Happy Thanksgiving!

 

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder” - G.K. Chesterton

That Rediscovered Chesterton Essay

 

I recently heard about an newly rediscovered Chesterton essay, "The Historical Detective Story." Apparently he had written it for a magazine the Detection Club (to which he belonged) was thinking of creating. The magazine never came into existence, and the essay remained unpublished. Somehow the manuscript ended up at the University of Notre Dame and was recently rediscovered. It was finally published in Strand Magazine with a forward by Dale Ahlquist.

Today, I bought a copy of the magazine at a local bookstore (despite that fact that the cover of the magazine proclaims "Display until Nov. 15").

In the essay, Chesterton discusses contemporary detective stories and laments "a sameness, or even a staleness." 

He then suggests a way to get around this problem while still preserving the "dynamic morality of the detective tale."

Before making his suggestion, he develops the "morality"idea.

"For the detective tale is almost the only decently moral tale that is still being told. It is only in blood and thunder stories that there is anything so Christian as blood crying out for justice to the thunder of  of the judgment; and the shocker is now the only novel that is not shocking."

His suggestion: The historical detective story. Even though the elements of the "mysterious heart of man" would be the same, the settings, the trappings, would add some new life. 

He's not calling for all detective stories to be set in ancient times, but having some set there would bring some freshness to the genre.

His argument about the moral nature of detective stories resonates with me. It is one of the reasons why I like such stories. Indeed, when I read a detective story and there is not justice at the end I am disappointed.

As for historical settings, I have read some that do indeed do make use of such settings. The delightful Medieval Brother Cadfael mysteries of Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) and The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco come to mind. But, of course, there are many more. 

Maybe Chesterton was prophetic.

I have even myself been tempted to create my own detective story set around the time of the Civil War. Perhaps I will .

As for this rediscovered essay, I enjoyed it. The mentions of Dorothy Sayers and E. C. Bentley added to the delight. And he had a few other suggestions that make it well worth reading.

Get to the bookstore before they take the magazine off the shelf! 

Chesterton Station

 

Somehow I missed it, but I just recently discovered Chesterton Station starring the new official G. K. Chesterton, John Walker. 

The program, an EWTN production, features Chesterton at a deserted railway station encountering various famous people passing through, including Robert Louis Stevenson, George Bernard Shaw, Father Robert Hugh Benson, and Dorothy Sayers. It airs Thursdays at 5 p.m., then is rebroadcast Fridays at 9 a.m. It can also be found on demand 

I saw one source that said the show is in it's seventh season. The earliest episode I can find, though, is from 2020. The most recently created episode was released September of this year.

  

I have only seen one episode (the Stevenson one) but my wife has seen several. I liked the one I saw, she has liked them all. 

Walker does a fine job, And the production apparently has had the help of Benjamin Wiker of Saints vs Scoundrels fame.  

Check it out.

The Post-Election Post (With Some Clerihews)

 

For good or evil, a line has been passed in our political history; and something that we have known all our lives is dead. I will take only one example of it: our politicians can no longer be caricatured.  - Gilbert K. Chesterton

The 2024 election in the U.S. is mostly over. There are still some Senate and House seat winners to be determined, but some things are clear: Donald Trump will return to the Presidency, and the Republicans will control the Senate (House control will be determined when the remaining races are resolved).

I did not support Trump; I voted for Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party, which was very pro-life and had a platform that aligned with Catholic social teachings. Moreover, the Party embraced economic ideas that echo Chestertonian Distributism (or as it is now being called, Localism).

During the Biden interlude, the attempts to undermine Trump, and the campaign I wrote a number of political clerihews. I admit, they are more pointed and less whimsical than true clerihews should be, but they were amusing to write.

First, the Biden years. I admit, given the irregularities in the 2020 campaign I refused to call him by the title he assumed. 

The eyes of former Vice President Biden
suddenly began to widen.
"Wait, you mean now that they say I've won,
people actually expect me to get something done???"

Former Vice President Joe Biden
is content to let gender definitions widen.
He has himself long used the trick
of identifying as a devout Roman Catholic.

