Communications
COMMUNICATIONS MESSRS. HOOPER AND WINCHELL New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—Your copy of The Commonweal, marked, to hand. Thanks. The article concerning me is most interesting. Mr. Marlen Pew of...
...It is this "new rhythm" says one of his present-day critics, which made Hopkins a great poet, in spite of the meagre quantity of his writing...
...It is at the moment $138,900...
...These are unimportant corrections of course, but they serve as opening wedges...
...Hooper...
...The rest of mankind ought to examine his theories with uncommon suspiciousness...
...The undersigned has not the slightest intention of advocating or defending these metaphysical theories in the pages of The Commonweal, though he holds them, but he cannot forbear to insist that with their truth or falsity modern empirical physics has nothing to do...
...Wickham's philosophy and seek to find one in his practice...
...A. C. Corcoran...
...What I declined doing was to see you simply to "satisfy relations...
...TO the Editor:—The undersigned has no intention of entering into a controversy with Neo-Scholasticus of Brooklyn concerning the scholastic theory of substance and accidents...
...At the age of eighteen, in 1862, not in 1863, Hopkins went up to Oxford...
...It would not be accurate to say that "I refused to see you...
...Both gentlemen seem to despair of finding an inconsistency in Mr...
...In other words, the distinction between philosophy on the one hand and dogmatic theology on the other is, they imply, non-existent...
...Modern empirical physics is interested only, so far as theories are concerned, in working hypotheses which will intrigue the men of science to plunge more and more deeply into the stream of sensible experience in order to control that experience more and more successfully...
...In a week with two new weekly radio contracts at $1,000 each, it will be a lot more...
...which, so far as the Scholastics are concerned, does not in the least preclude it from being material...
...Do you lads sink so low as to take wages for working for The Commonweal...
...Henry Ward Beecher used to urge: "Read Francis Parkman...
...Teehee...
...Today what memories of him still exist are eagerly sought after, for it has been discovered that he was the man who blazed the trail for all the modernists in contemporary poetry...
...Isabel Inez Garrison...
...Remarking to my host upon Longfellow having so perfectly given the world the "atmosphere" of his chosen region— "the tented sea-fog on the Gasperian hills—the sky above the meadow where blossomed the lovely stars—the forget-me-nots of the angels"— he surprised me by singing, "Longfellow never saw Acadia...
...I would recommend that both Mr...
...It is simply to enable a pervert to say to his relations "I have seen Dr...
...The object of modern empirical science is simply to ascertain the uniformities of coexistence and sequence which obtain among events and to state these uniformities as far as possible quantitatively...
...Wickham...
...SUBSTANCE AND ACCIDENTS St...
...THE JESUIT MARTYRS Wilcox, Sask...
...Human history has no parellel to this story of indomitable spirit and of endurance for a cause...
...As Saint Thomas says somewhere, mathematics has nothing to do with causes...
...For all Scholastics who know their Scholastic onions, "forms" are no doubt concrete, dynamic ideas and "matter" is an essentially unknowable X which cannot even exist except when "informed" by some such "idea...
...Perhaps the confusion in the mind of Neo-Scholasticus arises from the fact that as Saint Thomas says, "Substance is the object neither of the senses nor of the imagination, but of pure thought...
...When Hopkins died forty-one years ago, his passing meant little to anyone except his immediate circle of friends...
...McGuire finds it "gratifying to see a Catholic like Mr...
...He died as he had lived, faithful to his vows and obedient to the wishes of the superiors in his order...
...Athol Murray...
...Pusey, and he has failed to satisfy me...
...I don't answer what you say in your note, because it would be still more useless...
...Mclntyre's weekly return is $1,250 weekly...
...Later he explained how this came about: "I had long haunting my ear the echo of a new rhythm which now I realized on paper...
...Richard Dana has intimated, the famous Paul was involved in very unpatriotic and questionable dealings with the government about the keeping of his steed and various other details about the ride which are to be found in the chronicles of those brave days in the city of Boston today...
