The Book

I remember reading an essay by Roger Scruton extolling the virtues of reading a book—not a slew of books or a lot butchered and randomized excerpts from books, but a single tome. What Scruton meant, as I recall, was that a student should be given the opportunity to study a classic work at length and at leisure, allowing him to trace the author's thought and narrative development. What sets a literary masterpiece apart from other works is hard to describe, though we know it when we see it. Newman said that a classic is something we enjoy as much in old age as in youth. Another clue is that it tells us much more than its stated subject. The work references the world on many levels, and over time it actually becomes a point of reference for the rest of the world.

Great books are a kind of vocation for the author, and for the reader they provide a lifetime of contemplation as well. Such a volume is The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Another is Cervantes' Don Quixote. Yet another is James Boswell's Life of Johnson. As Charles Grosvenor Osgood noted, Boswell poured all his artistic energies into it, "as Milton poured his into Paradise Lost, and Vergil his into the Aeneid." It is usually true, as Johnson said, that what is written without effort is read without pleasure. We enjoy a classic because of the loving work that went into it. Along those lines, one of my favorite descriptions of the crafting of a literary opus is from Ronald Knox's preface to his own masterpiece, Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion:

There is a kind of book about which you may say, almost without exaggeration, that it is the whole of a man's literary life, the unique child of his thought. Other writings may have been published, on this or that occasion.... But it was all beside the mark. The Book was what mattered—he had lived with it all these years, fondled it in his waking thoughts, used it as an escape from anxiety, a solace in long journeys, in tedious conversations. Did he find himself in a library, he made straight for the shelves which promised light on one cherished subject; did he hit upon a telling quotation, a just metaphor, an adroit phrase, it was treasured up, in miser's fashion, for the Book.

Pascal in Passing

"Thought constitutes the greatness of man," said Blaise Pascal. Yet when defective, this intellectual activity could also become "ridiculous" and "vile." Pascal was fascinated by other thinkers and their ideas, like the Skepticism of the French essayist Montaigne or the Stoicism of the Greek teacher Epictetus. Thus he says

I find in Epictetus an incomparable art for troubling the repose of those who seek it in external things, and for forcing them to acknowledge that they are veritable slaves and miserable blind men; that it is impossible that they should find any thing else than the error and pain which they fly, unless they give themselves without reserve to God alone. Montaigne is incomparable for confounding the pride of those who, outside of faith, pique themselves in a genuine justice; for disabusing those who cling to their opinions, and who think to find in the sciences impregnable truths.... But if Epictetus combats indolence, he leads to pride, so that he may be very injurious to those who are not persuaded of the corruption of the most perfect justice which is not from faith. And Montaigne is absolutely pernicious to those who have any leaning to impiety or vice. For this reason these readings should be regulated with much care, discretion, and regard to the condition and disposition of those to whom they are counselled.

This is the subject of an interesting dialogue between Pascal and a Monsieur de Saci. It takes place at Port Royal, the stronghold of the Jansenist rigorists. In M. de Saci we see the narrow and humorless zealot typical of the puritanical sect that Pascal had the misfortune to get caught up with. At times, Pascal's polemics overstepped their proper bounds. The writer Francois Mauriac, who was effusive in his admiration for Pascal, could never quite forgive his unkind treatment of the Jesuits in the Provincial Letters. (It is said that Pascal had not even bothered to read the works of his opponents that he so brilliantly satirized.) How Pascal got caught up with the philistine Jansenist creed is something of a mystery, unless we see in it an outlet for his own conceit. Such is often the case with personal enthusiasms. Yet Pascal was ultimately superior to the narrow sect which he embraced. The eloquent brilliance of his famous Pensées has been admired by orthodox thinkers ever since his death in 1662.

Finally, I have some notes from Alban Krailsheimer’s monograph on Pascal (in the Past Masters series). Krailsheimer’s treatment is brief and lucid, though one may disagree with his interpretation of the Jansenist controversies. He nicely sums up the Frenchman's thought:

Pascal was neither a sociologist nor a political philosopher. To him the most pressing human problems were spiritual ones, capable only of a spiritual solution, or short-term practical ones, like the relief of a neighbour’s poverty. To offer a political remedy for the human condition was, he thought, as futile as to attempt to prescribe laws for the inhabitants of a madhouse.

Oliver Goldsmith

For many years the only work I'd read by Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) was his Vicar of Wakefield, an eighteenth century retelling of the Book of Job. Though not the greatest of novels, this pleasantly didactic narrative earns one's respect. Yet a broader reading of Goldsmith reveals an uneven character: an odd mixture of vanity and awkwardness, peevishness and benevolence. At times a skilled moralist, he was a Romantic sentimentalist at heart, who was not above the bawdy irreverence of his peers.

