhZDVG4FMTW7PZ3eWl26KgHF56-dcL3sq-ObeuPl46rY-BypS8PxZv6crDTZzetJeadMgs49o2bkrNN4XdChsp-E4gZCastMZIFacpxQbqXxsFwei4a5vO2LdCDMWN1Ryhqa9I2Wy9sSCQV3sW8jTajtdUejtY715lNaWTgU_PdUy8TFFEJFF_4yA/s3264/Belloc%20elephant.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="1836" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHUHhZDVG4FMTW7PZ3eWl26KgHF56-dcL3sq-ObeuPl46rY-BypS8PxZv6crDTZzetJeadMgs49o2bkrNN4XdChsp-E4gZCastMZIFacpxQbqXxsFwei4a5vO2LdCDMWN1Ryhqa9I2Wy9sSCQV3sW8jTajtdUejtY715lNaWTgU_PdUy8TFFEJFF_4yA/w225-h400/Belloc%20elephant.jpg" width="225" /></a></i></div><i><br /><span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></i><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span face=""Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div></div></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-31756083424712367632022-03-31T12:51:00.008-07:002022-04-04T12:36:03.391-07:00This year we are celebrating Sussex Day with walk & song in the village of Slindon with South Downs historian Chris Hare...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaBBRFN6DwWvmhFqYS070LgxbUa6ShPNIkFoxv0I3So3lz35nYTRszjKwVe3eDsSz-nDpMPn6a3OPjWwdZ3Vu_Vz3ltso4u8L1vtWbwZ8ZvZle_1rywvvTQ36I3ywdkFOw3SXkbm6Muq7UB5yyt9mD2O-g-umjCttUhCFzxmdfZweMOsufPLZdBORJ3Q/s800/Bellochttps___cdn.evbuc.com_images_255606449_488440638247_1_original%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="800" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaBBRFN6DwWvmhFqYS070LgxbUa6ShPNIkFoxv0I3So3lz35nYTRszjKwVe3eDsSz-nDpMPn6a3OPjWwdZ3Vu_Vz3ltso4u8L1vtWbwZ8ZvZle_1rywvvTQ36I3ywdkFOw3SXkbm6Muq7UB5yyt9mD2O-g-umjCttUhCFzxmdfZweMOsufPLZdBORJ3Q/w491-h287/Bellochttps___cdn.evbuc.com_images_255606449_488440638247_1_original%20(1).jpg" width="491" /></a></div><br />About this event: Thu, 16 June 2022 – 7:00pm – 8:30pm <br /><br /><br />What better way to spend a summer's evening than walking around a beautiful South Downs village listening to old English sea shanties and folk songs?<br /><br />This year the Friends of the South Downs are celebrating Sussex Day in style, with a walk around the historic village of Slindon, in the company of South Downs historian, Chris Hare, and the ever popular Duck Pond Sailors. You will hear all about one thousand years of downland and village history and learn about the life and work of Slindon's most famous son - Hilaire Belloc. Belloc spent his boyhood in Slindon in the 1870s and 80s, but he also returned briefly to live in Slindon with his wife Elodie and their children from 1904 - 1905. His vivid essays and moving poetry will be referred to by Chris during the walk.<br /><br />The Duck Pond Sailors are renowned for 'putting some welly' into their singing and they will include many songs appropriate to the time of year and the setting. They will even be singing one of their songs by a duck pond!<br /><br />Get your complimentary CD<br /><br />To help celebrate Sussex Day, the Friends of the South Downs will be giving a copy of the CD and booklet '<a href="https://friendsofthesouthdowns.org.uk/shop/merchandise/south-coast-songs-shanties-cd/">South Coast Songs and Shanties</a>' to everyone who attends the walk (usual price £6.50). This is a one-off promotion and is available only for this event. CDs cannot be posted to those who register and don't attend.<br /><br />A fundraiser for two good causes.<br /><br />The money raised from this event will be shared between the Friends of the South Downs and <a href="https://ollysfuture.org.uk/">Olly's Future, a suicide-prevention charity.</a><br /><br />A Gallery of Slindon photographs<br /><br />During the walk, Chris will be talking about all the buildings and places seen in these photographs, some of which have the strangest and most unexpected explanations. There will even be a ghost story!<br /><br />Public transport<br /><br />No buses run to Slindon at this time. Barnham is the nearest mainline railway station (a distance of 3.5 miles). There is a taxi rank at Barnham Station. The journey takes about ten minutes.<div><br /></div><div>Book now on <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/guided-walk-and-song-in-slindon-with-the-duck-pond-sailors-tickets-308566529797">Eventbrite</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-11129147270114574402021-06-01T12:55:00.000-07:002021-06-01T12:55:10.718-07:00Online talk about Hilaire Belloc to the Steyning Society...<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Chris was asked to give an online talk about Hilaire Belloc to the Steyning Society. So rather than create a Powerpoint, he thought it would be more interesting to go out on ‘location’ and film in the places that Belloc knew and loved the most. Tom Aubrey, chair of the Steyning Society was very pleased with the presentation and wrote: “Thank you Chris for a wonderfully spoken and sung talk on Hilaire Belloc; Sussex Laureate. Beautifully filmed in his Sussex haunts, you tell the story of a complex and idealistic man.” Thanks to Chris Evans for his expert filming and editing. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Open Sans, serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a15QKMMPrZA" width="320" youtube-src-id="a15QKMMPrZA"></iframe></span></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Open Sans, serif;"><br /></span><p></p></div><p><br /> </p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-38767438883516064102021-03-09T12:22:00.000-08:002021-03-09T12:22:31.837-08:00Remembering Hilaire Belloc...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oMQuS9yYkO0" width="320" youtube-src-id="oMQuS9yYkO0"></iframe></div><br /><p></p>Last year Chris Hare (director of the '<a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Belloc, Broadwod and Beyond</a>' project) interviewed Bob Phillips, who has lived in Shipley since 1939, when he came to the village as an evacuee. Bob is well known in Shipley as a past chairman of the parish council, and for his work with the Scouts and Cubs. In the interview, Bob recalls, how he, and his older brother, Tom, interacted with Belloc and his family over the decades.Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-22992933185397682272021-01-11T12:31:00.003-08:002021-01-11T12:31:45.682-08:00A pint by the pond...<p> </p><h1 style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI0C5DEjbgS6ZhHOKT6x6Th3fhLDb6G0DZgqgmfDP9f1Tq9HQoHuRYPL-CQXb20cIEEPWy1vfsHMfFkQANVaqJde5bYOTKCj_0a4fYfjuMl90LJ0ytNNhH5n0AX3VpnKj9J7n1Dj8Fp6Fr/s1280/Wassail+160121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI0C5DEjbgS6ZhHOKT6x6Th3fhLDb6G0DZgqgmfDP9f1Tq9HQoHuRYPL-CQXb20cIEEPWy1vfsHMfFkQANVaqJde5bYOTKCj_0a4fYfjuMl90LJ0ytNNhH5n0AX3VpnKj9J7n1Dj8Fp6Fr/w400-h225/Wassail+160121.