Genoa: San Lorenzo and the Harbour

 

  The Palazzo Ducale

  

 San Lorenzo

 

 

The West Facade 

Towards the harbour on Via di San Lorenzo

Medieval shops along the Moro

 Palazzo San Giorgio, the commercial center of medieval Genoa

 

 Basilica della Santissima Annunziata del Vastato beyond the old wallls of the city

 Looking up towards Piazza de Banchi and the Loggia dei Mercanti 

 

San Lorenzo with Chiesa del Gesu up the street

 

Chiesa del Gesu

Maps from Books IV

The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Shire, my favorite of Tolkien's maps of Middle Earth.

Unfolding the Earth: Myriahedral Projections

St. Kiven and the Gentle Kathleen

By Thomas Moore

E L's illustrated Version

 

 

No. 1

By the lake whose gloomy shore

Skylark never wobbles oer—

Where the cliffs hang high & steep—

Young Saint Kiven stole to sleep.

  

No. 2

Here at least, he calmly said

Woman ne'er shall find my bed

Ah! the good saint little knew,

What that wily sex can do.—

  

No. 3

Twas from Kathleens eyes he flew,

Eyes of most unholy blue,

She had loved him well & long—

Wished him her's, nor thought it wrong.

  

No. 4

Wheresoe'ever the saint could fly,

Still he heard her light foot nigh,

Illustration Lost

No. 5

East or west, where'er he turn'd,

Still her eyes before him burn'd.

  

No. 6

On the bold cliff's bosom cast,

Tranquil now he sleeps at last;

Dreams of heaven, nor thinks that e'er,

Woman's smile can haunt him there.

But nor earth nor heaven is free,

From her power, if fond she be:—

Even now, while calm he sleeps—

Kathleen o'er him leans and weeps.

Fearless she had trackd his feet

To that rocky wild retreat—

And when morning met his view

Her mild glances met it too.

  

 No. 7

Ah! yes saints have cruel hearts—

Sternly from his bed he darts

& with rude repulsive shick

Hurls her down the beetling rock.

  

 No. 8

Glendalough, thy gloomy wave

Soon was gentle Kathleens grave,

Soon the Saint, but ah too late

Felt her love, & mournd her fate;

 No. 9

When he said, 'Heaven rest her soul—

Round the Lake light music stole—

And her ghost was seen to glide,

Smiling — oer the fatal tide.

Maps from Books III

Missee Lee

by Arthur Ransome

One of the more far-fetched Swallows and Amazons stories... "Camblidge" educated, twenty-two gong Chinese pirates, Latin lessons, and the Tiger, Turtle, and Dragon Islands.

Tiger, Turtle and Dragon Islands

Churchill on Socialism

. . . a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.

And another quotation for good measure:
"Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement."

Maps From Books II

The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame

"The sheep ran huddling together against the hurdles, blowing out thin nostrils and stamping with delicate fore-feet, their heads thrown back and a light steam rising from the crowded sheep-pen into the frosty air, as the two animals hastened by in high spirits, with much chatter and laughter. They were returning across country after a long day's outing with Otter, hunting and exploring on the wide uplands, where certain streams tributary to their own River had their first small beginnings; and the shades of the short winter day were closing in on them, and they had still some distance to go. Plodding at random across the plough, they had heard the sheep and had made for them; and now, leading from the sheep-pen, they found a beaten track that made walking a lighter business, and responded, more-over, to that small inquiring something which all animals carry inside them, saying unmistakably, 'Yes, quite right; this leads home!'"

-From Dolce Domum

Maps from Books I

The Jumblies

by Edward Lear 

"For they'd been to the lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the Hills of the Chankly Bore...."



I thought this was an appropriate map to begin this series of posts. Edward Gorey illustrated a version of The Jumblies published in 1968 with this wonderful image of the the far side of the Western Sea. It measures 14 x 42 cms.

