The Festival of the Free
THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The...
...It has not merely ity of the land" that we, more than any other people, been possible to incorporate millions of wandering inhave stuck to the details of our code...
...and been increasingly habitual to draw from the surroundwhenever, in literature, art or politics, power has risen ing world representatives of every other kind of redirectly from the soil it has been dedicated to the ligious ideal...
...The great comers into a concrete spiritual society...
...But though none of us may recapture the however, eludes all imagery: he is more titanic and flame which tipped the pen of Jefferson with immor- muscular than any statue could become...
...corn rising indeed likely to be a catalogue of cynicisms...
...Because America indicate the apparent dualism of American life-the has been so consistently dynamic in expression, one is complex working combination of fidelity and conpuzzled to admit the underlying static motivation...
...We and bending on the plains...
...Here the chief The second success is the reverence for American social virtue is fidelity...
...Ralph Adams Cram that archiis the promised domain of Thoreau's mouse-trap tecture is a sensible concern only when it is intended maker because there are crowds of people here able for human beings...
...free...
...It is the whole doctrine social and economic rigidities of other lands...
...The pioneer, enthusiasm...
...But apart from these practical tasks defense of law...
...tinued indulgence in mechanics is probably the most This sesquicentennial is really a festival of the substantial reason why we, as a people, are humble...
...Therefore, not "freedom" and "equality" mere phrases, after all...
...Though even from and reveling in the distribution of cheques...
...innumerable towers and fields...
...it does not understand us as a people...
...As a nation we can scatter wil- institution like the University of Chicago that money fully the luxuries of civilization...
...No other people would have various scenes in which are colorful with Californian left undisturbed, save for a handful of random addi- olive gardens, Mississippi hills, Maryland waters and tions, the fundamental constitutional law of the land...
...and the career of Robert Lee was a panorama ubiquitous and native to the land-a tradition the of the rules of honor...
...it is patriotically dutiful that we take in with a breath Even phrases whirled at us out of an almost forgotten the epic aroma of our achievement-the long, new human tempest, in the passion of revolutionary illu- roads from somewhere to an everlasting nowhere...
...Here Naturally, this civic firmness has dangerous impli- once again it is necessary to distinguish between the cations...
...It is the entire point about an to buy mouse-traps...
...There have been grim moments when glory of the Church in the United States is that, reit seemed that America would betray itself through alizing in its own life the blessings of wedded nobilexaggerated legal literalism...
...Indeed, this long conmortal...
...And when Lincoln said, Therefore, through an eminently fortunate coinci"With malice toward none...
...Beyond ture often flaccidly romantic is saved by the virtue any doubt they might find an explanation in the exof the will it enshrines...
...and the quick, tumultuous, very old to begin with...
...Maude Dutton Lynch 154 The Quiet Corner 167 THE FESTIVAL OF THE FREE T HE edges have been worn off the old jubilant have the power to escape stratification...
...But almost always the ity and tolerance, it has never once, since the humble citizenry has reacted by admitting that to "be the beginnings in Maryland, used its power selfishly or nobility of the land" meant, in the finest sense, to arrogantly...
...as individuals we is good because it aids the tranquil study of the stars...
...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The Arts, and Public Affairs...
...It is hard for men whom appalling urban condensation, bringing webs of steel experience has made relativists to view formulae with rails, great harbors, shimmering streets...
...This church has profited carrying on like a grand seigneur, dispensing bounty by the reign of tolerant opinion...
...to discern the spiritual code upon which the nation All these things, and more which might be added, takes its vows is extremely difficult...
...And surely one great historical lief endangered...
...a tradition which has In our own day it may indeed be true that a certain earned its own right to exemplify the nobility of man sphere of uprooted intelligence, homeless in its own through sacrifice and service, through heroism and land, spins about in cosmopolitan fuzz...
...meaning of magnanimity...
...the intoxicating harvest of could not have grown old without tiring, and we were gold and precious ores...
...The present inventory of the national life is endless cabins in the disappearing forests...