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></h1><br /><p></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-56108580378508636552021-01-04T11:47:00.003-08:002021-01-04T11:47:45.323-08:00Belloc, the South Downs and Cardinal Manning... One beautiful autumn day, Chris Hare and cameraman Chris Evans visited some beautiful spots on the South Downs associated with Hilaire Belloc and Cardinal Manning. These three short films give you a flavour of what they discovered.<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Libre Baskerville"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UiEyAHv5CIY" width="320" youtube-src-id="UiEyAHv5CIY"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Libre Baskerville"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SzoG59Lghig" width="320" youtube-src-id="SzoG59Lghig"></iframe></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: "Libre Baskerville"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cJkKQXpRj0Q" width="320" youtube-src-id="cJkKQXpRj0Q"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-65475735303345508872020-11-11T12:44:00.001-08:002020-11-11T12:44:34.900-08:00Hilaire Belloc, The Man Who Saw the Future by Chris Hare. Talk at the Shoreham Wordfest...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y05z8vvARVc" width="320" youtube-src-id="Y05z8vvARVc"></iframe></div><br /><p></p>Local historian, Chris Hare, talks about the life and times of Hilaire Belloc, author, poet, politician and thinker. Belloc was a noted figure of his time, both for literature and his influence on political thinking. A long-time resident of Sussex, he had a deep love for the county, its people and countryside. Chris led a Community Heritage project, researching the man and his impact, which culminated in a plaque commemorating his life being installed in the village of Shipley, his long term residence. The talk took place on Sunday 25 October as part of our Local and Live festival, and features a couple of Sussex folk songs from Chris. The festival and the filmed recordings are funded by the Arts Council’s National Lottery Project Fund.<br /><br />For more about the Belloc project see <a href="https://belloc-broadwood.org.uk/">https://belloc-broadwood.org.uk/</a><br /><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-78648979785757284892020-10-19T10:42:00.003-07:002020-10-20T08:03:30.000-07:00Hilaire Belloc: The Man Who Saw The Future. Zoom friendly talk!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEingECOrKApv9cMzikdgmHIkXDet_O0P6GbNEqg2srQ41o79Xi2S0UIlRn5WdoQ5iHnCpPAfIcHZ8_sEKhcL-WAU6Wl20onmx4U3BeC4lrqALsO8CKwOoVZx4qNDNaT2HfTqjsdTxhq5sgO/s552/Chris+Hare+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="552" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEingECOrKApv9cMzikdgmHIkXDet_O0P6GbNEqg2srQ41o79Xi2S0UIlRn5WdoQ5iHnCpPAfIcHZ8_sEKhcL-WAU6Wl20onmx4U3BeC4lrqALsO8CKwOoVZx4qNDNaT2HfTqjsdTxhq5sgO/s320/Chris+Hare+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><br /></p><p>One hundred years ago Sussex writer, poet, essayist and former Member of Parliament, Hilaire Belloc, made a number of predictions about the future of this country and the world. At the time people thought him archaic in his thought, absurd in his arguments, and on the wrong side of history. Today, though, his sense of direction seems to have been uncannily accurate on many fronts. Local historian, Chris Hare will also focus on Belloc the Sussex man. He will read some of Belloc’s Sussex poems, sing some of Belloc’s songs and read extracts from Belloc’s Sussex book, The Four Men.</p><br />Event Location:<br /><br /><a href="https://ropetacklecentre.co.uk/">Ropetackle Arts Centre</a>, High St, Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex. BN43 5EG<br /><br /><br />Box Office: Wordfest<br /><br /><a href="mailto:boxoffice@shorehamwordfest.com">boxoffice@shorehamwordfest.com</a><br /><br />Box Office: Ropetackle<br /><br /><a href="mailto:boxoffice@ropetacklecentre.co.uk">boxoffice@ropetacklecentre.co.uk</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://ropetacklecentre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873622011/events/129334009/seats?_ga=2.143898812.843159727.1602156880-1160376930.1601728289&zone=Allocated%20Seating">Book Now!</a><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://ropetacklecentre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873622011?_ga=2.143898812.843159727.1602156880-1160376930.1601728289">Zoom!</a><br /><div><br /></div></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-44114860223527417582020-10-07T12:19:00.000-07:002020-10-07T12:19:08.242-07:00Belloc and Poland...<br /><br /><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdP9fczkYFWpMyV3e_OxvEQi8tcm_-Q7p8Tn2Rwk21hyphenhyphenxNnVNgd9-IxmxJYJF81fSc6bRZJ9sV4edCI178HRDqFl5B8A3YhChk9_F8I03KVoep-2UJ4FWaYECCz9cBC5IiCuZUDRNZ3ztV/s900/polish-white-eagle-marta-kazmierska.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdP9fczkYFWpMyV3e_OxvEQi8tcm_-Q7p8Tn2Rwk21hyphenhyphenxNnVNgd9-IxmxJYJF81fSc6bRZJ9sV4edCI178HRDqFl5B8A3YhChk9_F8I03KVoep-2UJ4FWaYECCz9cBC5IiCuZUDRNZ3ztV/s320/polish-white-eagle-marta-kazmierska.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div>DEAR SIR,<div><br /></div><div>Homage to Hilaire Belloc would be incomplete that omitted mention of his friendship to Poland. With that “Catholic conscience of history” which impregnates all his writings, Belloc, long before the first World War, sensed the tragic consequences for Europe of Poland’s absence from the comity of free nations. He was in Poland only twice—in 1912, when gathering material for his book on The Campaign of 1812, and again in the ‘thirties. Of this latter journey he recorded his impressions in Return to the Baltic, published in 1938. His knowledge of history and his acquaintance with ethnic and cultural realities, which in Central and Eastern Europe before 1914 were af the uttermost variance with the political map, no doubt reinforced his Polish sympathies and convictions.”Catholic Poland,” he wrote in The Campaign of 1812, “by all her inheritance and traditions leans on Western Europe” ) it was one of the “most highly differentiated nations in Europe ; this nation, however, was partitioned ; it was a crime, he said (writing in 1912), “from which so much of our own near future is to develop.” To a map of Poland accompanying this book, with frontiers between Germany, Russia and Austria cutting across the Polish national entity, Belloc added a line marking an “approximate limit of Polish language and culture” in the West. With prophetic insight he drew almost the ,Polish-German frontier which Roman Dmowski, the great Polish statesman who headed the Polish Delegation, demanded in 1919 at the Peace Conference of Paris. Although the experts of the Peace Conference, including Sir William (later Lord) Tyrrell, accepted the bulk of the Polish demands, the passionate and ill-advised intervention of Lloyd George considerably changed the proposed frontiers to the detriment of Poland. In his Return to the Baltic Belloc recalls this incident and comments : “That solution was advised by the experts who understood their business ; it was turned down by ignorant politicians . . . who had for the Poles an antipathy almost as strange as their lack Of European knowledge was profound and wide.”