From "The Marble Faun"

Miriam's View of the Precipice:

. . . "I fancy," remarked Miriam, "that every person takes a peep into it in moments of gloom and despondancy; that is to say, in moments of deepest insight."
"Where is it then, asked Hilda. "I never peeped into it."
"Wait and it will open for you," replied her friend. "The chasm was merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere. The firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm. A footstep, a little heavier than ordinary, will serve; and and we must step very daintily, not to break through the crust at any moment. By and by we inevitably sink! It was a foolish piece of heroism in Curtius to precipitate himself there, in advance; for all Rome, you see, has been swallowed up in that gulf, in spite of him. The Palace of the Caesars has gone down thither, with a hollow rumbling sound of its fragments! All the temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of statues have been thrown after! All the armies and the triumphs have marched into the great chasm, with their martial music playing, as they stepped over the brink. All the heroes, the statesmen, and the poets! All piled upon poor Curtius, who thought to have saved them all! I am loath to smile at the self-conceit of that gallant horseman, but cannot well avoid it." . . .

Kenyon on Ransom's Triangle:

. . . "Not soon, I am afraid," acquiesced the sculptor." "You are right, excellent Tomaso; the world is sadder now!"
And in truth, while our friend smiled at these wild fables, he sighed in the same breath to think how the once genial earth produces, in every successive generation, fewer flowers than used to gladden the preceding ones. Not that the modes and seeming possibilities of human enjoyment are rarer in our refined and softened era,--on the contrary, they never before were nearly so abundant,--but that mankind are getting so far beyond the childhood of their race that they scorn to be happy any longer. A simple and joyous character can find no place for itself among the sage and somber figures that would put his unsophisticated cheerfulness to shame. the entire system of man's affairs, as at present established, is built up purposely to exclude the careless and happy soul. the very children would upbraid the wretched individual who should endeavor to take life and the world as--what we might naturally suppose them meant for--a place of opportunity and enjoyment.
It is the iron rule in our day to require an object and a purpose in life. It makes us all parts of a complicated scheme of progress, which can only result in our arrival at a colder and drearier region than we were born in. It insists in everybody's adding somewhat--a mite, perhaps, but earned by incessant effort--to an accumulated pile of usefulness, of which the only use will be to burden our posterity with even heacier thoughts and more inordinate labor than our own. No life now wanders like an unfettered stream; there is a mill wheel for the tiniest rivulet to turn. We go all wrong, by too strenuous a resolution to go all right. . .

The Babel Fish

Pieces of Picus

I just revisited this wonderful insight from Rainscape this evening, and, being an admirer of Pico della Mirandola thought it worth posting, especially with regards to the patrimony of Thomas More.

This (The Life of John Picus) delights and instructs, and is moreover good! I've had the feeling that this is important for while, but finally have read it and selected some notable passages for you, my friends. More translated/wrote this life of Pico della Mirandola, one of his earliest works, while discerning his vocation, studying and praying in a small cell within the Carthusian "Charterhouse". He chose Pico as a model man of recent times, and what a choice! Even though More chose a different path in life than the eccentric Mirandola, his endorsement of Pico represents something he adopted to his temper and certainly never let go of.

PIECES OF THE LIFE OF PICUS
Earl of Mirandula, a great lord of Italy, an excellent cunning man in all sciences, and virtuous of living ; with divers epistles and other works of the said John Picus, full of great science, virtue, and wisdom : whose life and works be worthy and digne to be read and often to be had in memory.

Translated out of Latin into English by Master Thomas More.
Selected by Scrivener Adam Cooper.

