"Old fat spider can’t see me! Attercop! Attercop!"

The post title is from The Hobbit. The spiders may not have been able to see Bilbo, but I'm not invisible.

I just finished the first application of Miss Muffet's Revenge this year, a very effective spider killer/repellent that lasts three or four months. I usually spray every surface a spider might cross getting onto my balcony.

I readily admit that spiders are generally beneficial, consuming insects and themselves providing food for birds. But I prefer they don't occupy the same living space I do.

Frederick Forsyth, RIP

I did enjoy his novels, especially Day of the Jackal and Dogs of War (both made into excellent films). He also narrated the BBC series Soldiers: A History of Men in Battle. I used the first episode of that as an introduction to a unit on the military in an international relations class. From the Washington Post obituary:

Frederick Forsyth, a mega-selling British novelist of political thrillers, cunning spy craft and globe-trotting intrigue who used his own background as a foreign correspondent to inspire such page-turners as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War, died June 9 at his home in Buckinghamshire, a county in southeast England. He was 86. ....

For a half-century, Mr. Forsyth was one of the most successful authors of the cloak-and-dagger circuit. He wrote more than 20 novels, short stories and other works, reportedly selling more than 75 million copies in more than a dozen languages. ....

.... Mr. Forsyth, who had mulled for years the attempted assassination of De Gaulle as scaffolding for a novel, spent a little over a month at the typewriter and finished the manuscript for The Day of the Jackal with the aid of many packs of Rothmans cigarettes.

The book was about a French paramilitary outfit that hires a remorseless British hit man known only as “the Jackal.” The tensions build on a collision course between the hired killer and an unassuming French police detective racing to stop him. The first four publishers who were pitched “Jackal” didn’t understand the book, Mr. Forsyth later told The Washington Post: “The point was not whodunit, but how, and how close would he get?” ....

In 1972, Mr. Forsyth won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel. An acclaimed 1973 film, directed by Fred Zinnemann, starred Edward Fox as the Jackal and Michael Lonsdale as the French police official. .... (more)

Brian Murphy, "Frederick Forsyth, thriller writer of ‘Day of the Jackal,’ dies at 86," The Washingtyon Post, June 9, 2025.

"Originalism"

Bryan Garner writes about English usage. With Antonin Scalia, he co-authored Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts. Here he explains "Some Misconceptions About Originalism." Anyone who believes judges should modify their decisions based on loyalty to a person or an ideology doesn't understand how the proper role of judges differs from that of legislators.

.... The idea behind originalism is as old as interpretation itself. In fact, the earliest statute on legal interpretation, from Scotland in 1427, made it a crime punishable at the king’s will to “interpreit...statutes wrangeouslie” or “utherwaies than the statute beares, and to the intent and effect, that they were maid for, and as the maker of them understoode.” ....

The influential Emmerich de Vattel, the Swiss author of The Law of Nations (1758), a book that greatly influenced the Founding Fathers, wrote: “Languages vary incessantly, and the signification and force of words change with time. When an antient act is to be interpreted, we should then know the common use of the terms at the time when it was written." ....

The basic idea has always been that a legal text should have a stable, enduring meaning—not a meaning that morphs unpredictably through time. Daniel Webster, the greatest American lawyer of the 19^th century, said that “we must take the meaning of the Constitution as it has been solemnly fixed.” That was not just the prevalent notion in his day, but the only notion of which any contemporaneous trace can be found. .... (more)

Bryan A. Garner, "Some Misconceptions About Originalism," National Review, May 15, 2025.

Pointless suffering

"Utopian Promises, Despotic Outcomes" is a review of The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin by Dan Edelstein. Excerpts from the considerably longer review:

The ninth of November, 1799—the 18th of Brumaire in the calendar of the French Revolution—is often remembered as the day the Revolution ended. Napoleon Bonaparte, conqueror of Italy and scourge of Egypt, engineered the dissolution of the executive committee of the French Republic. The following day he entered the lower house of the French Assembly with a military escort. The deputies, recognizing a coup, cried “down with the dictator” and roughly manhandled the great general until he retreated. But troops soon cleared the chamber. Napoleon was made first consul and granted expansive powers. A new constitution followed, animated—according to one of its authors, the powerful Abbé Sieyès—by the principle that “power must come from above and confidence from below.” Remarked Sieyès of this new order: “Gentlemen, we now have a master.” ....

For the ancient Greeks, and for millennia thereafter, political turmoil was “revolutionary” in that it was a perennial pathology of cyclical history, bringing only pointless suffering. ....

To the ancients, Mr. Edelstein writes, “the state in revolution was a perversion of the state, a social hell in which the trappings of society remained in place only to mask the unbridled violence and greed…that really governed human affairs.” Revolutions were calamitous “mutations” to no purpose, adding only tragedy to the affairs of men. ....

The French philosophes, Mr. Edelstein argues, were the first to exchange “a vision of revolution as devastation for one of revolution as improvement.” Voltaire, Turgot, Condorcet and others developed a perfectionist faith in accumulative human improvement. They introduced the belief that history progressed and that the “iron law of inequality,” as Mr. Edelstein puts it, could be overcome. Tradition and custom were recast as the tyranny of the dead over the living. Social classes would melt away beneath a future sun.

Crucially, these progressive philosophes also developed a confidence in the capacity of the central state to act as the engine of reform. ....

The Revolution to Come cleaves the much-celebrated “age of democratic revolutions” into two. The French Revolution embodied the new confidence in historical progress and enthusiasm for unchecked power. Its guiding spirit, Mr. Edelstein insists, was Voltaire, the enthusiast for enlightened despots, rather than the radically democratic Rousseau. Napoleon, perhaps even Lenin, emerge as the heirs of Frederick the Great: authoritarian, but no less revolutionary for that.

The American Revolution was of a different quality. It emerged from the British tradition of mixed constitutionalism and what Mr. Edelstein calls “radical conservatism.” “Rather than transforming their world,” he writes, Americans “wished above all to preserve the state.” For Adams, Madison, and Hamilton, pure democracy and revolution remained threats. The American constitution thus sought to manage class conflict and balance governmental powers, both federally and within the central government. ....

