CHESTERTON AND THE TRUTH OF '74:

...Surely one would nouncements...

...drifted into full-time journalism shortly mass of mankind...

...the newsworthiness of Jesuits...

...The great convert, the Thus G. K. C.'s own speculation on devastating critic of all the sins of Stein and Day, $8.95 the attitudes of possible future biogra- modernity, a Christian totem in cape phers in a letter to E. V. Lucas...

...Similarly, the stuthat story, by and large, went well...

...He is willing to indict speak, what was best in his vision of the excessive zeal of the missionaries a/-yo t 6oo~Sfvre $ g. yr a full religious vocation lived out in connected with military expeditions in BEXGON PRESS a changing world, freed from canonical Angola, when parades festooned with hours and monastic customs and from noses cut from dead blacks culminated 22 March 1974: 66...

...Minow, Martin and Mitchell hundreds of books such as these...

...The philosopher of compliment, "A poet must by the nahad a younger brother, Cecil, who sur- the instant, writing in short compass ture of things be conventional . . . vived into adulthood and whose own against the intractable shapelessness of Poetry deals with conventional thingsabrasive character, quarrelsome career things, is doubly tempted to com- the hunger for bread, the love of woas a journalist and early death became pression: the phrase, the consummatory man, the love of children...

...Not bad...

...This can't exactly recall reading any Chester- but his literary life remained essentially is not a deep biography and after some ton, except that I know there was a in Fleet Street despite books on Vic- cautious speculation about G. K. C.'s Father Brown story in our reader be- torian literature, St...

...in his serious works one feels that a man who had been well known as Chesterton was born May 28, 1874 Chesterton wrote as a "journalist" in a champion of a high church Christiin Campden Hill, London...

...it mere- works is the contrast between the disterest, talent, the fact of literary friends ly implies a certain respect for the tastefulness of modernity and the grace and financial necessity, Chesterton realization and fixed conclusions of the and high courtesy of the middle ages...

...Not that peers, anticipate future orthodoxies, as Td)E FATb € R Francis had not also hoped for both in his discussion of the position taken mobility and action...

...Nixon is at to date, and they make it clear that to many dilemmas about the regulation least doing us the service of prompting media management on the part of the of radio and television...

...media...

...It for fear of losing their licenses, may offer the results of a study for the reminds us that, although the basic be legalistically correct but would Twentieth Century Fund which deal ineptness of this Administration has have the effect of hampering one of primarily with the new Bully Pulpit- sometimes taken the urgency out of the main things that broadcasters, local the extraordinary media access which the problem, and although Mr...

...Barker, who, as he notes, is the can I remember having read any New Witness which he took over after first non-Roman Catholic to write a Chesterton...

...Nor in and other obviously deep matters...

...The when he enjoys controversies on what rocky hillside at Manresa and then reader eager to gain a sequential sense I believe to be the right side...

...These three neatly span the three covered by Theodore White, Joe Mcthe inevitable networks...

...The anity for years...

...I regret I tracts and on and on...

...From joke is that it was Lucas who had sug- of the intellectuals-Chesterton was the the fragments left by this now for- gested the titles for these early col- universal object of doting admiration gotten writer it is difficult to under- lections of Chesterton's essays...

...They do not dig very of view must somehow also be ac- three books under consideration here deep: Mr...

...Barker presents a the face of sensible adult demands...

...He band, an eminently decent human bemultiple hobbies-the most notable of may write to issues we cannot now ing...

...The and pince-nez to shame the false idols "Chesterton, Gilbert Keith...

...And troubling since in many ways the themes life of the lonely mind of a living in a larger world as well...

...How to organize a history as vast capable of all adult practicalities, Institute of Jesuit Sources, $14.73 as this...

...Should plex tale into major periods-establishOnly rarely does an inner complexity we add, when they are in trouble...

...Bloom spends too much commodated...

...one would call it pomp- have no gloomy and savage father to hope that out of that outpouring some- ous but for the unfailing geniality of offer to the public gaze . . . and that thing would survive...

...well-ordered prose to recount briefly but it seems that they are more sinned the foundations of the Order and to against than sinning...

...the Twentieth Century Such situations can only be dealt with hower's first campaign to the present...

...The from early sketch books) Barker avoids the intervening years as I have ad- books were interspersed with Father any psychologizing of his subject...

...government has become easier and with admittedly uncomfortable situa- There has been a recent flood of books, easier, and that free speech in the tions: that if one point of view is ex- articles and panel discussions on the context of modern technology is an pressed on the air, an opposing point subject of government vs...

...A great classic is a man The central Chestertonian theme wrath despite his fame as a crushing whom one can praise without having which runs through his life and his debater...

...France or Japan must therefore reread little boy whose father showed him a The friends of Ignatius made their the book skipping through the text from toy theatre, and a schoolboy whom mark on the post-Lutheran world al- section to section...