He was of feature and shape seemly and beauteous, of stature goodly and high, of flesh tender and soft, his visage lovely and fair, his colour white intermingled with comely reds, his eyes grey and quick of look, his teeth white and even, his hair yellow and not too picked.
. . .
Under the rule and governance of his mother he was set to masters and to learning, where with so ardent mind he laboured the studies of humanity that within short while he was (and not without a cause) accounted among the chief orators and poets of that time, in learning marvellous swift and of so ready a wit that the verses which he heard once read he would again both forward and backward to the great wonder of the hearers rehearse, and over that would hold it in sure remembrance; which in other folks wont commonly to happen contrary, for they that are swift in taking be oftentimes slow in remembering, and they that with more labour and difficulty receive it, more fast and surely hold it.
. . .
He was of cheer always merry and of so benign nature that he was never troubled with anger, and he said once to his nephew that whatsoever should happen (fell there never so great misadventure) he could never, as him thought, be moved to wrath, but if his chests perished in which his books lay that he had with great travail and watch compiled. But forasmuch as he considered that he laboured only for the love of God and profit of His Church, and that he had dedicated unto Him all his works, his studies and his doings, and since he saw that, since God is almighty, they could not miscarry but if it were either by His commandment or by His sufferance, he verily trusted, since God is all good, that He would not suffer him to have that occasion of heaviness.
. . .
Some man hath shone in eloquence, but ignorance of natural things hath dishonested him; some man hath flowered in the knowledge of divers strange languages, but he hath wanted all the cognition of philosophy; some man hath read the inventions of the old philosophers, but he hath not been exercised in the new schools; some man hath sought cunning, as well philosophy as divinity, for praise and vainglory and not for any profit or increase of Christ's Church. But Picus all these things with equal study hath so received that they might seem by heaps as a plenteous stream to have flowed into him. For he was not of the condition of some folk (which to be excellent in one thing set all other aside) but he in all sciences profited so excellently that which of them soever ye had considered in him, ye would have thought that he had taken that one for his only study. And all these things were in him so much the more marvellous in that he came thereto by himself with the strength of his own wit, for the love of God and profit of His Church, without masters; so that we may say of him that Epicurus the philosopher said of himself, that he was his own master.
. . .
And oftentimes in communication he would admonish his familiar friends how greatly these mortal things bow and draw to an end, how slipper and how falling it is that we live in now; how firm, how stable it shall be that we shall hereafter live in, whether we be thrown down into hell or lifted up into heaven. Wherefore he exhorted them to turn up their minds to love God, which was a thing far excelling all the cunning that is possible for us in this life to obtain.
. . .
"But now behold, 0 my well-beloved Angel [his friend], what madness holdeth us. Love God (while we be in this body) we rather may, than either know Him or by speech utter Him. In loving Him also we more profit ourselves, we labour less and serve Him more ; and yet had we liefer, always by knowledge never find that thing that we seek, than by love to possess that thing which also, without love, were in vain found."
. . .
Liberality only in him passed measure : for so far was he from the giving of any diligence to earthly things that he seemed somewhat besprent with the freckle of negligence. His friends oftentimes admonished him that he should not all utterly despise riches, showing him that it was his dishonesty and rebuke when it was reported (were it true or false) that his negligence and setting naught by money gave his servants occasion of deceit and robbery. Nevertheless, that mind of his (which evermore on high cleaved first in contemplation and in the ensearching of nature's counsel) could never let down itself to the consideration and overseeing of these base, abject, and vile earthly trifles.