He admired the arch-infidel Voltaire (loathed by his friend Samuel Johnson) for "opposing error and oppression of every kind, and defending and promulgating every useful truth." Perhaps every truth "useful" to himself, one might add. With such vagaries in mind, we must follow Goldsmith's own advice: "He becomes most wise who makes the most judicious selection." And thus by carefully picking through the dross, one encounters some real gems such as Letter LXVII of The Citizen of the World, which admonishes the reader against impractical philosophizing:

Books, my son, while they teach us to respect the interests of others, often make us unmindful of our own; the youthful reader, while he grasps at social happiness, grows miserable in detail, and, attentive to universal harmony, often forgets that he has a part in the contest to sustain.

Another favorite is "A City Night-Piece," which offers a pensive and haunting nocturne:

The clock has struck two, the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket, the watchman forgets the hour in slumber, the laborious and the happy are at rest, and nothing now wakes but guilt, revelry and despair.... All the bustle of human pride is forgotten, and this hour may well display the emptiness of human vanity.

Finally, in his Life of Nash, Goldsmith presents a very Johnsonian approach to the art of biography:

History owes its excellence more to the writer's manner than the materials of which it is composed.... Thus none can properly be said to write history but he who understands the human heart, and its whole train of affections and follies. Those affections and follies are properly the materials he has to work upon.... Every man's own life would perhaps furnish the most pleasing materials for history, if he only had candour enough to be sincere and skill enough to select such parts as once making him more prudent, might serve to render his readers more cautious.... That knowledge which we can turn to our real benefit should be most eagerly pursued.

The preface is the best part of the essay. As for the rest of it, one wonders why Goldsmith misspent his talents chronicling the career of a professional dandy. Horace Walpole once called him an "inspired idiot." That is a little harsh. But I really can't disagree with Boris Ford's verdict that he "wrote nothing of the very first quality and a good deal that was trivial."

The Genius of Holbein

A literary description may give substance to the image one tries to make in one's mind. For instance, when we are told that Charlemagne had a squeaky voice and was paunchy, though tall, it helps one to grasp him in some degree. But what a different thing it would be if we had the man himself on canvas or in stone as we should have if he had lived six hundred years later!—Hilaire Belloc, "On Portraits in History"

As I look through a book of portrait sketches by Hans Holbein (1497-1543), I am reminded how quickly the man's genius impresses itself upon the viewer. We trust Holbein's pictures as we would a photograph, so well does he capture both the detail and personality of his subject.

One of Holbein's most reproduced portraits is that of Henry VIII, the corpulent, lecherous Renaissance monarch. But my favorite work is a pencil drawing of the family of Thomas More. His individual study of More was the basis of an excellent portrait of that scholar, statesman and martyr. Then there is highly expressive sketch of John Fisher, the saintly bishop who was the only member of the English hierarchy to oppose the religious tyranny of King Henry. Fisher presents a visage at once harsh in the lean and ascetic lines of the face, yet kindly in the compassionate, pious gaze of the eyes. Holbein is also known for his depiction of the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, although this is one instance where I prefer the work of another artist—the magnificent woodcut by Albrecht Dürer.

Perhaps what is most convincing about Holbein's portraiture is its individuality. No one looks like a copy of someone else. Another point is that the line establishes everything in Holbein's work. It perfectly defines space and weight, even before any shading is applied. The artist did all his work in pencil first, before using ink and colored chalk. The drawings were later transformed into paintings, but these preliminary sketches remain extraordinary works in their own right.

Later artists, like Rembrandt or the French Impressionists, would emphasize the play of light and color more than line. And certainly one appreciates the variety of visual expression, from the abstract art of the Byzantines to the works of the early moderns. Nevertheless, the pictures of Holbein arrest one's attention like few others. Gazing at this wonderful array of early 16th century men and women we see individuals who are beautiful, ugly, alert, lazy, loutish, benevolent, intelligent, dull, witty and serious—in a word, people much like us.

The Uses of Boredom

How we deal with boredom says a lot about us as individuals. In Dickens' novel Bleak House, there is an exchange between Richard Carstone, a likeable but wayward character, and Esther Summerson, the story's level-headed heroine. Richard is discussing his apprenticeship as a doctor:

"Then," pursued Richard, "it's monotonous, and to-day is too like yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day."

"But I am afraid," said I, "this is an objection to all kinds of application—to life itself, except under some very uncommon circumstances."

This taedium vitae is something we all try to escape to some extent. Nevertheless, individual responses to boredom differ, as do their consequences. A lot of the trouble people get into stems from boredom. Even the worst vices are often sought out not so much for their own sake as distractions from monotony.

Aside from drudgery, there is the question of free time. Carolyn Y. Johnson in her essay "In defense of boredom" (This Week, March 28, 2008) complains that "empty moments" in our lives "are being saturated with productivity, communication, and the digital distractions offered by an ever-expanding array of slick mobile devices." But is this the best use of having nothing to do? The author argues that

We are most human when we feel dull. Lolling around in a state of restlessness is one of life's greatest luxuries—one not available to creatures that spend all their time in mere survival. To be bored is to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one. It is in reflection that people often discover something new.... Granted many people emerge from boredom feeling that they have accomplished nothing. But is accomplishment really the point of life? There is a strong argument that boredom... is an essential human emotion that underlies art, literature, philosophy, science, and even love.