<br /><br />If Belloc was asking justice for Poland it was also because, as he stated in The Two Maps of Europe, published in 1915, a rearranged map of Europe would be in accordance with the ideals and interests of the Allies. “It is essential to Prussia,” he said, “that no really independent Poland should re-arise, even mutilated. . . . It is a matter of life and death to the Allies to prevent the re-establishment of Prussian power, with its ideal of domination over others.” In his pamphlet, The Catholic and the War (1940), he repeated his warning almost word for word, and added : “Unfortunately, the English did not understand the situation.”<br /><br />In many of his writings Belloc stresses the historic services Poland rendered to Europe. “Poland is a bastion,” he says in Return to the Baltic, “. . . It saved us in the Battle of Warsaw as it saved us more than two hundred years earlier in the Battle of Vienna. . . . When Pilsudski won his famous battle he . . . saved everything east of the Rhine. . . . It looks as though the Germans may not have been saved for a much better fate. It looks as though another barbarism, almost as bad as the modern barbarism of Moscow, were to take place of the German culture.”<br /><br />When in 1935 a Warsaw journal, Pologne Litteraire, published a special number devoted to Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, Belloc contributed an article in which he wrote : “Until he, Pilsudski, gathered power into his hands, the conception of Poland in the English mind was indeterminate in outline and faint in substance. The few years during which he ruled gave body to that vague impression, and firmness to that outline ; he made Poland real for the educated classes in England—even the politicians.” But, in order “not to exaggerate this effect,” Belloc underlined that Poland “still remained remote from the English mind,” and he analysed the .converging factors of this inability to grasp the significance of Poland. First, “the English public schools, in which the governing classes of a nation essentially aristocratic are trained, pay very little attention to history outside their own country.” A second cause of this lack of appreciation was “the attitude of the English mind towards nations of Catholic culture.” There were also the factors of time and language.<br /><br />Five years later, when Poland again lay partitioned between Germany and Russia, certain voices were heard in this country recommending a negotiated peace with Germany. One was that of Lloyd George. Another was that of Lord Beaverbrook who, on March 31st, 1940, in an article in the Sunday Express, stated that he had “no interest in rescuing Poland and Czechoslovakia from the gutter, dusting them and setting them upon pedestals again with guns in their hands to be knocked down once more.” The present writer was then editor of Free Europe. He asked Hilaire Belloc to state a more realistic and more Christian British point of view. A magnificent article was received and published on April 19th. Its conclusion was : “If England abandons Poland she abandons her own power and place in the future. The test is Poland.”<br /><br />The British, as it is obvious from obituary articles devoted to Hilaire Belloc, differ in their opinions as to the wisdom of his politics. The Poles consider that the main trend of his diagnosis of Europe is correct and his prescriptions are wise. Poles will always gratefully remember this English writer and thinker for his constant love for their country and deep understanding of the genius of their nation.<br /><br />Yours faithfully,<br /><br />Shepperton, Middlesex. K. M. SMOGORZEWSKI.</div><div><br /></div><div>Letter printed in the Tablet. </div><div><br /></div><div>Published on <a href="http://Justice4Poland.com">Justice4Poland.com</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><br />Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-88768705665984016242020-09-26T11:00:00.000-07:002020-09-26T11:00:02.596-07:00Hilaire Belloc's 150th birthday celebration...<p>The event took place in Shipley (near Horsham) where he lived for many years. Luckily the new social restrictions were not in force. The memorial plaque was unveiled by one of Belloc's great grandchildren. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PcMeeGt0Ujo" width="320" youtube-src-id="PcMeeGt0Ujo"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-81743939490364465992020-09-14T12:29:00.000-07:002020-09-14T12:29:34.501-07:00'The Way of Beauty' - Mike Hennessy (Chairman of the Hilaire Belloc Society) and David Clayton discuss Vincent McNabb...<br /><br />Father Vincent McNabb (1868 – 1943) was a highly distinguished Irish Dominican. He was Prior of the Dominican community in North London. He was also a great friend of Belloc. Belloc said of McNabb that he was one of the greatest men that he had ever known. <br /><br />Mike talks about McNabb and, amongst other things, his relationship with Belloc. <br /><br />Eleanor Belloc said of McNabb that he was one of the few people who her father listened to!<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L9x8k5LXsTE" width="320" youtube-src-id="L9x8k5LXsTE"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-55942541998453873812020-08-13T02:48:00.001-07:002020-08-13T02:48:46.379-07:00Lucy Broadwood Celebration – Saturday 22nd August 2020...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhinj1uIdfcAGm-vWtbcbQpDa14fkwwEiZ2rvXs2pUDYgB1z3zzCcll4XmTAms_B-yEjW6ow4AzplthsxHAiloa4njWqAy0nCvv2GQuGKXdZ1lNlUO1QIxxFL65jqbqsgR4yKk6jSeL2xN9/s700/Lucy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="700" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhinj1uIdfcAGm-vWtbcbQpDa14fkwwEiZ2rvXs2pUDYgB1z3zzCcll4XmTAms_B-yEjW6ow4AzplthsxHAiloa4njWqAy0nCvv2GQuGKXdZ1lNlUO1QIxxFL65jqbqsgR4yKk6jSeL2xN9/w512-h342/Lucy.