. . .
His lovers and friends with great benignity and courtesy he entreated, whom he used in all secret communing virtuously to exhort to Godward, whose godly words so effectually wrought in the hearers that where a cunning man (but not so good as cunning) came to him on a day for the great fame of his learning to commune with him, as they fell in talking of virtue he was with two words of Picus so throughly pierced that forthwithal he forsook his accustomed vice and reformed his conditions. The words that he said unto him were these : "If we had evermore before our eyes the painful death of Christ which He suffered for the love of us, and then if we would again think upon our death, we should well beware of sin."
. . .
Wedding and worldly business he fled almost alike. Notwithstanding, when he was asked once in sport whether of those two burdens seemed lighter and which he would choose if he should of necessity be driven to that one, and at his election; which he sticked thereat a while, but at the last he shook his head and a little smiling he answered that he had liefer take him to marriage, as that thing in which was less servitude and not so much jeopardy. Liberty above all he loved, to which both his own natural affection and the study of philosophy inclined him; and for that he was always wandering and flitting and would never take himself to any certain dwelling.
. . .
“Nephew;" said he, “ this will I show thee, I warn thee keep it secret ; the substance that I have left, after certain books of mine finished, I intend to give out to poor folk, and fencing myself with the crucifix, barefoot walking about the world in every town and castle I purpose to preach of Christ."
. . .
In the year of our Redemption, 1494, when he had fulfilled the thirty-second year of his age and abode at Florence, he was suddenly taken with a fervent access which so far forth crept into the interior parts of his body, that it despised all medicines and overcame all remedy, and compelled him within three days to satisfy nature and repay her the life which he received of her.
. . .
After that he had received the holy Body of our Saviour, when they offered unto him the crucifix (that is the image of Christ's ineffable passion suffered for our sake, that he might ere he gave up the ghost receive his full draught of love and compassion in the beholding of that pitiful figure as a strong defence against all adversity and a sure portcullis against wicked spirits) the priest demanded him whether he firmly believed that crucifix to be the image of Him that was very God and very man: which in His Godhead was before all time begotten of His Father, to Whom He is also equal in all things, and Which of the Holy Ghost, God also, of Him and of the Father coeternally going forth (which three Persons be one God) was in the chaste womb of our lady, a perpetual virgin, conceived in time; Which suffered hunger, thirst, heat, cold, labour, travail, and watch; and Which at the last for washing of our spotty sin contracted and drawn unto us in the sin of Adam, for the sovereign love that He had to mankind, in the altar of the cross willingly and gadly shed out His most precious blood :-when the priest inquired of him these things and such other as they be wont to inquire of folk in such case, Picus answered him that he not only believed it but also certainly knew it.
. . .
He showed also to the above-named Albertus and many other credible persons that the Queen of heaven came to him that night with a marvellous fragrant odour, refreshing all his members that were bruised and frushed with that fever, and promised him that he should not utterly die.
. . .
Now since it is so that he is adjudged to that fire from which he shall undoubtedly depart unto glory, and no man is sure how long it shall be first, and maybe the shorter time for our intercessions, let every Christian body show their charity upon him to help to speed him thither where, after the long habitation with the inhabitants of this dark world (to whom his goodly conversation gave great light) and after the dark fire of purgatory (in which venial sins be cleansed) he may shortly (if he be not already) enter the inaccessible and infinite light of heaven, where he may in the presence of the sovereign Godhead so pray for us that we may the rather by his intercession be partners of that unspeakable joy which we have prayed to bring him speedily to. Amen.
Here endeth the life of John Picus, Earl of Mirandula.