...And yet the attempt honestly American can disturb...
...The great words of the Declaration, in the 15o years whose iron rules of hunger and socialization are even yet passing Americans now gather to commemorate...
...a tradition forever identified with really nothing to create for us as a people, because whatever vista of the past is opened to the eyes...
...The cycle of intolerances is curiously regular spirit and the letter...
...America of a man like Mr...
...Even the restless prowling perience of the Catholic Church during the decades after wealth has been humanized by the dream of of the republic's existence...
...It has sooner or a battle that also, as the issue proved, saved the later become clear that largeness of soul is the first national honor...
...and In 1844 Emerson said to Young America : "I call many of the critics who have struck violent blows at upon you, young men, to obey your heart and be the the national mind have surely been misled into thinknobility of the land...
...it has also rebels amongst us have all been Europeans...
...general trend of what has been an extraordinary reSo permanent has been this resolve to "be the nobil- ligious and national achievement...
...Sometimes this and moral importations wonder first why Americans people has hungered after righteousness...
...A litera- Americans are so indifferent to these ideas...
...J. S. Wood 149 Russia Loses Her Monasteries The Play R. Dana Skinner 161 Catherine Radziwill 15o Books...
...with dence, the sesquicentennial and the first Eucharistic firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, Congress to be gathered in the United States open let us strive to finish the work we are in," he gave at approximately the same time...
...There are, indeed, multitudinous and large, governed as it is by the rhythm of a con- possible statutes which, each in its own way, violate sciousness which sees now this, now that favorite be- the national purpose...
...Lincoln was rooted in the earth like a vigorous The first is the development of a beautiful tradition, tree...
...tality, we can arouse ourselves to a healthy warmth But the victory over matter is truly only something that will prove, at least, we are more than merely like cleaning up the back yard...
...Are dictates which we can successfully ignore...
...the sion...
...Hawthorne grew, but in a straight there have been two successes of symbolical value...
...Possibly the vast riches of the continent our Nowhere else have so many prophets arisen to upbraid fathers explored and dotted with fabulous cities is a and scoff at the business of building houses in which basic reason why we have never been doomed to the nobody has learned to live...
...142 THE COMMONWEAL June 16, 1926 Here are few men to join with Spengler in a pessi- the rule of tolerance a definite form which nothing mistic renouncement of culture...
...It has, in its own defense, waged many abide by the generosity of tolerance...
...siderateness...
...ment, that we came back to Europe under cover of a Looking back over 15o years, we can estimate the crusade...
...Charles Yon Chandler, Edwin Clark, Catholicism and Greek Rite...
...Indeed, one may say that this progress has the model of Ivanhoe...
...but this has manly courage...
...W. L. Scott 152 William Franklin Sands, Barry Byrne, The Teacher (verse) Leonard Feeney 153 George N. Shuster 162 From Door to Door...
...but it has never cried, "Vae victis...
...Volume IV New York, Wednesday, June 16, 1926 Number 6 CONTENTS The Festival of the Free 141 Church Music in Toronto J. E. Ronan 156 Week by Week 143 Communications 157 The Friends of Brownson 147 Poems Thomas Walsh, The Peopling of America 148 Isabel Ecclestone Mackay 16o The Fascist Labor Legislation...
...When the beginning some of its members have doubted the Mark Twain-almost the last of the great American practicability of establishing the Catholic idea under rationalists-peered about for a fundamental sham, alien stars, progress has been steady and prevailingly he found it in the practice of chivalry according to sure...
...Those who stand to come upon another phrase which divines so sharply aghast at the prevailing neglect of their intellectual the tempo of the national existence...
...with charity for all...
...One might look long and fail ing of the two elements separately...
...And it was really our coveted been the supreme test of the virility of the American opportunity, as it probably was our day of disillusion- principle...
...but always are so amiable toward these ideas, and secondly, why it has had the secret ambition to be noble...
...line...
...It has not always been understood...
...law which the Catholic idea has inculcated...
Vol. 4 • June 1926 • No. 6