...The Revolution to Come is still harder on the “modern” revolutionaries of the French dispensation. In his best chapters, Mr. Edelstein unfolds the despotism and pitiless violence that stains this tradition. Advocating historical progress was one thing; securing popular consensus on the nature of progress was something else entirely.

In place after place, disagreement over the question of what progress meant inevitably spawned factions, strife, conspiracies, and atrocities. The drive to centralize power disabled any constitutional mechanisms that might have tamed this factionalism. The contest to control the single central power—through which the future would be defined—became increasingly ferocious. Purges targeted traditional counterrevolutionaries, but even more, false friends: the quisling moderates who might undermine the cause from within. The only solution was radical, reforming despotism. .... (more)

Jeffrey Collins, "The Revolution to Come Review: Utopian Promises, Despotic Outcomes," The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2025.

"Cooler than Cool"

I'm not sure when I first discovered Elmore Leonard, but it was after the time he was writing Westerns (but I do have DVDs of some films based on his Westerns). I believe I own copies of all of his crime novels, all eminently re-readable. I once gave old paperback copies of several of Elmore's books to a graduate student who aspired to be a screenwriter. A new biography of Elmore was reviewed in The Wall Street Journal today. From that review:

“Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”

So reads the 10^th of “10 Rules of Writing” (2007) by Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), the New Orleans-born, Detroit-raised, Hollywood-savvy author who changed the nature of crime stories (in print and on screen) while becoming one of the most successful and highly regarded writers of his genre and generation. ....

Leonard’s style was Hemingway-like in its economy and reveled in the unexpected delights of the American language. His stories often began in the middle of a scene, and where they went after that was anyone’s guess. His opening lines, such as this one from 1980’s Gold Coast, were collectible: “One day Karen DiCilia put a few observations together and realized her husband Frank was sleeping with a real estate woman in Boca.”

His crime stories, filled with oddball crooks and moody cops, were hard to pigeonhole, but Leonard’s audience grew to bestseller proportions, boosted by screen adaptations and near-idolatrous reviews. Many of his later works—among them LaBrava (1983), Get Shorty (1990), Rum Punch (1992), Out of Sight (1996) and Tishomingo Blues (2002)—have been reverently republished via the Library of America. Martin Amis would write that Leonard’s prose rang with the “American rhythms” of Robert Frost and Mark Twain. Ann Beattie compared his fiction, in its moral complexity, to Flannery O’Connor’s. .... (more)

Tom Nolan, "‘Cooler Than Cool’ Review: Elmore Leonard’s Life of Crime," The Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2025.

At the still point of the turning world.

I've never read Boethius (but I have read T.S. Eliot). Thomas Ward has read Boethius, and Rick Kennedy reviews his book in "The Wisdom of Hope in Boethian Times." From that review:

Our happiness lies in God, Boethius’s Philosophia ultimately argues: “In the sublimest and most difficult image of the whole Consolation, Lady Philosophy imagines God as the still center, or axis, of turning concentric circles.”

This image is the foil to the wheel of Lady Fortune—this “still center” is where the Consolation shows the Christian hope that can only come after Stoicism. Philosophia teaches that “We are creatures of the peripheries, invited to come closer to the center… We have the capacity, not only in thought but through the pursuit of virtue, to ‘seek the center of things.’” Ward then quotes from Lewis’ Perelandra: “We have come, last and best, / From the wide zone through dizzying circles hurled, / To that still centre where the spinning world / Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.”

Boethius in Consolation, like Dante in Paradiso .... and Lewis in his books, teaches a further-up-and-further-in type of centering on the sovereign, loving, beautiful, and happy God of Christianity. Having transcended Stoicism, Augustine and Boethius stand at the foundations of an Age of Faith. ....

Ward wants his readers to think of the implications of the Consolation’s insistence that “God is happiness.” Seek God. Seek the center. Ultimately, Ward wants his readers to have a reason to pray. “When I pray,” he writes, “I sometimes realize that I am doing the best thing I know how to do, which is just what Jesus taught his disciples to do.” Indeed, the Consolation is an account of a thoughtful person at prayer. .... (more)

Rick Kennedy, "The Wisdom of Hope in Boethian Times," Mere Orthodoxy, May 30, 2025.

Remember us

Archibald MacLeish (1940):

The young dead soldiers do not speak
Nevertheless they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
They say, We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say, We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.
They say, We have given our lives but until it is finished
   no one can know what our lives gave.
They say, Our deaths are not ours: they are yours: they will mean what you make them.
They say, Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing
   we cannot say: it is you who must say this.
They say, We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.

"Romance, intrigue, broad comedy, gaudy settings, lavish dress..."

Occasioned by a new release of Richard Lester's Three Musketeers comes a review of a film I thoroughly enjoyed in a theater when it was first released, and have owned in some form ever since home video became affordable. The review reminded me that the screenwriter was one of my favorite authors. I just ordered Criterion's new edition, coming next week.

Few works have sparked the cinematic imagination as routinely as Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 novel The Three Musketeers. A hasty count indicates some 40 movie versions (the first and latest from France, in 1903 and 2023) and many more made just for television. But by common consent, the best yet is Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), originally conceived as a single film with intermission but ultimately released as two separate pictures. ....

Three seasoned actors in their prime—Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain and Frank Finlay—were cast as the world-weary musketeers: Athos, Aramis and Porthos. Michael York, fresh from his central role in the soon-to-be Oscar-winning Cabaret, nabbed the plum part of the callow D’Artagnan (ultimately, the fourth musketeer)....

Raquel Welch, the very essence of feminine sexuality at the time, so her participation—as Constance, the queen’s dressmaker and the object of D’Artagnan’s ceaseless affections—was non-negotiable. Who knew then that this screen goddess, often as not wooden in dramatic parts, had talent as a comedic foil? ....

