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The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton Volume 20: A Short History of England; The New Jerusalem; Irish Impressions; Christendom in Dublin
Edited by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. This next volume in Chesterton's series of collected works contains four of his books and four shorter "English" essays. Three of the books are accounts of his travels, two to Ireland and one to Palestine via Egypt. The fourth book is Chesteron's own effort to explain English history to Englishmen as well as to other interested parties, particularly the Irish. All of these books date from about 1920, except Christendom in Ireland, which concerns the 1932 Dublin Eucharistic Congress, which Chesterton attended.
- GenresHistory
642 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
33 people want to read
About the author
G.K. Chesterton
4,734 books5,845 followersGilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.
Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 30, 2024
This review is only over A Short History of England. His usual style of wit is here as well as astute generalizations about history. Editions of G.K. Chesterton’s Collected Works also contain helpful footnotes.
II: The Province of Britain
“The important thing about France and England is not that they have Roman remains. They are Roman remains. In truth they are not so much remains as relics; for they are still working miracles.” (429)
“Slavery was for the Church not a difficulty of doctrine, but a strain on the imagination. Aristotle and the pagan sages who had defined the servile or "useful" arts, had regarded the slave as a tool, an axe to cut wood or whatever wanted cutting. The Church did not denounce the cutting; but she felt as if she was cutting glass with a diamond. She was haunted by the memory that the diamond is so much more precious than the glass. So Christianity could not settle down into the pagan simplicity that the man was made for the work, when the work was so much less immortally momentous than the man.” (431)
III: The Age of Legends
“We should be startled if we were quietly reading a prosaic modern novel, and somewhere in the middle it turned without warning into a fairy tale. We should be surprised if one of the spinsters in Cranford, after tidily sweeping the room with a broom, were to fly away on a broomstick. Our attention would be arrested if one of Jane Austen's young ladies who had just met a dragoon were to walk a little further and meet a dragon. Yet something very like this extraordinary transition takes place in British history at the end of the purely Roman period.”
“The whole culture of our time has been full of the notion of ‘A Good Time Coming.’ Now the whole culture of the Dark Ages was full of the notion of ‘A Good Time Going.’ They looked backwards to old enlightenment and forwards to new prejudices. In our time there has come a quarrel between faith and hope—which perhaps must be healed by charity. But they were situated otherwise. They hoped—but it may be said that they hoped for yesterday. All the motives that make a man a progressive now made a man a conservative then. The more he could keep of the past the more he had of a fair law and a free state; the more he gave way to the future the more he must endure of ignorance and privilege.” (437)
[A]n age of reason had preceded the age of magic. (438)
Some insights scattered later throughout include, the comment on monks (449), feudalism (461), gratitude (463), and Chivalry (429).
II: The Province of Britain
“The important thing about France and England is not that they have Roman remains. They are Roman remains. In truth they are not so much remains as relics; for they are still working miracles.” (429)
“Slavery was for the Church not a difficulty of doctrine, but a strain on the imagination. Aristotle and the pagan sages who had defined the servile or "useful" arts, had regarded the slave as a tool, an axe to cut wood or whatever wanted cutting. The Church did not denounce the cutting; but she felt as if she was cutting glass with a diamond. She was haunted by the memory that the diamond is so much more precious than the glass. So Christianity could not settle down into the pagan simplicity that the man was made for the work, when the work was so much less immortally momentous than the man.” (431)
III: The Age of Legends
“We should be startled if we were quietly reading a prosaic modern novel, and somewhere in the middle it turned without warning into a fairy tale. We should be surprised if one of the spinsters in Cranford, after tidily sweeping the room with a broom, were to fly away on a broomstick. Our attention would be arrested if one of Jane Austen's young ladies who had just met a dragoon were to walk a little further and meet a dragon. Yet something very like this extraordinary transition takes place in British history at the end of the purely Roman period.”
“The whole culture of our time has been full of the notion of ‘A Good Time Coming.’ Now the whole culture of the Dark Ages was full of the notion of ‘A Good Time Going.’ They looked backwards to old enlightenment and forwards to new prejudices. In our time there has come a quarrel between faith and hope—which perhaps must be healed by charity. But they were situated otherwise. They hoped—but it may be said that they hoped for yesterday. All the motives that make a man a progressive now made a man a conservative then. The more he could keep of the past the more he had of a fair law and a free state; the more he gave way to the future the more he must endure of ignorance and privilege.” (437)
[A]n age of reason had preceded the age of magic. (438)
Some insights scattered later throughout include, the comment on monks (449), feudalism (461), gratitude (463), and Chivalry (429).
Displaying 1 of 1 review