HERE FOLLOWETH IN PART AN EPISTLE OF THE SAID JOHN PICUS

But here ye will say to me thus: “I am content ye study, but I would have you outwardly occupied also. And I desire you not so to embrace Martha that ye should utterly forsake Mary. Love them and use them both, as well study as worldly occupation." Truly, my well-beloved friend, in this point I gainsay you not; they that so do I find no fault in nor I blame them not, but certainly it is not all one to say we do well if we do so, and to say we do evil but if we do so . . . Shall a man then be rebuked because that he desireth and ensueth virtue only for itself, because he studieth the mysteries of God, because he ensearcheth the counsel of nature, because he useth continually this pleasant ease and rest, seeking none outward thing, despising all other thing, since those things are able sufficiently to satisfy the desire of their followers? By this reckoning it is a thing either servile, or at the leastwise not princely, to make the study of wisdom other than mercenary. Who may well hear this, who may suffer it? Certainly he never studied for wisdom which so studied therefor that in time to come either he might not or would not study therefor. This man rather exercised the study of merchandise than of wisdom. Ye write unto me that it is time for me now to put myself in household with some of the great princes of Italy, but I see well that as yet ye have not known the opinion that philsosophers have of themselves, which (as Horace saith) repute themselves kings of kings; they love liberty; they cannot bear the proud manners of estates; they cannot serve. They dwell with themselves and be content with the tranquillity of their own mind; they suffice themselves and more; they seek nothing out of themselves; the things that are had in honour among the common people, among them be not held honourable. All that ever the voluptuous desire of men thirsteth for, or ambition seeketh for, they set at naught and despise. Which while it belongeth to all men, yet undoubtedly it pertaineth most properly to them whom fortune hath so liberally favoured that they may live not only well and plenteously, but also nobly. These great fortunes lift up a man high and set him out to the show, but oftentimes as a fierce and a skittish horse they cast off their master. Certainly always they grieve and vex him and rather tear him than bear him. The golden mediocrity, the mean estate, is to be desired, which shall bear us as it were in hands a more easily, which shall obey us and not master us. I therefore, abiding firmly in this opinion, set more by my little house, my study, the pleasure of my books, the rest and peace of my mind, than by all your kings palaces, all your common business, all your glory, all the advantage that ye hawk after, and all the favour of the court. Nor I look not for worldly business, but that I may once bring forth the children that I travail on; that I may give out some books of mine own to the common profit which may somewhat savour if not of cunning yet at the leastwise of wit and diligence. And because ye shall not think that my travail and diligence in study is anything remitted or slackened, I give you knowledge that after great fervent labour with much watch and indefatigable travail I have learned both the Hebrew language and the Chaldee, and now have I set hand to overcome the great difficulty of the Arabic tongue. These, my dear friend, be things which do appertain to a noble prince, I have ever thought and yet think. Fare ye well.

Cazarza Ligure

The work of Mario Gallarati, a Genoese architect and student of Caniggia of the Muratori school of urban design and architecture.

Then

Then when the ample season
Warmed us, waned and went,
We gave to the leaves no graves,
To the robin gone no name,
Nor thought at the birds' return
Of their sourceless dim descent,
And we read no loss in the leaf,
But a freshness ever the same.

The leaf first learned of years
One not forgotten fall;
Of lineage now, and loss
These latter singers tell,
Of a year when the birds now still
Were all one choiring call
Till the unreturning leaves
Imperishably fell.

Wilbur

Camogli & San Fruttuoso

The fishing village of Camogli

The harbour

The active fishing fleet
Mending nets
The only way of reaching San Fruttuoso
San Fruttuoso
The Abbey and Church

The whole inlet is thick with the sound of cicadas in the olive trees above the Abbey

The church beneath which the Pamphilij are buried

Fishing nets and anchors under the Abbey

The Cloister

The Doria Pamphilij Tower

San Fruttuoso

When one speaks of San Fruttuoso with someone who knows this splendid locality on the promontory of Portofino, few are aware that the complete name of the nuclear abbey of this little village is San Fruttuoso di Capodimonte. Capodimonte explains the name; San Fruttuoso explains the legend which we will briefly relate.

Arriving from Spain, the priests Giustino and Procopio of Terragona wanted to reach the coast of Liguria and bring the bones of San Fruttuoso, the archbishop of Braga and founder of monasteries in Spain and Portugal. He would later be mart yered in 262.

A strong tempest surprised them in the area of Portofino and it was here that an angel of the Lord appeared to Giustino and promised to bring him to safety in a narrow’avine in the cliffs and from which he would chase away a pestiferous dragon. The priests would then have to construct a church there among the rocks by a gushing spring.
It was thus that the locality where the church was constructed and later the monastery, first of thefollowers of Saint Colombano and then of the Benedictines, came to be called San Fruttuoso. Here the Abbey that was to have such great importance for the Tigullian Gulf until the twelfth century developed.

The Abbey exercised rights over hunting and fishing on the entire promontory and in addition fostered agriculture, mostly on the eastern slope of the promontory of Portofino which was more suitable for cultivation.

The submission of many coastal and inland parishes reaching as far as the dio- ceses of Tortona, Bobbio, and Brugnato, were the consequences of many donations. Anticipating the fatal year 1000 that was supposed to represent the end of the uorld, many feudal lords and even emperors deprived themselves of land to be given to the church.