...McGuire hire a man to do for them such philosophizing as they may require...
...Champlain, who brought the Jesuits to America, defined that "cause" when he declared "the saving of a human soul of more importance than the conquest of an empire...
...Mention any of the present-day poets, even the most ultra-modern of them, and it will be discovered that theirs is a debt unconscious, perhaps, to Hopkins...
...TO the Editor:—In the article on Gerard Manley Hopkins by Molly M. Burke in The Commonweal of September 10, there are two minor errors in the matter of dates...
...He does not want to be called a columnist, he added...
...Eugene A. Moran...
...it is usually excluded from social or philosophical or religious discussion...
...Because Mr...
...In the letters in question it seems Haliburton having reproached his friend for "idleness," the poet replied he had no material on hand to inspire his pen at the moment whereupon Haliburton called his attention to the tragedy of the dispersion of the Acadians, which resulted in the poem we know as "Evangeline...
...You have a heavy responsibility...
...Neo-Scholasticus in his communication appearing in your issue of September 17 says: "Substance is confessedly immaterial, according to Aristotelians...
...Rogers is in a class by himself...
...They seem surprised that it is not...
...This is merely to waste time and create the impression that I have nothing to say...
...I know too well what that means...
...We owe him also the spirited romance of the Huguenot Paul Revere and his dashing midnight ride...
...Whereas they know very well that they meant not to be satisfied, that they came with a fixed purpose not to be satisfied...
...The gentlemen unite in suggesting that Mr...
...It has, when done, been a great abuse of the love which I have for all, especially the young...
...He even prepared an "author's preface" to the proposed volume...
...The syndication pays half as much more, the revenue from radio, magazines and movies of course tilts it a trifle...
...As Mr...
...One of the many elementary texts of Scholastic philosophy is readily obtainable and should prove a great aid...
...Pusey and requested an interview...
...For some time past the learned Mr...
...Wickham's philosophy coincides with Catholic philosophy...
...Rev...
...No doubt according to most Catholic Aristotelians the angels are immaterial substances, but according to all "scholastic" Aristotelians pebbles, potatoes, pigs and all other corporeal substances are material substances, not on account of their physical composition of substance and accidents but on account of their metaphysical composition of matter and form...
...It is also a begging of the question...
...Truth is stranger than fiction," and it may be of questionable service to turn its searchlight upon popular heroes of the past...
...He kept up the friendship with Bridges and to Bridges was sent manuscript copies of many of his verses...
...Brisbane and Mr...
...If not—how do you pay your bills...
...The modern physicist, who as Neo-Scholasticus says "is at the same time conversant with the philosophical disciplines," is under a strong temptation to confuse the genres...
...However, "strange" as it may be to many minds, to others its appeal will ever be stronger than that of "fiction...
...To Bridges also, somewhat in a hopeless tone, he talked of some day publishing what he had written...
...Brisbane has so stated, you know...
...Any concept of the Jesuit effort in primeval America that ignores the intimate understanding of the red man unfolded in The Jesuit Relations just hasn't any raison d'etre...
...P. S. Oh yes...
...the rest of us are not especially edified...
...Only in that sense can the work of the Jesuits and the Oblates and the Grey Nuns among the Indians, yesterday and today, be measured or understood...
...The men and women who day after day, month after month, year after year, are sacrificing their lives midst the squalor and pungent atmosphere of the reserves and the igloos make no romantic estimate of the undertaking...
...He is a commentator and editorial writer, he told Vanity Fair...
...Moreover," added my friend, "if you had time I would show you the correspondence between Haliburton and the poet which induced Longfellow to write Evangeline...
...Louis, Mo...
...Powell defending some aspects of paganism...
...Modern poets must feel their indebtedness, consciously or unconsciously, for the rationality and freedom which a Jesuit priest, working in the national university at Dublin, contributed to modern verse and which permitted him to compose a poem so modern and timeless as the one entitled, Pied Beauty...
...Neither did Brebeuf and his indomitable companions...