...This major determinants in G. K. C.'s life...

...that power inevitably are relatively new additions to the long time going over ground already accrues to those who are in charge of list...

...Ashmore's book is the result of a I suppose, necessarily ponderous...

...We are left a new examination of the whole thing...

...never- Poor G. K. C. his day is past- been a period when I thought he was theless there is reason to believe he was Now God will know the truth the greatest intellect of the modern not without certain fugitive mental at last...

...sheer genius for the soft answer to and small...

...Barker's sought and the social vision he estious...

...Thomas Aquinas, adolescent sexual fantasies (resurrected cause I remember the picture...

...Nor in reading this pleas- his brother's death in 1917 and con- biography of Chesterton, points out ant biography have I been greatly tinued on into financial disaster...

...and at least minimal goodwill, and conference sponsored by the Center Still, it is a symptom of the problem without the pressure of intense parti- for the Study of Democratic Institu- that one State of the Union address, sanship...

...As Budger truly says, "The man I am afraid that the mocking inter- when I graduated from high school, who invented the two exquisitely apt change of 1908 has become the truth I thought Orestes Brownson was the titles of All Things Considered and A of 1974...

...I cannot do my duty as a true modern It was Frances who applied the If a classic is a man one praises by cursing everyone who made me epithet "jolly journalist" and she used without having read, I wonder what what I am...

...It was a childless marriage to put off further reading yet again...

...In the Father Bangert's thoughtful history of ing, the confrontation with the Enlight20's he wrote to Father Ronald Knox: his order suggests only by indirection enment, suppression and restoration, "I am in a state now when I feel a how many people in and out of high accommodation to the modern world...

...his role: unable to tie his tie, in- WILLIAM V. BANGERT, S.J...

...Lucas from those charged with my early edustand the cause even of such publicity replied on a postcard: cation...

...One feels that Chesterton charwhich was the construction of elabo- appreciate and if he catches the sensi- acterized himself in his book on Brownrate toy theaters which were the de- bility of his time, that special tone may ing when he says in terms of highest light of his children's youth...

...Perhaps if it had his writing General Pedro Arrupe's gaze fixed cases, to preach the gospel and live would have lost that strain of happy Time readers from the cover of the with the cultures they found...

...Thus the scare tactics of Clay tions at which spokesmen for all points with cameras discreetly focused on the Whitehead, outgoing head of the Office of view discussed the problems of cheering galleries, seems to outweigh of Telecommunications Policy, suggest- media regulation, with an emphasis on ten replies by Mike Mansfield, twenty ing that local situations must monitor possible intimidation by government...

...she disliked the roistering, argu- biography is reasonably generous in poused are the wishes of a great child mentative male company he kept in quoting "great lines" from Chesterton -and I hasten to add that I mean that London with Belloc, Baring, and and on that evidence I am inclined without criticism...

...The Father he husband were more serious and ambi- one faults without having read...

...and points of view, and the compara- the important thing, and he keeps pilIt may be that by ignoring or flout- tively little access which is available ing up the points, BOOKS CHESTERTON AND THE TRUTH OF '74 DENNIS O'BRIEN G. K. Chesterton Shilling for My Thoughts can have no a figure in my growing up days, I reDUDLEY BARKER contemptible intelligence...

...though what of relation to state power, to reformed person with whom I have lived...

...line, the right, ringing adjective...

...Gilbert elude another age...

...but for Europe at nobody ever heard of with his brood- most as swiftly as Protestantism itself least the discontinuities...

...It would be incorrect to say that mind-"God will know the truth at Father Bangert uses a calm and Jesuits do no wrong in this narrative, last...

...are much less ing on doubts . . . and all the morbid erupted in western Christendom...

...As a boy he had sat for hours duced in a lifetime an immense output makes an artful statement but like the watching his father's puppet shows, as of essays, criticism, poetry, novels, Victorian period he loved, everything an adult he believed a heavenly Father plays, biography, detective stories, seems a trifle overstuffed...

...Chesterton was so successful in of Jesus hour of formal prayer...

...relations men and methods from Eisen- point in depth...

...the whole thing...

...Gilbert Keith Chesterton was greatest American literary figure of the 22 March 1974: 64 nineteenth century...

...in an atmosphere of common sense Mr...

...the inner life of the lonely sance Europeans...

...are in some sense the property of and loose arrangements between gov- These volumes help to bring us up everyone, has led through the years ernment and media, Mr...

...His father the basic sense-pour la journee...

...From Japan to North America, preaching of a fairy tale feudal Eng- from Madurai to Angola, from Ireland land-and all this to doting fathers JOHN RATTE to Moscow, and from the 16th century from Edward Chesterton to those lat- to the present there extends the Jesuit ter day fathers who praised his con- Though he was not a leading candi- effort to preach the gospel, transform version-that the pathos scarcely ap- date for "Man of the Year," Superior cultures, and, in some distinguished pears...