Already seventy years ago Chesterton was making the same complaint, that the habit of leisure, the "noble habit of doing nothing at all," was woefully neglected. Today's opportunities for mindless dissipation are more obvious and more convenient, but well before the iPod or the internet, men managed to connive at all sorts of mischief to occupy their time. Johnson is probably on the right tack when she says that technology is neither the cause nor cure for what ails us. In the end it comes down to people and the choices they make about their use of time, including their use of boredom.

Newman's Own

For some thinkers, the spiritual life is a dry affair in which the individual is disengaged from the rest of humanity. For others, the opposite is the case, and "spirituality" is mistaken for emotional self-indulgence. But when the gift for objectivity, abstraction and clear systematization comes together with the ardent, personal drama of religious discovery, then you have a work of rare quality. Augustine's Confessions is such a piece. John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua ("A Defense of His Life") is another.

Though often discoursing on problems of theology and the history of religion, Newman also presents a very intimate glimpse into his own spiritual motives, which were anything but academic. Ultimately he is less interested in the broad sweep of human events, with all its achievements and its follies, than with the facts of personal religious experience.

I am speaking for myself only; and I am far from denying the real force of the arguments in proof of a God, drawn from the general facts of human society and the course of history, but these do not warm me or enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my desolation, or make the buds unfold and the leaves grow within me, and my moral being rejoice. The sight of the world is nothing else than the prophet's scroll, full of "lamentations, and mourning, and woe."

Originally written in 1864 as a rebuttal to libelous attacks by Anglican clergyman and popular novelist Charles Kingsley, who charged Newman's with hypocrisy, the graceful prose of the Apologia has been admired by non-believers and believers alike. Of course there is more to it than erudition. As Hilaire Belloc said in his preface to the 1930 edition by Loyola Press:

the Apologia of Newman conquers by its style, yet its style is far from being the main cause of its profound effect.... The place of the Apologia is due to the fact that it puts conclusively, convincingly, and down to the very roots of the matter, the method by which a high intelligence, not only Anglican but of Oxford, and from the heart of Oxford, accepted the faith.

We come back to the essential fact of religious conversion. Without this, the work would be no more than a piece of fashionable dilettantism that would not have outlived the original controversy.

Yet there is still something to be said for style. The lack of intellectual and moral self-control which marks the literature of the last couple of generations has, I believe, pretty much ensured that a story as inspiring as Newman's could never be as well told. It does not have to be that way. I think the potential exists for many Newmans. But can our culture facilitate their spiritual and literary expression as did 19th century England? That, it seems, is another matter.

Sympathy for the Trojans

So many of the classic legends can be traced to Herodotus' Histories, such as the tales of Gyges and Candaules, Solon and Croesus, and the Babylonian Queen Semiramis. But of most interest to me is his treatment of the Trojan War. As an inhabitant of Halicarnassus on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, Herodotus grew up in fairly cosmopolitan culture. He was more tolerant of foreign viewpoints than the mainland Greeks. Thus when describing Paris' abduction of Helen, he says

Thus far there had been nothing worse than woman-stealing on both sides; but for what happened next the Greeks, they say, were seriously to blame; for it was the Greeks who were, in a military sense, the aggressors. Abducting young women, in their opinion, is not indeed, a lawful act; but it is stupid after the event to make a fuss about avenging it. The only sensible thing is to take no notice; for it is obvious that no young woman allows herself to be abducted if she not does not wish to be.... [T]he Greeks, merely on account of a girl from Sparta, raised a big army, invaded Asia and destroyed the empire of Priam.

While Herodotus does not officially commit himself to this version of events, I think that most people who read Homer's epic about the Trojan War come away with a pronounced sympathy for the other side. The English poet Dryden evidently felt this way: "Science distinguishes a man of honour from one of those athletic brutes whom, undeservedly, we call heroes. Cursed be the poet, who first honoured with that name a mere Ajax, a man-killing idiot!" Ajax was one of the Greek warriors.

I think Dryden was right, although it speaks well of Homer that he describes the Trojans (aside from the playboy Paris) in a way that elicits our admiration. As for the invaders, the bravery of Agamemnon and Achilles is the vain, petulant foolhardiness of tribal chieftains. Nor does the fact that the raid on Troy is a reprisal action for wife-napping prevent the Greek heroes from abducting women along the way for themselves.

To my mind, the real hero of The Iliad is the tragic Hector, deemed one of the "Nine Worthies" according the Medieval chivalric code. He is a family man who defends his homeland against a host of pirates who end up sacking Troy and killing the aged Priam. Alas, poor Troy. Yet the ill-fated city had its poetic revenge, when the Roman Virgil cast a refugee Trojan as his hero of the Aeniad.