"The habit of neglecting true books"

"IT is an interesting speculation by what means the Book lost its old position in this country. This is not only an interesting speculation, but one which nearly concerns a vital matter. For if men fall into the habit of neglecting true books in an old and traditional civilization, the inaccuracy of their judgments and the illusions to which they will be subject, must increase."

~Hilaire Belloc: On the Decline of the Book
● Read the complete essay here.

Successful government

"THE most successful government is that which leads its subjects to the highest aim by means of the greatest freedom."

~Fr. Vincent McNabb, O.P. (1868 - 1943): "Thoughts Twice-dyed."

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"The greatness of his [McNabb's]character, of his learning, his experience, and, above all, his judgement, was altogether separate from the world about him... the most remarkable aspect of all was the character of holiness... I can write here from intimate personal experience ... I have known, seen and felt holiness in person... I have seen holiness at its full in the very domestic paths of my life, and the memory of that experience, which is also a vision, fills me now as I write — so fills me that there is nothing now to say."

~Hilaire Belloc

The Control of Elections

“IF any man ventures to run independently of the two political caucuses, the difficulties in the way of his success are enormous. Generally he is severely hampered for want of money, while his official opponents have not only an inexhaustible fund to draw upon, but a fund whose sole purpose is the financing not the winning of elections. Also, though a majority of voters may actually prefer him to any other candidate, they are often afraid to vote for him, lest by so doing they should “waste” their votes: for under an absurd and dishonest arrangement, which the machine carefully preserves, no second ballot is allowed. An impartial observer may be pardoned for thinking that, even under this system, a man could hardly waste his vote more thoroughly than by giving it to the nominee of the political bosses, who, when he is once elected, must regard himself as the servant not of his constituents, but of the caucus. But British electors are not always impartial observers, and there is no doubt that the hypnotic effect of continual assurances that an independent candidate “cannot win” operates powerfully against him. Votes promised some days before the poll are in such cases continually revoked at the last moment under the influence of this “fear of wasting a vote.”

“Thus it will be seen that only three types of men find it normally possible to get into Parliament. First, local rich men who can dominate the local political organisation. Secondly, rich men from the outside who have suborned the central political organisation. Thirdly, comparatively poor men who are willing, in consideration of a seat in Parliament and the chances of material gains which it offers, to become the obedient and submissive servants of the caucus.”

~Hilaire Belloc & Cecil Chesterton: The Party System, Chap. V. (1911)

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Materialism

“WHAT Darwin had supplied to Materialism in biology, Marx supplied to it in sociology; and the two combined not to form as causes but to present as symptoms, the common Materialism which in the later XIXth century was to sweep over the cultivated mind of Europe.”

~Hilaire Belloc: Characters of the Reformation.

"the Reformation"

“A man who thinks that, because the Church needed “Reformation” in the early sixteenth century, therefore the disruptive movement also known as “the Reformation” was necessary and good, is less intelligent than a man who does not confuse these totally distinct terms, though they happen to be expressed by the same set of syllables.”

~Hilaire Belloc: Essays of a Catholic.

"The decay of religion"

“Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude toward the universe; the decay of religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it—we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today.”

~Hilaire Belloc: The Great Heresies.

May

THIS is the laughing-eyed amongst them all: 
My lady's month. A season of young things. 
She rules the light with harmony, and brings 
The year's first green upon the beeches tall. 
How often, where long creepers wind and fall 
Through the deep woods in noonday wanderings, 
I’ve heard the month, when she to echo sings, 
I've heard the month make merry madrigal. 

How often, bosomed in the breathing strong 
Of mosses and young flowerets, have I lain 
And watched the clouds, and caught the sheltered song - 
Which it were more than life to hear again - 
Of those small birds that pipe it all day long 
Not far from Marly by the memoried Seine.

~Hilaire Belloc

Allegories of the Months: May. Gothic Sculptor, Italian.
Stone, mid-13th century; Basilica di San Marco, Venice