Landing Faye Dunaway after Bonnie and Clyde but before Chinatown and Network was a coup, and she portrays the ruthless Milady de Winter, an agent of much misery, with such unforgettable hauteur that it’s hard to imagine anyone else inhabiting the role. Christopher Lee lends her lover, the fearsome one-eyed Comte de Rochefort, exactly the kind of menace that made him irreplaceable on screen for so many decades. ....

...[T]he real casting masterstroke was placing Charlton Heston, one of Hollywood’s leading leading men, in the pivotal role of Cardinal Richelieu, the power behind the throne and the figure discreetly controlling most of the saga’s action. Heston plays Richelieu with a welcome light touch, giving just the right weight to sotto-voce comments, asserting authority by never raising his voice and letting an arched eyebrow or a sidelong glance serve his character’s needs. ....

...[T]he Scottish author George MacDonald Fraser, whose early “Flashman” novels, with their outlandish bounder protagonist, served almost as dry runs for his spirited condensing of Dumas’s massive chronicle into two efficient pictures, each running less than two hours. It was Fraser who, when Mr. Lester asked how a particular scene should look, said, “like a Breughel painted by Rembrandt”—a comment the director clearly took to heart.

None of this makes these pictures high art, but they are consummate entertainment. Few of us want a meal of Bergman and Bresson every night. Sometimes, the menu calls for romance, intrigue, broad comedy, gaudy settings, lavish dress, and, of course, sexy women and dashing men. And when you want to dine out on that, Mr. Lester is happy to serve you. (more)

David Mermelstein, "‘The Three Musketeers’ and ‘The Four Musketeers’: Richard Lester’s Spirited Swashbucklers," The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2025.

Uncle Robert

Among those I think about as Memorial Day approaches is Mom's youngest brother, Robert Levi Bond, killed in action in September of 1944, before I was born, buried in Belgium at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery.

Mom, Uncle Robert, Aunt Bea

Secretary of War Stimson

Thomas More

From a review of Thomas More: A Life

Over the last century, Thomas More has undergone three posthumous transmutations. In 1935 – exactly 400 years after he was executed for refusing to swear that Henry VIII was Supreme Head of the English Church – he was canonised by Pope Pius XI as a holy martyr. This declaration of his sanctity met a frosty reception in Anglican England, where the part More had played in putting Protestants to death for heresy before the break with Rome hadn’t yet disappeared from historical memory.

Then in 1967 came Paul Scofield’s moving performance as More in the film of Robert Bolt’s play A Man For All Seasons. Rooted in hagiographical accounts written by members of More’s family, it made him a hero, wise, erudite and humane, a man who chose to die rather than compromise his conscience in the face of tyranny. Yet a twist in the tale remained: the publication in 2009 of Hilary Mantel’s world-conquering Wolf Hall. In Mantel’s exquisite prose it’s Thomas Cromwell, not Thomas More, whose brilliant mind wrestles with the relationship between faith, integrity and power, while More, Cromwell’s opponent, becomes a callous, self-regarding zealot.

In Thomas More: A Life, her absorbing and deeply researched new biography, Joanne Paul sets out to rescue More from these violent swings of the historical pendulum. .... (the review)

The book review does well what a good review does: describing More's life with all its contradictions in the context of his time, as good history should.

I liked this description of More's most famous book, which I first read in a political theory course:

His best-known work, Utopia, was written in 1515-16, just as he was beginning to be employed as a diplomat by the young king Henry VIII. It's two parts consider the fundamental questions with which he was grappling: how far should a philosopher involve himself in the world, and what form should an ideal state take?

But the conclusions of its enigmatically supple satire have never been easy to pin down. Where does the truth lie in a dialogue about an imaginary republic called “Utopia” – “no place” – described by Raphael Hythlodaeus, a character whose name means “peddler of nonsense”, to a fictionalised “Thomas More”, whose surname in Latin is a pun on the Greek for “fool”?

Helen Castor, "The truth about Thomas More, Henry VIII’s brutal enforcer," The Telegraph, May 18, 2025.

Presentism

Patrick Kurp on "presentism," beginning with a quotation from Robert Conquest:

“History is not some past from which we are cut off. We are merely at its forward edge as it unrolls. And only if one is without historical feeling at all can one think of the intellectual fads and fashions of one’s own time as a ‘habitation everlasting.’ We may feel that at last, unlike all previous generations, we have found certitude. They thought so too.”

I heard it expressed by commencement speakers and others in more casual conversation that ours is an unprecedented age of uncertainty and worry. “We have never seen anything like what we’re experiencing now,” said an articulate and highly educated woman. I wanted to remind her of, say, April 1861 in the U.S. and September 1939 everywhere. The phenomenon of presentism is like a disease that causes blindness. We attribute a sort of proud uniqueness to ourselves and our era, an understanding fostered by narcissism and historical ignorance.

The speaker quoted at the top is Robert Conquest in “History, Humanity, and Truth,” the 1993 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities delivered at Stanford University. .... (more)

Patrick Kurp, "Fanaticisms and Factiousnesses Too," Anecdotal Evidence, May 12, 2025.

Agree when you can. Disagree when you must.

I am a believer in "honest ecumenism," that is, ecumenism that does not ignore or minimize the real doctrinal differences that do exist, but does focus on real areas of agreement. I've been encouraged by what I've read about Leo XIV. He seems committed to orthodoxy and seems to lack many of his predecessor's more annoying traits. Protestants and Catholics share much in common, but some differences ought not be ignored. Several years ago, Kevin DeYoung explained "8 Key Differences Between Catholics and Protestants."  He began:

Ask a serious Protestant today what is the biggest threat to orthodox Christianity, and he might mention cultural hostilities, the sexual revolution, or nominalism in our churches. But if you would have asked a Protestant the same question a hundred years ago, he would have almost certainly mentioned the Roman Catholic Church. Until fairly recently, Protestants and Catholics in this country were, if not enemies, then certainly players on opposing teams.