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p></p><br />To celebrate her life and to mark 91 years since her passing.<br /><br />We are delighted to confirm that we will be gathering together in the grounds of St. Mary Magdalene’s Church at Rusper Church on Saturday 22nd August 2020 to celebrate Lucy Broadwood and to delight in picnicking together and revelling in some lovely singing and music – All at appropriate social distances of course!<br /><br />We will be unveiling the new information sign about her, as we did for Belloc at Shipley, at 2pm and then, if the weather is good we will be in the churchyard for music and singing till about 4pm.<br /><br />You and your family and friends are all most welcome. Please fill out the form below and include the names of all those in your party so that we have a clear record of who is attending.<br /><br />Parking:<br /><br />There is a free car park by the church and unrestricted on-street parking in the village.<br /><br />Lunch:<br /><br />If you would like to have lunch first please feel free to arrive at 1pm instead. We can picnic anywhere around the church. Please bring folding chairs, picnic blankets and anything else for outdoor comfort!<br />The Plough will be open for lunch with a revised menu and if you would like to eat lunch there do <a href="https://www.theploughandatticroomsrusper.co.uk/">book</a> in advance.<br /><br /><br />Social distancing:<br /><br />We are very aware of keeping within the recommended safety guidelines. Please be sure to maintain the 6ft distance from all of those not in your bubble.<br />Performances will be by individuals or duos and there will be no formal gathered choir singing though we will definitely be singing a few of our project songs from our safe distances!<br />If it rains we are able to go into the church 30 people at a time. The Plough will also be open so those of us who don’t fit into the church can go there!<br /><br />Unlike the Belloc celebration, this time we have made a programme of the entertainment for the afternoon and Chris has invited some other musicians into our midst to share their music and song. If you would like to sing a song or read something please do let us know. There will be time afterwards for a free performance session!<div><br /><br />Programme of entertainment for the afternoon:<br /><br />2pm – Plaque unveiling – Chris, Nick and Emily to say a few words.<br /><br />2.20pm – Our choice of two songs from the project to all sing together (at appropriate distances)<br /><br />2.35pm – Martyn Wyndham Reed<br /><br />Some of you may know Martyn from his long and illustrious career as a folk singer and musician. Chris certainly was influenced by his album ‘Ned Kelly and that Gang.’ You can find out more about his music <a href="https://dandadesign.co.uk/about/">here.</a> Martyn has the most natural of singing voices, unaffected and true. His singing revives and animates old songs and gives them life again.<br /><br />2.50pm – Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll<br /><br />Chris first came across the fiddle playing of Nick and Becki when he was living in Devon nearly 20 years ago and has invited them to perform for this event as they are great musicians and know many of the songs collected by the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould who was also a friend of Lucy Broadwood and a fellow collector of folk songs.<br /><br />Nick Wyke & Becki Driscoll are highly respected fiddle-players and composers firmly rooted in North Devon. Their unique sound is a joyful collision of English traditional music and contemporary bowed strings. Their music blends melodic, emotive violin and viola with driving fiddle chords and powerful vocals and will take you on a journey from the dark side of English ballad to <a href="https://www.englishfiddle.com/">toe-tapping tunes and songs</a>.<br /><br />“folk music at its best” – The Living Tradition<br /><br />“bursting with vitality” – Musicians Union Magazine<br /><br />3.05pm – us to sing a BBB song of our choice!<br /><br />3.10pm Chris and Steve sing some songs Lucy Broadwood may not have approved of!<br /><br />3.20pm – Chris talk: Lucy Broadwood and Hilaire Belloc, what did they have in common?<br /><br />3.30pm – Nick and Becki perform their set of music and songs<br /><br />The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould was a well-known author and prominent folk song collector in the late nineteenth century. He collected nearly 2000 songs from local singers around Devon and Cornwall, and in 1889 published the first part of ‘Songs and Ballads of the West’ – a collection made from “the mouths of the people…” Baring-Gould was keen to encourage female song-collectors, especially as he felt they would be successful in collecting songs from female singers. In 1893, he took his friend Lucy Broadwood on a collecting trip where they met Jane Jeffrey of Dunterton and Mary Fisher of Lifton, both of whom gave songs to the two collectors.<br /><br />Baring-Gould also visited a local fiddler, one William Andrew of Sheepstor from whom he collected many instrumental melodies.<br /><br />Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll will perform a mixture of tunes and songs collected by Baring-Gould, woven together with anecdotes and histories of the time to evoke a fascinating portrayal of life in the West Country. Imagine the lanes and byways of Devon rolling past as you immerse yourself in these beautiful pieces, collected from the pubs and the fields, the mouths and the hands of these 19th Century farming folk.<br /><br />4pm – Official end to the musical programme, we all sing another BBB song and the start of relaxed free for all songs and poems from anyone who would like to offer one!</div><div><br /></div><div>Please register <a href="https://belloc-broadwood.org.uk/lucy-broadwood-celebration-saturday-22nd-august-2020/">here</a> if you would like to attend. </div><div><br /></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-53681256519301979662020-08-12T11:47:00.001-07:002020-08-12T11:47:46.262-07:00'ON MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD JOB' - Roderick Blyth (Belloc's great grandson)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyG-ToNsgKrDNPnNV4TagBEjRhlS2b1GmnKAf7gXiY49tL1IlWxsJStrBHj7uWt0bjyj51HbNe2LpEg3Hi9Bu9KCju0YgWyO65OPW4c95by1k0Tx-nzvpaSYQ-RtpWfB8OIIJKPc3DFxuh/s2048/Roderick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2033" data-original-width="2048" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyG-ToNsgKrDNPnNV4TagBEjRhlS2b1GmnKAf7gXiY49tL1IlWxsJStrBHj7uWt0bjyj51HbNe2LpEg3Hi9Bu9KCju0YgWyO65OPW4c95by1k0Tx-nzvpaSYQ-RtpWfB8OIIJKPc3DFxuh/w400-h397/Roderick.