...Those who will gain by what you seem determined to do will be the unbelievers...
...Qui bene distinguit, bene philosophiat...
...GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Wauwatosa, Wis...
...My New York paper pays $1,000 for my services...
...The reply received showed the Doctor to be touchy and irritated: My dear Sir:—I thank you for the personal kindness of your letter...
...A talent for empirical physical research (of a more than merely classificatory and descriptive scope) can hardly coexist in the same man with a talent for metaphysical reasoning...
...Read how Parkman's missionaries labored for nearly forty years midst the forests of Huronia with scarce a single convert...
...He was of the opinion that the texture of the established eighteenth-century metre was at fault and he felt there was need of an elastic means for allowing sound to reinforce and interpret sense in poetry...
...any series written or printed in vertical order...
...Please do not disgrace him by calling him a columnist...
...They seem to think that reason, common sense, call it what you will, is the exclusive property of the Catholic Church and its adherents...
...Harry McGuire, writing in the same issue, advances a similar point...
...But at least the record ought to be kept straight by clearing it of misstatements in the very posing of the question itself...
...Physical science of the modern type is at the bottom simply applied mathematics and is interested in the invariable antecedents of events rather than in their truly efficient causes...
...McGuire may be gratified...
...I am the highest paid columnist, incidentally...
...but no one has professedly used it and made it a principle throughout, that I know of...
...The defense of any aspect of paganism impresses me as a little more than a work of supererogation...
...TO the Editor:—"It may be that the Jesuits . . . seriously overestimated the virtues and possibilities of the Indians," observes The Commonweal of July 9. Unfair...
...I am not writing for posterity or to help humanity as does your very able Mr...
...In 1875, after many years, Hopkins started in again writing...
...TO the Editor:—In many reasoned differences of opinion, publicly or privately discussed, the last resort of the party whose position has been rendered untenable is the "argumentum ad hominem...
...Coolidge, Mr...
...Powell deserts the pagans to their fate and strategically assumes the offensive against Mr...
...EVANGELINE AND GABRIEL TO the Editor:—Perhaps those interested in Longfellow might find valuable data in the public library of Halifax, N. S. Some years ago, having occasion to visit Grand Pre, in writing a story about it in the Chicago Tribune, I hurriedly visited that library with a distinguished admirer of that poet...
...I do not say the idea is altogether new...
...Such a mode of argumentation is often adopted in political controversy...
...Think of poor Aristotle...
...Wickham is a Catholic non-Catholic...
...upon a plane where the mind concerns itself with ultimate problems of causality upon which sensible experience can by its very nature throw no light...
...And untrue...
...You see...
...It is not $121,000, sir...
...Rogers do not term themselves columnists...
...Powell and Mr...
...Russell Wilbur...
...Hopkins was born on June n, 1884, and not on July 28 of that year...
...This is an obvious "argumentum ad hominem...
...A columnist is one who is a journalist in charge of a special column on a daily newspaper, according to Funk and Wagnalls's new dicksh...
...Column is defined in this wise: "In printed matter, one of two or more vertical series of lines, separated by a rule or blank space...
...Marlen Pew of Editor and Publisher misquoted Variety from which he got some of the information about the new salary...
...If my memory serves me ill after the lapse of several years, a visit to the old library in Halifax would prove or disprove the verity of my friend's assertion...
...Coolidge is not a columnist...
...Longfellow was fond of idealizations...
...I am writing for coin, sir, and as much as I can get...
...The Scholastic theories of substance and accident and of form and prime matter live, move and have their being upon an utterly different plane...
...Just previous to the conversion of Hopkins to the Catholic Church in 1866, he wrote, at the request of his parents, to Dr...
...NEO-PAGANISM Montreal, Que...
...Donald Powell has been defending modern pagans and paganisms from the force of Mr...
...Harvey Wickham's impressively logical conclusions...
...Good wishes, at any rate— WlNCHELL...
...In The Commonweal of September 3 Mr...
Vol. 12 • October 1930 • No. 23