Today, much of that animosity has melted away. And to a large extent, the thaw between Protestants and Catholics has been a good thing. Sincere Protestants and Catholics often find themselves to be co-belligerents, defending the unborn, upholding traditional marriage, and standing up for religious liberty. And in an age that discounts doctrine, evangelical Protestants often share more in common theologically with a devout Roman Catholic steeped in historic orthodoxy than they do with liberal members of their own denominations. I personally have benefited over the years from Catholic authors like G.K. Chesterton, Richard John Neuhaus, and Robert George.

And yet, theological differences between Protestants and Catholics are still wide and in places very deep. It’s important to be conversant with some of the main issues that legitimately divide us, lest we think all the theological hills have been laid low and all the dogmatic valleys made into a plain. .... (more, with the differences)

Kevin DeYoung, "8 Key Differences Between Catholics and Protestants," Clearly Reformed, September 12, 2017.

Dirda returns

There are a couple of books I am eagerly anticipating, although publication dates are uncertain. One is Alan Jacobs' biography of Dorothy L. Sayers. His Narnian, about C.S. Lewis is my favorite book on CSL. The other is Michael Dirda's "appreciation and guide to the popular fiction of late 19^th and early 20^th century Britain." Dirda's "semi-retirement" was my biggest regret about subscribing to the Washington Post. Today, he returned as a guest columnist. He has been reading a lot, avoiding politics, and working on that book.

In it, I reintroduce many influential, if now too seldom read, classics of adventure, mystery, horror and romance. Some of my favorites include the three ornately written mysteries in M.P. Shiel’s Prince Zaleski, Richard Marsh’s astonishingly transgressive horror novel, The Beetle, J.M. Barrie’s multiverse play, Dear Brutus, and a shelf of swashbucklers such as Rafael Sabatini’s Captain Blood, Emmuska Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel and P.C. Wren’s Beau Geste, as well as E.F. Benson’s “spook stories” and Saki’s sardonic Beasts and Super Beasts. There are also long essays on Robert Louis Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard, H.G. Wells, Edith Nesbit, Rudyard Kipling, P.G. Wodehouse, John Buchan and Algernon Blackwood, among others.

I'm particularly interested in what Dirda says about the authors referenced in the last sentence above.

Michael Dirda, "Disillusioned by politics, I read these books to get out of my slump," The Washington Post, May 9, 2025

"Narrative trumps argument"

When art serves ideology, it becomes "agitslop":

.... The moment creativity and aesthetics are subordinated to a moral or political orthodoxy, the genius of the artist and his capacity for innovation is fettered and sterilised at the altar of conformity; his talent leeched, his vision gelded, and his work reduced to decorative obedience. The principle holds, whatever the orthodoxy; yet the creaking regime of identity-driven progressivism that dominates the arts still yokes it to moulding a new public character. But they are armed with a more potent medium than any of the 20th century totalitarian ideologies were armed with; the soft, on-demand murmur of television, smuggling ideology directly into living rooms under the guise of entertainment. Welcome to the world of agitslop....

Agitslop is easily defined — it is art made by social workers, not artists; content produced neither to inform, educate or entertain the viewer, but to gently marinade them in moral instruction. Sentimentality and didactic messaging are its hallmarks, along with high production values that allow it to reasonably pass for entertainment.

But the brilliance of agitslop lies in its emotionally manipulative scripts. By focusing on personal narratives — real or imagined — agitslop appeals to the emotional rather than rational part of the viewer’s brain and appeals directly to their sentimentality. Agitslop bypasses inconvenient truths like facts by reframing complex issues as a series of tear-jerking vignettes, each carefully directed to promote a specific emotional response in the viewer.

This strategy is not accidental. As behavioural psychologist Robert Cialdini notes, “people don’t counter-argue stories… if you want to be successful in a post-fact world, you do it by presenting accounts, narratives, stories and images and metaphors.” Narrative trumps argument....

By endlessly spotlighting the exceptional, the sympathetic, or the oppressed, agitslop alters what audiences perceive as typical or morally correct. It doesn’t matter that these portrayals are statistically unrepresentative; what matters is their potency as an agent for change. Agitslop’s role is not to reflect society, but to reshape it. .... (more)

Tom Jones, "The tyranny of agitslop," The Critic, May 1, 2025.

Standard Ebooks

I've posted before about an excellent source of free E-books:

Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, free of U.S. copyright restrictions, and free of cost.

I support the site, and as one of the benefits, I get an email every month listing the newest books there. Three of this month's notable additions:

• George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons (1867-1889)
• G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World (1910)
• R. Austin Freeman, The Eye of Osiris (1911)

C.S. Lewis often mentioned MacDonald and Chesterton as important influences. Freeman was the author of the Thorndyke mysteries. They are among my favorites, and I've posted about them before.

"A long obedience in the same direction"

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) on Christian discipline:

MANY people seem to think that the spiritual life necessarily requires a definite and exacting plan of study. It does not. But it does require a definite plan of life and courage in sticking to the plan, not merely for days or weeks, but for years. New mental and emotional habits must be formed, all our interests rearranged in new proportion round a new centre. This is something which cannot be hurried; but, unless we take it seriously, can be infinitely delayed. Many people suggest by their behaviour that God is of far less importance than their bath or morning paper, or early cup of tea. The life of co-operation with Him must begin with a full and practical acceptance of the truth that God alone matters—and that He, the Perfect, always desires perfection. Then it will inevitably press us to begin working for perfection; first, in our own characters and actions; next, in our homes, surroundings, profession and country. We must be prepared for the fact that even on small and personal levels this will cost a good deal; frequently thwarting our own inclinations and demanding real sacrifice.

Evelyn Underhill, "The Order of Love," from The Spiritual Life (1936), excerpted in An Anthology of The Love of God from the Writings of Evelyn Underhill, 1953.

Who are you?

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain yourself!”

“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.”

“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar.

“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”

“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar.

“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?”

“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar.

“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.”

“You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are you?”

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar’s making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, “I think, you ought to tell me who you are, first.”

“Why?” said the Caterpillar.

Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away. .... (more)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter v.