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="" dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc e5nlhep0 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_a9" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="oi732d6d ik7dh3pa d2edcug0 qv66sw1b c1et5uql a8c37x1j muag1w35 enqfppq2 jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: var(--primary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; margin-bottom: -4px; margin-top: -4px; max-width: 100%; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Out of my father’s copy of A.N.Wilson’s biography of Hilaire Belloc slips a cutting from ‘The Tablet’ dated 21/28 April 1984. The reviewer there writes:</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">‘I first met Belloc when I was 19 and he was in his fifties [between 1920/1930]. He seemed to me then immensely aged and awesome. I had read most of his travel books which at the time were an inspiration to any adventurous youth and wrote to him as a total stranger to tell him that I wanted to walk across the Pyrenees and would like further guidance after reading his book on the subject. He invited me to the Reform Club and drew careful sketch maps of mountain paths leading to a certain inn on the border of Andorra, where, he said, the mention of his name would work wonders.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">‘It did, but not in the way he expected. ‘Ah!’ said the host, ‘Mr Belloc - that charming German gentleman’. Belloc, whose views about Germans derived from the Franco-Prussian war, would have exploded. I never told him of the incident or how his sketch maps had later misled me into regions where I was alone and totally lost. In my inexperience I had not taken a compass, so I did not blame my revered cartographer. Years later, at Sheed & Ward, I had frequent contact with him in the course of publishing. As his views on matters religious and political became increasingly unattractive and irrelevant to me, so a certain affection and admiration grew for the man himself.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">‘He was ever pressed for time and money, working against the clock, irritable, obtuse, savage in his dislikes, and even cruel in his condemnations, but to me he also had his endearing qualities. A faraway look often came to his pale blue eyes, as if he were elsewhere in reality and it was long ago. There is no nearer nearness than the felt absence of a loved one and the letters to his wife before and after their marriage of 17 years, newly published in this book, give a hint of a great love, and of a sombre condition following its loss, which explains so much about his excesses. At heart he was solitary and in deep melancholy but on the slightest pretext he would bustle into cheerfulness and be the best of companions.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">‘Once I remember, he treated me to oysters at Bentleys and a fine dinner at the Escargot Bienvenu in Soho and an endless flow of stories. He had just delivered the typescript of ‘Essays of a Catholic’ and had handed it over at the Cafe Royal ‘as a preliminary to good dinner’, as he said with his rolling R’s. On the title page he had wrote ‘Truth comes by conflict’ in inverted commas. I personally doubted the validity of the dictum and asked him who said it. “I do,” he replied. “But why the inverted commas?” “They will think it is quoting Tertullian”.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">(T.F (‘Tom’) Burns (1906-1995) was a publisher and journalist - his first meeting with Belloc would therefore have taken place in 1925. ‘Essays of a Catholic’ was published in 1931, which helps date the anecdote set at the ‘Escargot Bienvenu’. Burns was later associated with Hollis & Carter, and later still, I imagine, with the well known Catholic publishers, Burns and Oates. My guess is that in the Spanish Civil War, that watershed of Catholic Opinion, he would have been more inclined to the Republican than the Nationalist cause: most of his generation were.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">This humanely appreciative review, written by an 84 year old Catholic, includes the following:</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">‘There are some remarks and conversations.... reported at second and third hand which, I would say, were quite uncharacteristic of the man and inconsistent with his views. Perhaps his biographer should have omitted them. In any case anybody so full of vitality, so gifted with words, with such a sense of fun, so volatile and passionate as Belloc, would be bound to let slip words and phrases and even random ideas unweighed, and in a sort of code to friends. To pin all this down like a collection of dead butterflies gives no indication of the true significance of the words in flight... There is a general tendency nowadays to disregard the sanctity of private talk and letters and to ignore the fact that a man’s words to a friend are meant to be received ‘secundum modum recipientis’ as the Dumb Ox would sagely say.’</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="stjgntxs ni8dbmo4 l82x9zwi uo3d90p7 h905i5nu monazrh9" data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="l9j0dhe7" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="bp9cbjyn m9osqain j83agx80 jq4qci2q bkfpd7mw a3bd9o3v kvgmc6g5 wkznzc2l oygrvhab dhix69tm jktsbyx5 rz4wbd8a osnr6wyh a8nywdso s1tcr66n" style="align-items: center; 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cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-height: 1.3333em; outline: none; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: none;" tabindex="0"><span aria-hidden="true" class="bzsjyuwj ni8dbmo4 stjgntxs ltmttdrg gjzvkazv" style="float: left; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; width: 100px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="gpro0wi8 pcp91wgn" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 6px;">2</span></span></span><span class="gpro0wi8 cwj9ozl2 bzsjyuwj ja2t1vim" style="background-color: var(--card-background); float: left; font-family: inherit; margin-left: -100px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="pcp91wgn" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 6px;">2</span></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="pcp91wgn" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 6px;"><br /></span></span></div></div></span></div></div><div class="kb5gq1qc pfnyh3mw c0wkt4kp" style="background-color: white; color: #65676b; flex-grow: 0; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; width: 7px;"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-4937050239667370072020-08-09T09:59:00.001-07:002020-08-09T09:59:13.432-07:00'Belloc and Jews' - letter in the Tablet...