In particular the empress Adelaide or Adalgisa of Bourgogne must be remembered for having donated the land of the “oltregiogo” for her spiritual salvation and that of the emperor Otto I and in appreciation for the physical salvation of her son Otto II’s escape from a grave danger. Even the island of Sestri Levante belonged to the Abbey and so we can confidently talk about its supremacy over the lands of Tigullio.

Since San Fruttuoso belonged to the “marca januensis“ constituted by Berengario II in 950 and entrusted to the Obertenghi family, the relationship between the Abbey and the aristocracy was such that the existence of numerous feudal landlords such as the Fieschi, the Este and the Malaspina did not pose a serious danger to the Abbey. The Fieschi were established in eastern Tigullio while the other two were dominant in the Appenine mountains and in the Po valley and plain.

The year 1133 is a very important date in the history not only of the Genoese church but for the abbey at San Fruttuoso as well. Since Pope Innocent Il separated the diocese of Genoa from the seat of Milan, establishing it as an archdiocese with Siro II, it became necessary to reorganize the territory. The monasteries no longer had the certainty of being able to protect the borders of their property from the incroachments of lay forces and even other organs of the diocese and thus be- gan to look to Genoa for support. Genoa, looking to expand in the riviera levante, was interested in cultivating good relations with the abbey and thus eager to protect its interests on the promontory of Portofino.

In 1162 Pope Alexander III, in order that he might enjoy the support of the still wealthy and powerful Abbot of San Fruttuoso, reconfirmed the privileges of the abbey over the territories subjected to it. It was the time when he was fighting with Federico Barbarossa who had opposed him with the anti-pope Victor V.

Taken from Portofino World

Departing from Camogli train station

The Ugliest Scooter of Them All

The red seat is just the icing on the cake.

Your Connecticut canary is dead, it is no more, it is an ex-canary

Peter Stothard for The Times Literary Supplement July 28th, 2009

The vicious Saffron Finch in the wild...

Forget pit-bulls and fighting cocks. Don't even think about bating bears or badgers.

In Connecticut they have a new sport, setting cage-bird on cage-bird, saffron finches and canaries for preference.

I learn this from the Cape Cod Day, a newspaper given away free in the Provincetown pharmacy, a paper which is supremely positive about anything going on around here (Children explore marsh at Wellfleet Wildlife Sanctuary) but happy to report hotter news from less favoured parts of Obama's America.

It seems that a certain Waldiney Almeida was among 19 people charged in Connecticut with keeping cage birds for the purpose of fighting each other to the status of an ex-cagebird. How you can tell if a canary is being so trained, I am not sure and the story does not say.

There would seem many potential routes for the defence - as well as Monty Python parrot jokes for the jury. But the purpose was gambling - and gamblers are famously not choosey about the form of life that fights for their money.

Would the Saffron Songster from Acapulco un-perch Old Yeller Feller from the Adirondacks? Who could say - except the man with the $8000 stash and the super-charged birdfeed who is now helping the police with their enquiries? It doesn't sound much of a sport but, heck, it's at least a sign that America is moving forward in the post George W.Bush era.

No room for bear-baiting and cock-pits now.

Pit bulls are just too expensive - and so fashionable an accessory this year on the Cape.

And yet?

There must be something of a pause here.

Kinder, gentler, fine.

Smaller, leaner, cheaper, post-crashier, absolutely fine.

But a country where the canaries do the fighting?

Surely a comfort to America's enemies everywhere.

More on the story here.

Thanks to D. B. for this lead.

Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company Resignation Letter

Matthew Freidberger

Was employed to sell new model ornithopters
to the various Continental Kingdoms
for General Oceanic Telegraph
as a sideline. My commission was half.

I must have seemed a sight when we first were together,
to say nothing of yourself — your boots of Brazilian leather!
But it wasn't for the worst, I'd swear to Heaven or Nether.