Questing

An appreciation of Christianity is not enough. To be saved requires faith. From The Telegraph on "cultural Christianity":

Being a Christian, I suppose I should prefer Christian jokes about religion, but I often find the Jewish jokes have more bite. Here is one.

The boy who is about to be bar-mitzvahed approaches his instructor with a troubled expression: "Rabbi, I have to tell you something important. You see, I don't believe in God. The rabbi stares at the sad youth with scorn, and replies, "Do you think He cares?"

Even as a joke, it is unimaginable that a Christian priest could speak like that. He would have to tell the equivalent boy that he could not be confirmed without faith. He would probably add, by way of consolation, something like "God loves you all the same."

For Christianity, faith is the thing without which, nothing. Faith is not sufficient — hope is equally great, says St Paul, and love is the greatest — but faith is necessary. The Nicene Creed, 1,700 years old next month, is a statement of what a Christian must believe. This requirement, this "I believe...", spoken by each individual, is something that a great many well-disposed people, especially in the modern Western world, cannot conscientiously say.

Hence the existence of what are known as "cultural Christians". These are people who like the tenor of Christianity, its moral norms, its tenderness towards the poor and weak, the beauty of its liturgy and art, its civilisational benefits, but do not in fact believe that, as the Nicene Creed puts it, Jesus is "the only begotten son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds" etc. ....

Dr [Rowan] Williams is surely right that cultural Christians, because they do not believe, are not fully experiencing the life that is Jesus. There is the world of difference between, as he puts it, admiring Christianity and being "called on to love God". But what I think he fails to recognise is that most cultural Christians know that.

They are not in a steady state of contentment about where they are. They may well be, as the Archbishop thinks Jordan Peterson is, "sad and angry". After all, nearly 2,000 years after Jesus was unjustly killed, the number of things to be sad and angry about seems greater than at any time since 1945. The point, however, is that they are questing. They need help in that quest. ....

But faith, in any case, is not something human beings can create for themselves.

All we can try to be is in the right place at the right time. Cultural Christians do at least recognise that they may be in the right place, which probably means they are looking for the right time. (more)

Charles Moore, "Cultural Christians already know what they are missing from religion: faith," The Telegraph, April 18, 2025.

"Will the Circle be Unbroken?"

Looking through some previous posts here I came across an article describing how the soundtrack of O Brother, Where Art Thou? broadened the audience for bluegrass. Toward the end of that article its author noted the importance to bluegrass of another recording:

.... [T]he Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's expansive 1972 record Will the Circle Be Unbroken brought revered traditional artists like Doc Watson, the Carter Family, Earl Scruggs, Merle Travis, and Jimmy Martin back into the national spotlight. It remains an important crossover record that bridges revered old-school figureheads with a young, fresh audience.

"These albums really helped cross over into the mainstream, and I think remind people how powerful and important the music is," Lewis says. ....

There were eventually three collections of songs in a series of "Will the Circle be Unbroken" records/CDs. My favorite is Volume Two, the one that includes the remarkable gathering of musicians above (and more).


Fifteen Years Later, Bluegrass Is Still Reeling from O Brother, Where Art Thou? | Music Feature | Indy Week

"He is not here..."

Some years ago, when a family in his community had suffered a terrible loss, a Lutheran pastor preached an Easter Vigil sermon:

.... For almost two thousand years, humans have heard this story and for almost two thousand years we have been coming up with reasons not to believe it. Perhaps Jesus' body was stolen, it is argued, and the appearances to his disciples were the work of an imposter. Perhaps the appearances were a mass hallucination by the disciples, unresolved grief expressing itself as a sort of denial that he was even dead. Maybe the empty tomb is a later addition to this story. Maybe the whole thing is a metaphor for the power of Jesus' teaching. Maybe it is an echo of the stories of the pagan gods of the ancient near east, who go to the underworld for a season and then come back, bringing spring with them. The sun will come up tomorrow and life will renew itself.

These arguments are, briefly, all balderdash. Yes, the stories are strange and filled with mystery. No, they do not create one consistent picture of that morning and the days that follow. But the doubt and confusion are written into the story from the start. This is not a confidence game or a fraud or a metaphor. The stories would look totally different if they were. The people who were there believed this had happened. What and how, exactly, they couldn't say. But it was unbearably, unbelievably real to them. ....

Yet there it was, and there it is: a tomb with no corpse. A door opening to a possibility we may not even want to entertain. That there is something beyond the grave—not in our warm, rose-tinged memories, not in some distant shore where the souls of the righteous congregate, not in the recurring cycle of nature, spring following winter and day following night, not in our plucky human desire to go on living despite it all—but in the love shown to a broken body as it is knitted back together. In the care shown to a dead body as it is revived to life. In the promise of salvation and in-gathering of all the peoples that is initiated by this one lonely empty tomb. In a new age that begins now, in the devil being cast out from this one cranny of earth, hell being crushed under this one foot, death being deprived of its spoils in this one corpse. .... (more)

Benjamin Dueholm, "Preaching the Easter Vigil," The Parish Bulletin, April 17, 2025.

The day in-between

From "Sitting, Waiting, and Hoping in the Tomb of Jesus" by A.J. Swoboda:

.... Martin Luther said himself that Saturday was the day that God himself lay cold in the grave. Friday was death, Sunday was hope, but Saturday was that seemingly ignored middle day between them when God occupied a dirty grave in a little garden outside Jerusalem. Saturday is about waiting, about uncertainty, about not knowing what’ll happen. ....

So much of Christian faith is Saturday faith. ....

A medieval theologian, Anselm, once described the kind of faith that comes with Saturday—fides quaerens intellectum: “faith seeking understanding.” By that, he meant that faith isn’t something that arises after moments of understanding. Rather, faith is something that you cling to when understanding and reason lay dead. We don’t believe once we understand it—we believe in order to understand it. Saturday’s like that: offering a day of waiting, a day of ambiguity, a day when God is sovereign even if our ideas and theologies and expectations about him are not. It is the day that our ignorance is our witness and our proclamation. Truth is, our intellect will always be one step behind in our love of God. We don’t love God once we understand him; we love God in order to understand him. ....