<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0FCOaeO0b0wNiB43LQNoiJbt9XN-je6yP27sVgX-JPxLBZeOx6NUcVvv6C3WgoPczrM7yvOgo_eBsb8CARwcJwBdop2xTSfWuMVZiE3ReNX5Q0xY2jV1XMlJmWzrtNUEAdkStIuJHwchA/s331/19179639+Jews..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0FCOaeO0b0wNiB43LQNoiJbt9XN-je6yP27sVgX-JPxLBZeOx6NUcVvv6C3WgoPczrM7yvOgo_eBsb8CARwcJwBdop2xTSfWuMVZiE3ReNX5Q0xY2jV1XMlJmWzrtNUEAdkStIuJHwchA/s0/19179639+Jews..jpg" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Before entirely dismissing Hilaire Belloc for anti-Semitism, it might be wise for A.N.Wilson (''A cautionary tale'', 25 July) and Melanie McDonagh (Notebook, 1 August) to reread the chapter on anti-semitism in his book, <i>The Jews</i>, incidentally a book dedicated to a Jewish woman, his personal secretary. </p><p>''The Anti-Semite admires, for instance, a work of art; [but] on finding the authour to be a Jew it becomes distasteful to him though the work remains exactly as it was before.'' Belloc then warns that: ''Anti-Semitic feeling...is speading with alarming rapidity. In a field where passion is already so wild, God help its victims.''</p><p>His conclusion that a solution to anth-Semitism would be found in the establishment of an independent Jewish nation state is, however, now seen to be sadly optimistic.</p><p><i>The Jews </i>ends with the sentence, ''For my part, I say, 'Peace be to Israel.' ''</p><p><br /></p><p>Paul Moir</p><p>Corrandulla, Co Galway, Ireland.</p><p>Letter to the The Tablet - 08.08.2020</p><p><br /></p>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-41136956638703566952020-07-30T13:36:00.001-07:002020-07-30T13:36:40.781-07:00Roderick Blyth comments on the A N Wilson Belloc piece in the Tablet...<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpOXVHlB9dJC9hW33puHd5yU-11pzCakPdwwQwXqz9qkjAg396a-SdmNBzO8gLteCVkasmQCMmm1SFArX0GGfio5e2cwpzpnam8d57p1RR0DSGyTERNzplcXIxs-R-ybaBHhnkjCtezdgS/s483/01_Tablet25Jul20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="342" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpOXVHlB9dJC9hW33puHd5yU-11pzCakPdwwQwXqz9qkjAg396a-SdmNBzO8gLteCVkasmQCMmm1SFArX0GGfio5e2cwpzpnam8d57p1RR0DSGyTERNzplcXIxs-R-ybaBHhnkjCtezdgS/w355-h500/01_Tablet25Jul20.jpg" width="355" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>A friend has drawn my attention to this week’s ‘Tablet’ which features an article by A.N. Wilson on Hilaire Belloc. Unhappily there is something wrong with the online registration process which should have allowed me to look at the article pro bono. I won’t subscribe to a paper which I gave up reading years ago for what I thought good reasons even then.</div><div>I have met A.N.Wilson more than once and I have followed his literary, intellectual, and spiritual progress for at least 40 years. </div><div><br />I am therefore not in the least surprised when I read an editorial introduction which states:</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">‘Hilaire Belloc is on our cover this week, his stare as starchy as his winged collar. He was a better writer in every way then his chum Chesterton [two sneers for the price of one], but, as A.N. Wilson writes, his Catholic apologetics were rotten to the core with casual anti-Semitism, odious falsehoods and sheer nastiness...’</div></div><div><br />Belloc composed an epitaph for himself which read:</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">‘When I am dead, I hope it may be said</div><div style="text-align: center;">His sins were scarlet, but his books were read’.</div></div><div><br />Rather than engage with this digging up and stoning of the dead, I’d like to suggest to such of my friends as may be interested why HB’s books repay Reading- whatever the sins in which he. Is said to offend.</div><div><br />* Firstly, his verse - it’s sometimes forgotten just how original this was: Belloc discovered his gift for verse in the 1890s, and it bloomed completely otherwise than in the orchid hothouse of Swinburne and the buttonhole of Oscar Wilde. In the elegance of his cautionary tales, the muscularity of his satire, and the pointed wit of his epigrams, Belloc looks back to the CXVIII and especially Prior - a poet whose quick wit, lapidary style and keen eye for human folly is close to Belloc’s own; in lyric, Belloc introduced into English verse the vernal freshness of the CXIII Provençal poets - a preference which was enthusiastically but less convincingly adopted in the strained archaisms of Ezra Pound; in his sonnets, Belloc's model is Joachim du Bellay, whose rigorous intellect, formal discipline, and elegiac tone is distinctly shared by the later poet; and there are two or three lyrics of such brilliance and originality that they deserve a place in the most exclusive anthologies of English verse - of these the most uncontroversial is ‘Ha’nacker Mill’: movingly set by Ivor Gurney, it is one of the most evocative elegies for a rural England that was passing out of existence even as Belloc wrote its epitaph immediately before the Great War;<br />* Second, is Belloc’s history, which was a witheringly polemical response to the vanity, pride and provincialism of the Whig interpretation of history - until the death of G.M Trevelyan the official voice of English academic history. With his half-French parentage, extensive travel and wide reading, Belloc understood the historical significance of the classical, mediaeval and Christian mindset for the European history of which Britain was part. He had an unusual sense of how Church and Monarchy had worked as complementary forces in curbing the elites which ultimately triumphed over both - to the abiding benefit of the few, and the continuing prejudice of the many. Here the models are Cobbett and Lingard, but the dramatisation of events, the psychological penetration, and the play of ideas derives from Toqueville, Taine and Michelet. Belloc’s analysis of English history between 1399-1688 outraged academic opinion in his day, but is now recognised as substantially accurate. It is clear, compelling and absolutely unimpressed by the Whig environment in which it was composed - only a rash or courageous man could have written it, for no one dependent on the patronage of the establishment would have dared to do so. it testified to Belloc’s hatred of the oppression exercised by the strong over the weak, the rich over the poor, and the worldly over the innocent - it evinced a wholly ‘modern’ contempt for the money-power, colonialism and philistine materialism as they then existed but whose persistence is easily identified in modern equivalents, notwithstanding the pool of cant in which they comfortably paddle about.