And...

So I forgot to mention I'm continuing to read Chesterton's war-time essays (WWI) on the plane rides and in the airports. He is astonishingly insightful and incredibly incisive. And extremely current. (History is always current.) I have been extgremely glad to read what he has to say over the past several weeks. Reading good books and authors--Chesterton, Lewis, and Milosz are at the top of the list right now--is one of the better ways to, as he would've put it, "Shut your mind on something solid."

There is something about reading a good non-fiction book that you can't get out of fantasy. I love Tolkien to death and back again, and I am actually reading the Hobbit this weekend. But the made-up world is useful for me insofar as it describes or amplifies the Real (probably in a Platonic sense, there).

Some choice tidbits of reading the past few days:

I am only too well aware that Mr Massingham and many other men have in this respect changed. But before I am myself bowed to the earth with shame for having remained of the same opinion for some months on end, I should like to inquire why they have changed [their opinion that war with Prussia was the Right Thing]. That is that only serious moral question, and it is a very terrible question. For there are only two real reasons possible—either it is because what we hated has grown less hateful, or it is because we have grown less able to hate what is hateful.

He here rebukes many fellow journalists for losing heart in prosecuting the first world war. Another good one:

The reason tha tpoliticians and journalists must not be allowed to dictate to armies is a simple and practical one. ... [T]he most practical way of stating it may be found in a phrase of Napoleon, to the effect that any fool can say what ought to be done in war, and that the only test of a fine soldier is to do it.

And my last, before bringing in the dog and hopefully starting a wonderful weekend with Er:

For some strange reason it is now always thought liberal to lump everything together; to say we can see no difference between a man and a woman, or between a Christian and a Jew, or between a peasant and a serf, or between a weapon and an instrument of torture.

Good mind, old-fashioned thoughts some, but the better.