THE LEARNED FISH

"This learned Fish has not sufficient brains
To go into the water when it rains."

~H. Belloc: The Bad Child's Book of Beasts.

"The Devil will be served"

“THE DEVIL used the Materialist (though the Materialist had no use for the Devil) for his own ends, between the middle of the eighteenth and the last third of the nineteenth centuries. Now the Devil has impatiently ordered the Materialist to get out of the way, and, like Youth, the Devil will be served.”

~H. Belloc: Survivals and New Arrivals, Chap. III

Devil Noting down Man's Sins,
by Medieval German Sculptor.
Limestone, Limestone; Minster of. St Martin, Bonn.

NOVEMBER

November is that historied Emperor, 
Conquered in age, but foot to foot with fate, 
Who from his refuge high has heard the roar 
Of squadrons in pursuit, and now, too late, 
Stirrups the storm and calls the winds to war, 
And arms the garrison of his last heirloom, 
And shakes the sky to its extremest shore 
With battle against irrevocable doom. 

Till, driven and hurled from his strong citadels, 
He flies in hurrying cloud and spurs him on, 
Empty of lingerings, empty of farewells 
And final benedictions, and is gone. 
But in my garden all the trees have shed 
Their legacies of the light, and all the flowers are dead.

~Hilaire Belloc

A November Night, by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 - 1893).

"Proof of its divinity"

“THE Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine, but for unbelievers, here is proof of its divinity, that no merely human institution run with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.”

~Hilaire Belloc: (source unknown)