<br />* Third - the ‘dialogues’ - Belloc’s completely original itinero-monologues , written with a Rabelaisian gusto but a Montaignard sensitivity to the transitoriness if human life and the vanity of human wishes. With the exception of Stevenson, there is nothing like them in English literature, and the Stevenson of ‘Travels With a Donkey’ admirable though he is for his combination of unblunted appetite and reflective sensibility nevertheless lacks the learning, the experience and the wonderful variety of voices which Belloc brought to ‘The Path to Rome’, ‘Thr Four Men’ and ‘The Cruise of the Nona’;<br />* Finally there are the Essays - occasional, humorous, appraising, polemical, evocative and whimsical by turns - full of astute comment on the patterns and trends of our time - the tendency towards self-dissolution in the protestant collision with biblical scholarship; the inadequacy of scientific materialism as against human, moral and religious truth; the corruption of parliament and the press stemming from their subjection to patronage, party, business and money; the sleight of hand whereby the state substituted an undeclared serfdom in which the individual trades dignity and self-determination for the serfdom of a pensioner - and, most percipently a prediction of the ultimate resurgence of Islam - here ‘Survivals and New Arrivals’, ‘Essays of a Catholic’ and ‘The Servile State’ are most characteristic of the polemicist; while ‘Hills and the Sea’ and ‘Conversations with a Cat’, represent the unbuttoned, Johnsonian Belloc at his ease and amusing himself quite as much as anyone for whom he might be writing.</div><div><br />This was a great man and a great defender of the Faith: A.N.Wilson, and the editor of the 'catholic' magazine who commissioned this 'damnatio memoriae' should be deeply ashamed of traducing his memory... but perhaps they have done no more than make a shrewd judgment as to the limitations of their readership for it is difficult to see how any reasonably intelligent and educated man could otherwise write as they have.</div><div><br /></div><div>Roderick Blyth</div><div><br /></div>Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-8483178858410818932020-07-20T14:32:00.001-07:002020-07-20T14:32:19.370-07:00150th anniversary of the birth of Hilaire Belloc...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Monday 27th July marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Hilaire Belloc. No one has written with greater love for the county of Sussex than he and it is right and proper we should celebrate the great man’s centenary and a half! An all-weather information sign will be ‘unveiled’ at Shipley at 7pm on 27th July. All who follow social-distancing rules are welcome to attend.<br /><br />Refreshments will be available in the grounds of Shipley School. Individuals may like to sing or read a poem, but there can be no group singing as this is clearly forbidden by current regulations.<br /><br /><a href="https://belloc-broadwood.org.uk/belloc-150th-anniversary-event-booking-form/">If you would like to attend then please follow this link. </a></div>
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Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291879114835297882.post-81144619701479676732020-05-27T12:22:00.004-07:002020-05-27T12:22:48.424-07:00Laughing at the Microbe - Sean Fitzpatrick...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSEO22bVD90R5Pi7ihC_eSztlLb0NzPqJs8Rxbgaq_i0lLEx1V-64EPgy_-6lgNAmon2RD3K61Vejh5JWZTZsJe83YC_6WBhXgNm58vR7rRAFPieHgKW0-FZaBfZMeWU3hDYi4LRrAYiDq/s1600/The+Microbe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="478" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSEO22bVD90R5Pi7ihC_eSztlLb0NzPqJs8Rxbgaq_i0lLEx1V-64EPgy_-6lgNAmon2RD3K61Vejh5JWZTZsJe83YC_6WBhXgNm58vR7rRAFPieHgKW0-FZaBfZMeWU3hDYi4LRrAYiDq/s400/The+Microbe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Covid-19 will most likely prove one of those demarcating events in history that will be prefixed with “pre” and “post.” Until then, these are without doubt days of blind trust. No one is quite sure what is going on, but doubt is not a popular public disposition. With sorrow for those who have suffered due to the virus, is it too early to chuckle at pandemic absurdities?<br /><br />A friend told me recently, “It’s okay to laugh at our tragicomic world. That’s how the Anglo-American mind best deals with absurdity. The French scoff; the Spanish weep; the Russians brood; the Irish sing; the Italians fight. We chuckle.” And so, with a healthy, Anglo-American, Catholic chuckle, let us turn to a tiny poem of titanic import by Hilaire Belloc, entitled “The Microbe.”<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
The Microbe is so very small</div>
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You cannot make him out at all,</div>
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But many sanguine people hope</div>
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To see him through a microscope.</div>
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His jointed tongue that lies beneath</div>
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A hundred curious rows of teeth;</div>
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His seven tufted tails with lots</div>
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Of lovely pink and purple spots,</div>
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On each of which a pattern stands,</div>
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Composed of forty separate bands;</div>
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His eyebrows of a tender green;</div>
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All these have never yet been seen—</div>
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But Scientists, who ought to know,</div>
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Assure us that they must be so…</div>