At times, we are all like the two disciples on their way to Emmaus who were really close to Jesus but didn’t always know it. In Luke 24, two disciples walked away from Jerusalem, where they’d just seen their Lord and Master die on the cross. Leaving, dejected, upset, hopeless, and broken, to find the next stage in their lives and careers. Unbeknownst to them, Jesus had been resurrected and was actually walking alongside them on their way to Emmaus. The hope of Sunday hadn’t dawned on them yet. The Gospels tell us that, on their way to Emmaus, the disciples were “downcast.”

That experience is the kind of experience Saturday is all about. .... (more)

This is from A.J. Swoboda's A Glorious Dark: Finding Hope in the Tension between Belief and Experience, excerpted in Christianity Today.

Sitting, Waiting, and Hoping in the Tomb of Jesus | Christianity Today

Good Friday

Kevin Williamson:

This week, Christians around the world will observe Good Friday, the most somber day on the liturgical calendar. The word good in Good Friday expresses an older sense of the adjective: holy, rather than desirable or positive. .... Good Friday is not an observance for the sort of person who insists he has “no regrets.” I don’t know what you do with somebody like that. But for people who understand, even if it is only at some instinctive level, the necessity of penance and reconciliation, Good Friday can be useful and purpose-giving, if not joyous. It isn’t only the joyous things that we need.

Kevin D. Williamson, "The Indictment and the Problem of Discretion," The Dispatch, April 3, 2023.

"Love one another"

Kevin DeYoung:

.... If you've never heard the term, it's not Monday-Thursday (which always confused me as a kid), but Maundy Thursday, as in Mandatum Thursday. Mandatum is the Latin word for "command" or "mandate", and the day is called Maundy Thursday because on the night before his death Jesus gave his disciples a new command. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34).

At first it seems strange that Christ would call this a new command. After all, the Old Testament instructed God's people to love their neighbors and Christ himself summarized the law as love for God and love for others. So what's new about love? What makes the command new is that because of Jesus' passion there is a new standard, a new examplar of love.

There was never any love like the dying love of Jesus. It is tender and sweet (John 13:33). It serves (John 13:2-17). It loves even unto death (John 13:1). Jesus had nothing to gain from us by loving us. There was nothing in us to draw us to him. But he loved us still, while we were yet sinners. ....

"To lay aside His crown..."

A good Lenten hymn. The last two verses here were unfamiliar to me, but I like them.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To lay aside his crown for my soul, for my soul,
To lay aside his crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb who is the great I AM;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.

Then friends shall meet again, who have loved, who have loved,
Then friends shall meet again, who have loved;
Then friends shall meet again, in Jesus' presence, when
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved, who have loved,
We'll meet to part no more, who have loved.

Ye winged seraphs, fly! Bear the news, bear the news.
Ye winged seraphs fly! bear the news;
Ye winged seraphs fly! Like comets through the sky,
Fill vast eternity with the news, with the news,
Fill vast eternity with the news!

Anonymous; composite; 19th cent.

Tune: WONDROUS LOVE (6.6.6.3.6.6.6.6.6.3.)

American folk tune; The Southern Harmony, 1840

Conjubilant with Song included this about the hymn, which first appeared in 1811:

The tune for this hymn, adapted from an earlier folk tune, was first printed in the second edition of William Walker's The Southern Harmony (1840), in three-part harmony (and with only one stanza of the text). There have been many different arrangements of the tune since then, not only in hymnals but also as choral anthems and instrumental pieces.

Conjubilant with Song: Like Comets Through the Sky

An image

Re-posted:

I've posted about the Shroud of Turin on this blog several times. In 2009 I wrote:

The Shroud of Turin is the one religious relic that has intrigued me over the years, not as an object of reverence, but because of the possibility it could be authentic. Might there be an actual image of Jesus as well as evidence for His execution and possibly even the resurrection which had been preserved until a time when science could authenticate it? I should have known better — controversy about this sort of thing never ends and there is never enough evidence to erase all doubt. Nevertheless, the seemingly inexplicable nature of the image, the things a medieval artist would have been unlikely to know like the wounds on the wrists rather than the palms and the similarity to actual Roman methods of crucifixion, made the possibilities of the Shroud extremely interesting. .... (more)

The New York Post published an AI-generated image based on the shroud:

Olivia Land, "Face of Jesus? AI recreates stunning likeness of Shroud of Turin image that many believe to be Christ," New York Post, August 22, 2024.

"Every Holy Week thereafter..."

Dorothy L. Sayers and C.S. Lewis were friends. CSL wrote about their relationship: "She was the first person of importance who ever wrote me a fan letter. I liked her, originally, because she liked me; later, for the extraordinary zest and edge of her conversation—as I like a high wind. She was a friend, not an ally." Lewis approved of The Man Born to be King, a series of radio plays she had written for the BBC.

Lewis read the radio plays when her book was first published and then every Holy Week thereafter. This is the first letter he wrote her, on May 30, 1943:

Dear Miss Sayers— I’ve finished The Man Born to be King and think it a complete success. (Christie the H.M. of Westminster told me that the actual performances over the air left his 2 small daughters with “open and silent mouths” for several minutes). I shed real tears (hot ones) in places: since Mauriac’s Vie de Jesus nothing has moved me so much. I’m not absolutely sure whether Judas for me “comes off”—i.e. whether I shd. have got him without your off-stage analysis. But this may be due to merely reading what was meant to be heard. He’s quite a possible conception, no doubt: I’m only uncertain of the execution. But that is the only point I’m doubtful on. I expect to read it times without number again…. Yours sincerely C.S. Lewis (Collected Letters, II, 577f)

The Man Born to Be King is available at Amazon.

"Who is the ultimate sovereign..."