September sun and the ablative case:
you're tutoring Timmy by the Finger Lakes.
I'd assumed it's you when I was paged;
I'd assumed that we were still engaged.

What is it boy? A message, Sir, was read here via private line.
It's marked received at railroad table 15:13:09.
Well hand it here. I started reading before I said Go, now, fine.

The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company,
as oozing and black as the holdings of,
if you were resigned from loving me,
would in fairness then insulted by be?

I back and forth and put it to myself from your side;
it's dangerous and difficult but now I do decide:
I certain absolutely never will then be your bride.

I started writing back at once,
but then I stopped.

Later that night I read some of the Two Admirals
then picked up — my sister got it — Modern Flirtations.
Random page, I sat down on the bed:
come across something I've already read.

I back and forth and put it to myself from your side;
it's dangerous and difficult but now I do decide:
I certain absolutely never will then be your bride.


Listen to the song at the bottom of the page...

From "A Barocque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra"

"If that is what men are
Or should be, if those water-saints display
The pattern of our arête,
What of these showered fauns in their bizarre,

Spangled, and plunging house?
They are at rest in fullness of desire
For what is given, they do not tire
Of the smart of the sun, the pleasant water-douse

And riddled pool below,
Reproving our disgust and our ennui
With humble insatiety.
Francis, perhaps, who lay in sister snow

Before the wealthy gate
Freezing and praising, might have seen in this
No trifle, but shade of bliss –
That land of tolerable flowers, that state

As near and far as grass
Where eyes becomes the sunlight, and the hand
Is worthy of water: the dreamt land
Toward which all hungers leap, all pleasures pass."

Just in from the Rad Trads...

In the comment section of a certain extraordinary Catholic blog post, purporting to elucidate the Pope's new Encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate," I stumbled, or rather tripped and fell over this juicy little bit of idiocy.

Dear Boniface,

I think this was a well thought out, and very sobering, analysis. I don't know what to think. I'm very worried, and I hate to think of how this will be construed by the evil ones of this country and the world. It already has been interpreted in such a way by the media (no shock there). And reading the parts about the environment really disturbs me. It's like being at Mass and hearing a prayer for the fight against global warming in the general intercessions (yes, I have actually heard that). All of that socialistic garbage is what is destroying our country. And whether this country was founded by Freemasons or not, its principles are good, and I don't see why the good things about America can't be a model for other nations. And, of course, I think America can also learn things from other nations. Anyway, I hope we are both wrong. God bless.

Michael H

My favorite part: "whether this country was founded by Freemasons or not, its principles are good, and I don't see why the good things about America can't be a model for other nations." Thank you Michael H. for that little bit of brilliancy. I wonder if you hadn't been born a Catholic if you would have gone in for the novels of Dan Brown with a similar zeal.


Oh, wait, for some strange reason I didn't finish reading the comments... But I just noticed this:

"We should have the social reign of Christ the King and a Catholic government.

This Catholic government should have the right to ban all public expressions of false religions but tolerate them in charity. this is the only logical path. [Good thing we're still trying to be logical here.]

There is one true religion.
Christ is our King.
Therefore, a government should be modeled after the laws of the Church and submit itself to Christ the King.
This government should therefore be Catholic.
Laws are therefore to be made in accordance to Christ’s laws (i.e. no business open on Sundays or Holy Days unless of necessity, the outlawing of all immoral things, the following of the social teachings of the Church as expressed by great minds such as Leo XIII, etc.).

Further as we know false religions lead people to hell.
Therefore a Catholic government has the right to surpass their proselytizing because it endangers souls.

That is why I said some of this doesn’t work here because we don’t have a Catholic government, but we should and it should work to safeguard souls. If you were in charge of a Catholic nation why wouldn’t you stop the public circulation of pamphlets by protestants lying about the Church and/or trying to get people to leave the Church?

Our system is not entirely bad, don’t get me wrong, its tolerable, but I’m just saying there is something better."

At least there are still people with vision out there...