Former Vice President Joe Biden
caused some Royal eyes to widen.
His press people sighed, for from the start,
they've been battling accusations he's just an old fart.

Former Vice President Joe Biden
watches Ukraine, the border, inflation, and his poll numbers slidin'.
With so much at stake
it's time for an ice cream break.

Each encounter with Joe Biden
reveals what his handlers have been hidin':
Beneath that thinning hair,
there's less and less there there.

With delight the eyes of Joe Biden
suddenly began to widen
when one of his aides said,
"It's time for bed."

Then there were the Lawfare efforts to undermine Trump.

Fani Willis
used Nathan Wade for some carnal bliss,
What drew him to her is not plain to see;
perhaps money and the odor of mendacity?

Fani Willis
with Nathan Wade sought illicit bliss.
Part of her appeal may have been her capacity
for mendacity.

Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis
on the stand appeared to be quite cheerless.
Maybe before storming in she should have gotten loose
with the help of some Grey Goose.

New York Attorney General Letitia James
is fond of playing games.
Her latest was attending a trial and practicing her smirk
instead of showing up at the office to work.

We then witnessed the Republican primaries.

They say Nikki Haley
practices taekwondo almost daily.
At the debate Ramaswamy felt
what it was like to get hit by someone with a black belt.

Vivek Ramaswamy
is fond of making origami.
As was shown during the first debate,
some of his views are similarly pretty but light-weight.

Finally, there was the actual campaign after the coup, with Harris getting the nomination and choosing to run with Tim Walz.

Kamala Harris
serves salad to her guests on the terrace.
Those seeking more substantial fare
won't find it there.

Kamala Harris
stood on her multi-million dollar mansion's terrace.
Although she claims to have grown up middle class
she now views middle-class values as crass.

Kamala Harris
stood smiling on her multi-million dollar mansion's terrace.
Although she claims to have grown up middle class
she now gives middle-class values a pass.

Kamala Harris
finally made it to Paris.
And, yes, she did once visit near the border,
at a peaceful site her handlers found made-to-order.

Kamala Harris
didn't mean to scare us,
but her economic plan is so bad
some are now calling her "Komrade."

Assistant Coach Tim Walz
was enjoying some spaghetti and meatballs,
but then got a sick feeling in his belly
when an ad for tampons came on the telly.

Governor Tim Walz
was enjoying some spaghetti and meatballs,
but then got a sick feeling in his belly
when an ad for tampons came on the telly.

With a weird smile, Assistant Coach Tim Walz
placed tampon dispensers outside young boys' bathroom stalls.
And then he proved no slouch
when it comes to repeating crude lies about a couch.

I don't know if J.D. Vance
has ever been to France,
but unlike Walz he doesn't lack
service to the nation in Iraq.

When Trump assumes power in January I'm sure there will me more political clerihews surfacing!

 

For these days when we remember the departed, a Chesterton essay from Illustrated London News, April 14, 1906 

Skepticism and Spiritualism

Glancing over several papers of late, I see such headings as "Another Medium Exposed," and "Another Spiritualistic Fraud." The easy and conventional comments made upon the matter by the journalists seem to me to be singularly lacking in a logical sense, and there seems to be an underlying assumption in all such comments that the more often you discover a dishonest medium or a fraudulent seance, the more you have diminished the credit or probability of spiritualism. I have never been at a seance in my life, and I never had, and probably never shall have, anything to do with the specific set of people who call themselves spiritualists. But as a mere matter of intellectual justice or mental lucidity, it is desirable to protest against this confused argument which connects the proved falsity of knaves with the probable falsity of psychic phenomena. The two things have no logical connection whatever. No conceivable number of false mediums affects the probability of the existence of real mediums one way or the other. This is surely obvious enough. No conceivable number of forged bank-notes can disprove the existence of the Bank of England. If anything, the argument might as well be turned the other way,; we might say with rather more reason that as all hypocrisies are the evil fruits of public virtue, so in the same way the more real spiritualism there is in the world the more false spiritualism there is likely to be.