Meir Soloveichik on "America and the Exodus":

.... Ben Franklin made this proposal for a seal for the United States: “Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his Head and a Sword in his Hand. Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by Command of the Deity. Motto, Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

Franklin’s suggestion reminds us that the Haggadah’s central exhortation—that we must see ourselves as if we had been slaves in Egypt and had been guided out by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm—is not only a religious idea but also one with political and moral implications. The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has noted that modernity was formed by four revolutions: the British (in 1688) and American on the one hand, and the French and Russian on the other. In Britain and America, one source of inspiration was the Hebrew Bible. Secular philosophy guided the French and Russian revolutions. The former led to free societies, while French and Russian utopian revolutions ended in tyranny.

Why, asks Sacks, did Britain and America succeed where France and Russia failed?

The explanation is surely complex but much—perhaps all—turns on how a society answers the question: who is the ultimate sovereign, God or man?.... For the British and American architects of liberty, God was the supreme power.... For the French and Russian ideologists, ultimate value lay in the state...when human beings arrogate supreme power to themselves, politics loses its sole secure defense of freedom.... Societies that exile God lead to the eclipse of man. .... (more)

Cecil B. DeMille made two movies titled The Ten Commandments, a silent version in 1923 (poster above) and the more familiar one starring Charlton Heston as Moses.

 Meir Soloveichik, "America and the Exodus," The Free Press, April 10, 2025.

"The notion of 'Christian fiction' is problematic..."

Paul Kingsnorth is a novelist and an adult convert to Christianity. From "The promise and peril of the 'Christian novel'":

The notion of 'Christian fiction' is problematic in the same fashion as is the notion of a 'protest song.' Consider: how many good protest songs have you ever heard, in comparison with the number of bad or terrible ones? I would be willing to bet that the latter list was a lot longer, and the reason is simple enough: polemic and poetry don't mix. Making a point or pushing an agenda sits very badly with the task of exploring the complexity of human being in all its fullness. ....

C.S. Lewis once claimed that it was much harder to present the Christian story to a post-Christian culture than to a pre-Christian one, and today we can see how true this claim is. Where I come from, people are largely inoculated against Christianity, or what they imagine Christianity to be. The history, the cultural baggage, the half-formed prejudices: all of these are compounded by a stark lack of understanding of what the Christian Way really is. Recently I was admonished by an editor for making a reference to one of Jesus's well-known parables in an article I was writing. 'Young readers today', she said, 'won't understand the reference.' I was shocked. When I was young, we all knew these things even if we didn't believe them. No more. The shared stories we once took for granted are blowing away on the wind. For all of these reasons, a Christian who wants to write a novel which even touches on his or her faith faces a steep climb. ....

How could a Christian write a novel in times like these, and what models might we have? Recently I read C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, which I thought was a brave attempt to disguise the Christian pattern of the universe in sci-fi clothing. Some of it was inspiring or intriguing: the treatment of space as heaven — literally — and the portrait of an Earth occluded by evil spirits and thus cut off from God since ancient times, offers up powerful images to the imagination. That Hideous Strength, the final novel in the trilogy, points at our current spiritual dilemma with perspicacity. Lewis's ambitious, grand sweep of a tale showed me how a conceptual trilogy about the spiritual realities of Heaven and Earth could be constructed. But the novels are dated now, as any book written about space exploration in the 1940s would be. ....

Last year I was approached by the editor of the Buechner Review, a publication dedicated to the work of an author I had never heard of, and asked if I would write something for them. What they told me about him piqued my interest: Buechner was a novelist who had become a Christian — indeed, a Christian pastor — and then had to answer for himself the question of how to reconcile the two callings. So I said yes, and then I sat down with Buechner’s 1980 novel, Godric, which is a fictionalised account of the life of  St Godric of Finchale. ....

What he does is, in some ways, almost at the opposite end of the spectrum to the one that Lewis was inhabiting. While the Space Trilogy spreads itself over the widest vista imaginable, both literally and conceptually, Godric is a small book, in its scope if not its concerns — or its writing. Buechner sets out to tell the story of one obscure saint in one period of time in one particular place, and through that to illuminate the spiritual struggle that is the Christian Way. He does so, in my opinion, with great success. .... (more)

Paul Kingsnorth, "The promise and peril of the 'Christian novel,'" The Abbey of Misrule, April 9, 2025.

"All-or-nothing"

Michael at Shadow to Light usually takes on the arguments of atheists. This time, he posts on a subject that will annoy some Christians: "The First Chapters of Genesis":

There are many Christians who argue that the first chapters of Genesis must be read as literal history. What’s more, if you refuse to embrace such an interpretation, you are rejecting the Bible, therefore rejecting Christianity. I don’t agree. In fact, when I read the first chapters of Genesis, it’s seems clear (to me) that we are dealing with a significant amount of symbolism. In other words, Genesis reads more like symbolic history, an allegory that is conveying deeper truths about our past and who we are. The literalists would disagree, arguing that unless Genesis is literal history, describing things as they happened, it’s nothing more than a fantasy. And of course, atheists everywhere are happy to weigh in and agree with this all-or-nothing thinking. ....

He intends to do a series on the subject: "First, I want to lay out some of reasons I think Genesis is meant to be interpreted as symbolic history. Second, consider some of the truths that Genesis is conveying. Finally, consider what would be the historical truths."

Michael, "The First Chapters of Genesis," Shadow to Light, April 6, 2025.

Moderation is out of style

Dave Cieslewicz is a former mayor (2003-2011) of the politically liberal city where I've lived since 1970. He writes a regular column for a free weekly publication called Isthmus. He defines himself ideologically as "a moderate, center-left, nonpartisan Democrat," which means he doesn't fit comfortably in today's Democratic party. He recently felt the need to explain himself:

.... Moderation is as much a way of living as it is a form of political commentary. I believe in moderation in all things. I drink, but not too much. I’ve cut my red meat consumption, but I’d never be a vegan. I like to cross-country ski, but I’ve never done a Birkie. I’ve done half marathons but never the full deal. And, when it comes to politics, I’ll settle for a half loaf most days and, on really bad days, even the crumbs look pretty good to a guy who’s hungry for any progress at all.

