A Poem of Henry Reed
This is the title poem of the only volume of verse Reed published in his lifetime.
Author: Thomas Fleming
Framley Parsonage I
Our hero Mark Robarts, then,m is neither devil nor angel, with aptitudes for good and evil. The spectacular insight, given go early in the novel, is that if he had been more conceited, that is, thought too highly of himself, he might have been better able to resist temptation, when it came his way.
The Gospel According to Saint John
Note: This letter and the commentary that follows were found in the lava-covered ruins of Herculaneum. It is apparently a copy of a letter sent by a learned Greek to a young Roman friend of Greek ancestry, the poet Statius. The commentary is the response of an educated pagan upon first reading a Christian text, The Gospel According to Saint John.
Book Club: Framley Parsonage
For anyone who has the time to read a good work of English fiction, I have started to reread Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage. I’ll post an occasional comment and perhaps also put up a very old piece of mine on Trollope. After this, we shall certainly do Plutarch’s dialogue on the Delay of Divine Punishment
Christian Revenge
Most Christians today are horrified by any thought of revenge. Bring the subject up, and they are sure to quote, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” as if that were a sufficient refutation. Far from being a repudiation of vengeance as something evil, the statement is a strong affirmation of vengeance as an instrument of the divine will.
America–the Picture Show
In the midst of war and rumors of war, the ongoing soap opera of “The Sussexes” seems hardly worth mentioning, but if–like some future archeologist, holding his news and sifting through the middens of a 21st century….
Chesterton the Prophet
I have reposted this piece from four years ago and made it free to everyone at the request of a friend who is now reading The Napoleon of Notting Hill.
Ancient Vengeance
It is a main thrust of philosophical Liberalism (and of ancient Stoicism) that human beings have a duty to rise above not only animal but parochial and sectarian passions. Any attempt to justify revenge must therefore represent a step back toward the jungle from which we escaped all too recently.
Two Poems by Lionel Johnson
These two poems of Lionel Johnson, included by his friend William Butler Yeats in a little volume of 20 Poems of Lionel Johnson, attest to Johnson’s deep sense of the sacred.