In fact, the mere abstract rationality of this problem is very wrongly discussed. For instance, it is always considered ludicrous and a signal for a burst of laughter if the spiritualists say that a seance has been spoiled by the presence of a skeptic, or that an attitude of faith is necessary to encourage the psychic communications. But there is nothing at all unreasonable or unlikely about the idea that doubt might discourage and faith encourage spiritual communications, if there are any. The suggestion does not make spiritualism in abstract logic any more improbable. All that it does make it is more difficult. There is nothing foolish or fantastic about the supposition that a dispassionate person acts as a deterrent to passionate truths. Only it happens to make it much harder for any dispassionate person to find out what is true. There are a thousand practical parallels. An impartial psychologist studying the problem of human nature could, no doubt, learn a great deal from a man and woman making love to each other in his presence. None the less, it is unfortunately the fact that no man and woman would make love to each other in the presence of an impartial psychologist. Students of physiology and surgery might learn something from a man suddenly stabbing another man on a platform in a lecture-theater. But no man would stab another man on a platform in a lecture-theater. A schoolmaster would learn much if the boys would be boys in his presence; but they never are boys in his presence. An educationalist studying infancy might make important discoveries if he could hear the things said by a baby when absolutely alone and at his ease with his mother. But it is quite obvious that the mere entrance of a great ugly educationalist (they are an ugly lot) would set the child screaming with terror.

The problem, then, of skepticism and spiritual ecstacies is a perfectly human and intelligible problem to state, though it may be a difficult problem to solve. It is exactly as if a man pointed at some lady (you can choose the lady out of your own acquaintance at your own discretion) and said with marked emphasis, "Under no circumstance could I address a sonnet to that lady." We might reply, "Oh, yes; if you fell in love with her you might feel inclined to do so." He would be fully justified in replying (with tears in his eyes), "But I cannot fall in love with her by any imaginable process." But he would not be logically justified in replying "Oh, that is all nonsense. You want me to give up my judgment, and become a silly partisan." The whole question under discussion is what would happen if he did become a partisan. In the same way, the skeptic who is expelled with bashed hat and tattered coat-tails from a spiritualistic seance has a perfect right to say (with or without tears in his eyes) "But why blame me for unbelief? I cannot manage to believe in such things by any imaginable process." But he has no logical right to say that it could not have been his skepticism that spoilt the seance, or that there was anything at all unphilosophical in supposing that it was. An impartial person is a good judge of many things, but not of all. He is not (for instance) a good judge of what it feels like to be partial.

For my own part, what little I resent in what little I have seen of spiritualism is altogether the opposite element. I do not mind spiritualism, in so far as it is fierce and credulous. In that it seems to me to be akin to sex, to song, to the great epics and the great religions, to all that has made humanity heroic. I do not object to spiritualism in so far as it is spiritualistic. I do object to it in so far as it is scientific. Conviction and curiosity are both very good things. But they ought to have two different houses. There have been many frantic and blasphemous beliefs in this old barbaric earth of ours; men have served their deities with obscene dances, with cannibalism, and the blood of infants. But no religion was quite so blasphemous as to pretend that it was scientifically investigating its god to see what he was made of. Bacchanals did not say, "Let us discover whether there is a god of wine." They enjoyed wine so much that they cried out naturally to the god of it. Christians did not say, "A few experiments will show us whether there is a god of goodness." They loved good so much that they knew that it was a god. Moreover, all the great religions always loved passionately and poetically the symbols and machinery by which they worked --the temple, the colored robes, the altar, the symbolic flowers, or the sacrificial fire. It made these things beautiful: it laid itself open to the charge of idolatry. And into these great ritual religions there has descended, whatever the meaning of it, the thing of which Sophocles spoke, "The power of the gods, which is mighty and groweth not old." When I hear that the spiritualists have begun to carve great golden wings upon their flying tables, I shall recognize the atmosphere of a faith. When I hear them accused of worshipping a planchet made of ivory and sardonyx (whatever that is) I shall know that they have become a great religion. Meanwhile, I fear I shall remain one of those who believe in spirits much too easily ever to become a spiritualist. Modern people think the supernatural so improbable that they want to see it. I think it so probable that I leave it alone. Spirits are not worth all this fuss; I know that, for I am one myself. . .