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Oh! let us never, never doubt</div>
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What nobody is sure about!</div>
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Never, ever doubt Mr. Belloc’s clairvoyance for our calamities—from Islamic extremism to the New Paganism, and now Covidism.<br /><br /><div>
Socrates said somewhere that the humor associated with the ridiculous denotes self-ignorance. I’m not a virologist; neither am I a humorist. But I think I do have a sense of humor. If this virus is bringing anything out in its more ridiculous manifestations, it is the ignorance people have of who they are and what life is all about. As Belloc’s poem amusingly captures, these are days of doubt, of profound self-ignorance. It is no wonder, then, that so much of our newly adopted behaviors seem ridiculous.<br /><br />G. K. Chesterton weighs in with his bulky brilliance on what’s wrong with the world—and it’s us. “Man is an exception,” Chesterton writes, “whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.”<br /><br />Let’s not go off our heads and allow this disease to make diseases out of us.<br /><br />Are the orders, the closures, the distancing, the isolating, and the hysteria all for the sake of the right thing? Is the focus on the value of life, or the fear of death? To be, or not to be? No one is sure—yet the question remains. Uncertainty is airborne, just like the microbe. Blessed are they that have not seen yet believe. Covid-19 has brought out something like faith in an invisible earthly entity even as it shuttered the churches. Man seems to have found wisdom in the fear of the microbe instead of the Lord.<br /><br />Again, from Chesterton: “Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.”<br /><br />The reactions to the current microbial crisis are augmented by a growing doubt concerning the meaning of life itself. Human society is not necessarily built upon health. “The most dangerous thing in the world,” says Chesterton, “is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life.” But that doesn’t mean we should live in fear of losing our lives. It’s ridiculous to live that way, and Catholics should respond with a chuckle.<br /><br />It may be ridiculous—even funny, in some ways—but humor is, by some theories, the recognition of incongruity. For all the uncertainty, there is certainly a good deal of contagious incongruity going around. The coronavirus might make its survivors both stronger and stranger. Or perhaps just more estranged.<br /><br />You thought cellphones were atomizing? Try adding a mask to that picture, as well as personal space lines painted on the floor like traffic lines and the abolition of the handshake. How much further can we go? (W.H.O. knows.) In the meantime, never doubt the limits of man’s unsurety.<br /><br />The microbe has shown us that we are becoming a people of the government, by the government, and for the government in the misunderstanding that big government will somehow keep us from perishing from the earth. Though all of this is an error of materialism, based on over-reliance, secularism, and spiritual and intellectual social distancing, the funny thing is that there is a type of materialism that we must all live with and be sick with together, according to G.K.C., if we are to thrive as a culture:<br /><br />No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerness in eating, drinking, or smoking, an uproarious materialism which to many women appears only hoggish. You may call the thing an orgy or a sacrament; it is certainly an essential. It is at root a resistance to the superciliousness of the individual. Nay, its very swaggering and howling are humble. In the heart of its rowdiness there is a sort of mad modesty; a desire to melt the separate soul into the mass of unpretentious masculinity. It is a clamorous confession of the weakness of all flesh. No man must be superior to the things that are common to men. This sort of equality must be bodily and gross and comic. Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.<br /><br />All things should be taken with a sense of humor, which is to say, with common sense. Humor is a basis for sanity as it provides relief and balance. It keeps us healthy. The populace is refreshed more readily by arrant absurdities than academic analyses. Chestertonian hat-chases in the wind bestow the hilarious and humbling reminder that though man is the steward of nature, he is subject to it at the same time. This is one of the deftest jokes of humanity. And one of the deepest jokes of humanity is death, as Mr. Chesterton reminds us in his poem “The Skeleton.”<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
Surely, friends, I might have guessed</div>
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Death was but the good King’s jest,</div>
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It was hid so carefully.</div>
<br />As we all know, there’s no getting out of this alive. Scientists will not find the meaning of life under their microscopes, and we should face death without a metaphorical mask so our smile can be seen. There are certainly things in life that we should never doubt even though nobody is sure about them—and we should also not be afraid that we will never be sure. Some things, like life and death, are meant to be mysteries.<br /><br />We’re all sick. We’re all dying. And that’s alright. It’s even amusing. We should be prudent, of course, in these dangerous days and be a good neighbor to all. At the same time, though, let’s not forget this: it’s not a sin to laugh, knowing that the microbe will not laugh last. The last word, however, goes to Mr. Belloc:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
Physicians of the Utmost Fame</div>
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Were called at once; but when they came</div>
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They answered, as they took their Fees,</div>
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“There is no cure for this disease.”</div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />Sean Fitzpatrick is a senior contributor to <a href="https://www.crisismagazine.com/">Crisis</a>. He's a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College and the Headmaster of Saint Gregory the Great Academy. He lives in Scranton, Penn. with his wife and family of four.</span></div>
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Hilaire Bellochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00039021080426257658noreply@blogger.com0