...that any li- major areas of concern: Mr...

...To please and uncomplicated...

...Father sententiousness and become more truly April 23 issue of 1973, testimony to Bangert chooses to organize this comthoughtful...

...Frances he moved to Beaconsfield, straightforward account of the central There is of course a kind of pathos if Commonweal: 65 not tragedy in the figure of the adult- A History of the Society all but a minimum day's total of one child...

...The public covery" of the world beyond the Con- cerns being pursued in different parts story of pamphlet and platform-"that tinent by Renaissance and post-Renais- of the globe...

...Chesterton seems to me to Gothic revival...

...not history, but roa journeyman writer, Chesterton pro- bitter sense of the great aphorists...

...The elusive term...

...Even how anomalous all the fuss was about moved to correct this omission...

...ment, early expansion, baroque flowerappear in Barker's biography...

...not Abbot Suger, but 1901...

...interpretations by Eric Sevareid, and the fairness of network news programs, Messrs...

...Her ambitions for her G. K. C. would have labeled a man theology combine...

...Father Bangert point out its novelty in the world of is eager to point out the moments when BFy006 9 0a religious institutions shaped by the the Jesuits, though condemned by their sedentary Middle Ages...

...monstrous charlatan, as if I wore a places have contemplated or engineered With each of his large chapters a semask and were stuffed with cushions, with glee times of trouble for these quence is repeated: first a discussion of whenever I see anything about the self-appointed soldiers of Christ, world- the Generals and of the internal transpublic G. K. C. . . . I am not troubled wanderers since a crippled veteran of formation of the Society, then a rapid about a great fat man who appears on the hopeless defense of the citadel of survey of the major European areas, platforms and in caricatures...

...For all that, I twenty-five miles from London in 1909 events of a not very eventful life...

...There is had some equally genial, chivalric travelogues, autobiography, broadcasts, something too assured about his pro- script for his creatures...

...From a combination of in- read...

...His justed my evaluations of nineteenth Brown, polemics with G. B. Shaw and conversion was no great spiritual adand twentieth century literary figures the editorship of Cecil Chesterton's venture...

...This is not wholly unjust...

...Ashmore's censing and regulation of radio and considers election campaigns, tracing chatty conference transcripts are lively TV will sometimes seem in conflict the mushrooming influence of public reading but cannot pursue any single with the First Amendment, and so on...

...sions or permanence of the Christianity ance and piety are unified within the Barker's story is the public story and they brought to lands where they European experience...

...But truly But his sensibility is not Gothic, but after his marriage to Frances Blogg in memorable...

...But Ignatius was by the French members of the society more fortunate than Francis: he was on the relationship between papal power mxrzy 6XLy able to organize his own insights, and and emerging national sovereignty in hence to intentionally calcify, so to the 16th century...

...English-speaking world...

...member that...

...But then, gifts...

...G. K. C. as a person was the non-working member of a firm journalist commentator who is called still seems rather sketchy to me, but of successful estate agents in the Kens- upon to formulate opinion out of the what does emerge is a very pleasant ington area with all the leisure and tatters of news is always at a disad- figure: a good friend, a faithful hussufficient funds to indulge himself in vantage in joining the immortals...

...I am moved on to learning at Paris and re- of the role played by the Jesuits in concerned about what became of that ligious reform at Rome...

...day is past...

...It is strikes one about the great Jesuit mis- Christianity, the theory and practice of that story, that so often came near to sionaries is not so much the dimen- education, and the traditions of governending badly, that I want to end well...

...Many of life's most Bentley...

...He mance...

...I sense that there must have as he obtained in his own day...

...Fund report is truly informative but...

...Bloom Ginniss and others...

...even Pamplona had a vision of God on the and of the non-European world...

...Once launched on the work of lack the high wit, the deep irony, the Augustus Pugin...

...lovable eccentrics, good fools and dominated by moral faithfulness...

...must always be remembered of Brown(Unlike Cecil, Gilbert was a person of Chesterton was noted for his pithy sum- ing, this ardent and headlong convenexceptionally warm nature who had a mations of issues on all things great tionality...

...the lacked political patronage, as the vigor dent of the Jesuits' small role in the story of the little boy and the toy and heroism with which they partici- history of what we now call the Third theatre Barker does not tell and we pated in the great and tragic "dis- World can see certain fundamental conprobably cannot know...

...Which was for the promulgation of its programs grace, he still knows that scoring is probably his intention...

...Nixon and national, are in business for-the is available to the executive branch has operated often without flair or dissemination of news...

...Autobiography and it in disdain...

...af- As a biography, the book is clear great saints preserve a childishness in fection, not splendid passion...