Being center-left is an ideological distinction. I support the free market as the basic way of organizing our economy and our society. But I don’t think the market has all the answers all the time. The broader society holds values that the market, left entirely to its own devices, might not respect. So we need sensible regulations to, for example, protect workers and the environment. ....

But here comes the “nonpartisan” part. I don’t avoid criticizing Democratic pols or the party as a whole when it does stuff that I don’t agree with or which I think is politically stupid. (And there’s a lot of that going around these days.) And I won’t criticize a Republican just for being one. In the rare moments when they do something I agree with, I don’t have any trouble saying so.

I find myself in the middle, shading to the left of dead center. On the one hand, the Republicans have just gone off the cliff, devolving into something very close to a fascist party. And yet the Democrats have evolved into a party of condescending, college-educated snobs who hold views on social issues that I find both odd and extreme. What I mean by that, mostly, is the penchant on the hard-left to view everything in terms of race and gender, literally black and white. They see a world of victims and oppressors and all that matters is your membership in one group or the other, a membership assigned to you and over which you have no control.

By stark contrast, I see people primarily as individuals and mostly responsible for their own lot in life. I think people have a lot of personal agency. I don’t see them as helpless victims of the system. I believe in a color blind society. I’m for equality but not “equity,” which has come to mean active discrimination to make up for past discrimination. And all of that sets me apart from a good chunk of the activist part of the Democratic Party. .... (more)

Dave Cieslewicz, "Explaining myself," Isthmus, April 5, 2025.

“Whistle While You Work”

Comparing the 2025 Snow White to the one released in 1937, Disney's first full-length animated film:

.... The 2025 film brazenly removes the heart of the original film’s princess. It was dead on arrival.

The 1937 Snow White is the only Disney princess film that includes a literal depiction of prayer. Many age-old stories contain allegories for divine intervention (fairy godmothers, for instance), but in the original Snow White, the princess kneels at her bedside and prays. She prays for the seven dwarves, for Grumpy to like her, and for her dreams to come true—namely, that someday, her “prince will come.” (Lest we forget, the prince was a man she knew and liked from her time at the castle, not a complete stranger.) She prays for safety.

And her prayers are answered. The evil queen is vanquished by a lightning strike from the heavens. Divine help is integral in the 1937 film; the dwarves, the prince, and the princess just participate in it.

In the live-action film, there is no prayer for love and marriage. Not only that, desiring such things is ridiculed. ....

In the classic, Snow White sweeps while singing “Whistle While You Work.” In the remake, she noticeably offloads the broom to one of the dwarves. The filmmakers are clearly trying to remove any insinuation that cooking and cleaning are women’s work. But the Snow White in the original is defined by cheerful acceptance of such duties—performed in gratitude for the dwarves’ hospitality—and hopeful optimism in the face of hardship and persecution. In the new version, Snow White is despondent and worn down by injustice. The impression one is left with is that the filmmakers rewrote the character because they simply do not like Snow White. .... (more)

The illustration is from the 1937 version. I do have the '37 Snow White on Blu-ray. I should watch it again.

Mary Rose Somarriba, "How Disney Killed Snow White," First Things, April 4, 2025.

“For the Snark was a Boojum, you see”

I've been looking through the archive of Michael Dirda's essays again. Here, he writes an appreciation of Lewis Carroll, especially The Hunting of the Snark:

On July 18, 1874, Carroll was out walking when a sentence suddenly popped into his head: “For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.” Most people would immediately wonder: What’s a Snark? What’s a Boojum? In fact, 150 years later, we’re still wondering whenever we read or reread his great nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark — which, by the way, has no established connection with the contemporary use of “snark,” meaning mockingly sarcastic.

At this time, Carroll was already quite familiar with bizarre creatures bearing strange names. Hadn’t he previously imagined the Jabberwock — “the jaws that bite, the claws that catch” — as well as the Jubjub bird and the frumious Bandersnatch? Those fearsome beasts first appeared in the heroic ballad “Jabberwocky,” part of Through the Looking-Glass, which also includes that other favorite of versified nonsense, “The Walrus and the Carpenter”:

The time has come,” the Walrus said,

To talk of many things;

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —

Of cabbages — and kings

And why the sea is boiling hot —

And whether pigs have wings.

In “Jabberwocky” — a frequent choice for grade-school recitation — an intrepid young champion, using a vorpal blade that goes snicker-snack, defeats a fearsome dragon-like creature. Its tale of derring-do grew out of four lines that, years earlier, Carroll had titled “Stanza From the Anglo-Saxon”:

Twas brillig and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

....Like any classical epic, The Hunting of the Snark starts in medias res. After sailing for many months and weeks, 10 adventurers finally land on an island that is — in the very first words of the poem — “Just the place for a Snark!” ....

Throughout these wonderfully lilting 141 stanzas one mystery or puzzle succeeds another. To begin with, we’re not precisely sure why the group is searching for a Snark. However, we do learn five ways to identify one that is “genuine,” implying that there are fake or imitation Snarks running about. A true Snark, says the Bellman, tastes crispy when cooked, gets up late in the morning, can’t take a joke, is ambitious and has a “fondness for bathing-machines/ Which it constantly carries about,/ And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes —/ A sentiment open to doubt.”

Some Snarks, we’re also told, have feathers and bite; others have whiskers and scratch. You might also occasionally encounter one that is a Boojum. This would be particularly dire for the Baker, the most agitated figure in the poem. Not only did he absent-mindedly leave his 42 boxes of luggage behind, but he is apparently called the Baker because he has somehow forgotten his actual name. Still, he vividly remembers the parting words of his uncle:

But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,

If your Snark be a Boojum! For then

You will softly and suddenly vanish away,

And never be met with again!

.... (more)

The book illustrated above is from my library. Martin Gardner also authored annotated editions of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass in The Annotated Alice.

Michael Dirda, "What is a Snark? For Lewis Carroll, a whimsical creature we’ll never know," The Washington Post, August 22, 2024.