The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane.

New York: Washington Square Press. 1894/1962.

Why read it? (Novel) Stephen Crane had never experienced a battle. Yet he was able to portray vividly the mind and impressions of the ordinary foot soldier. You are there with Henry Fleming as he goes from a belief that he will be courageous in war to flight and then to re-engagement in the confusing and frustrating circumstances of the Civil War. However, this is not so much a war story as it is the portrait of the mind of a young recruit as he engages in his first experience of war. It’s a psychological and impressionistic novel. Crane had been much influenced by the philosophy of warfare as displayed in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Confusion, luck, irony and destruction of minds and bodies.

Sample quotes:

“He had the belief that real war was a series of death struggles with small time in between for sleep and meals; but since his regiment had come to the field the army had done little but sit still and try to keep warm.” p. 7. ………. “…sudden spatter of firing.” p. 9. ………. “They were going to look at war, the red animal—war, the blood-swollen God.” p. 27.

“During this halt many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills in front of them…used stones, sticks, earth, and anything they thought might turn a bullet…in a short time there was quite a barricade along the regimental fronts…. However, they were ordered to withdraw from that place.” p. 27. ………. “Some wished to fight like duelists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be, from their feet to their foreheads, a mark…but the others scoffed in reply, and pointed to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the ground like terriers.” p. 28. ………. “A shell screaming like a storm banshee went over the huddled heads of the reserves…landed in the grove, and exploding redly flung the brown earth…a little shower of pine needles.” p. 33.

“Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees; twigs and leaves came sailing down…as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded…. Men were constantly dodging and ducking their heads.” p. 33. ………. “The men dropped here and there like bundles.” p. 40. ………. “As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleaming on the trees and fields…. Surprising that nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.” p. 42.

“On his face was the horror of those things which he imagined.” p. 46. ………. “He had fled, he told himself, because annihilation approached…had done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece of the army…had considered the time to be one in which it was the duty of every little piece to rescue itself if possible…. Later the officers could fit the pieces together again, and make a battle front…. If none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the flurry of death at such a time, why, then where would be the army. …all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and commendable rules…actions had been sagacious…had been full of strategy.” p. 51.

Comment: And so, Henry Fleming had fled and justified it in his own mind. If he did not save himself, how would he live to fight another day? He would go on to be accidentally hit on the head by a fellow soldier’s rifle, would be bandaged up, would be, therefore, “wounded” and had received his “red badge of courage.” Now he could fight with courage as if he were one with all the other men around him. No question about it. Stephen Crane, without ever having experienced a battle, was able to vividly depict the mind and impressions of the foot soldier. An impressive novel. RayS.

Apologia Pro Vita Sua. (3)

John Henry Cardinal Newman. (3) Garden City, New York: Image Books.A Division of Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1864 (1956)

10-second review: Cardinal Newman’s reflections on his religious thoughts that led to his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism.

Sample quotes (3)

“I think history supplies us with instances in the Church, where legitimate power [of infallibility]has been harshly used. To make such admission is no more than saying that the divine treasure, in the words of the Apostle, is ‘in earthen vessels.’ ” p. 333. ………. One source of “error,” an idea whose time is not right. p, 334, ………. “…the question arises how are the respective claims of revelation and of natural science to be adjusted.” p. 335. ………. “To reconcile theory and fact is almost an instinct of the mind.” p. 335.

“It would ill become me, as if I were afraid of truth of any kind….” p. 336. ………. “…scientific knowledge is really growing, but it is by fits and starts; hypotheses rise and fall; it is difficult to anticipate which will keep their ground, and what the state of knowledge in relation to them will be from year to year.” p. 336. ………. “Nothing carried on by human instruments, but has its irregularities, and affords ground for criticism, when minutely scrutinized in matters of detail.” p. 337. ……….. Controversies begin at the lowest level and then gradually work themselves up toward the court of supreme power when all aspects of the controversy have been examined. p. 339. ……… A half-truth is in some sense a lie. p. 342.

Which Commandment condemns lying? The Ninth? “If then my lie does not injure my neighbor, certainly it is not forbidden by this Commandment.” [“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” p. 345. ………. Taylor: “To tell a lie for charity, to save a man’s life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of a prince, or a useful and a public person, hath not only been done at all times, but commended by great and wise and good men.” p. 345. ………. “…Taylor was a great writer, but great writers were not therefore infallible.” p. 349. ………. “…by insincerity and lying , faith and truth are lost, which are the firmest bonds of human society….” p. 351.

“Now, first, that the miraculous stories are treated, in the Life of St. Walburga, as legends and myths. Throughout, the miracles and extraordinary occurrences are spoken of as ‘said’ or ‘reported,’ and the suggestion is made that, even though they occurred, they might have been after all natural.” p. 379. ………. “In my essay on miracles of the Year 1826, I proposed three questions about a professed miraculous occurrence. 1. Is it antecedently probable? 2. Is it in its nature certainly miraculous? 3. Has it sufficient evidence? These are the three heads under which I still wish to conduct the inquiry into the miracles of Ecclesiastical History.” p. 391. ……….

“As Almighty God did not all at once introduce the Gospel to the world, and thereby gradually prepared men for its profitable reception….” p. 397. ……….“…the end for which language was instituted, viz. as signs of ideas.” p. 409.

Comment: This book is certainly not for everyone. It is not uniformly a great book. But it has moments when excellent language and ideas come together. RayS.

Apologia Pro Vita Sua (2)

John Henry Cardinal Newman. Garden City, New York: Image Books.A Division of Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1864 (1956)

10-second review: Cardinal Newman’s reflections on his religious thoughts that led to his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism.

Sample quotes:

"I am just like Protestants in that I hate any form of lying." p. 108. ………. “Kingsley insinuates, implies, questions, sneers and uses irony and parables, but does not categorically state his charges against Newman." p. 102. ………. “Away with you, Mr. Kingsley, and fly into space. Your name shall occur again as little as I can help, in the course of these pages. I shall henceforth occupy myself not with you, but with your charges.” p. 110.

The most important charge by Kingsley against Newman is untruthfulness. p. 111. ………. “I do not like to be called to my face a liar…. I know I have done nothing to deserve such an insult.” p. 124. ………. “…a visible Church with sacraments and rites which are the channels of invisible grace.” p. 164. ………. “The Oxford Movement and his turning to Catholicism were based on his reading of the ancient Christian Fathers.” p. 169.

Roman doctrine could have three different meanings: teachings of the early centuries; the dogmas contained in the Council of Trent and condensed in Pius IV’s creed; the popular beliefs of Catholics. p. 187. ………. “…the ancient Catholic Fathers say that the ‘Lord’s Supper’ is the salve of immortality, the sovereign preservative against death, the food of immortality, the healthful grace.” p. 191. ……….Distrusted “understandings” in which people agree to something without putting the agreements on paper. “I have hated them ['understandings'] ever since.” p. 197.

Who can know all the subtle influences that result in his behavior? p. 199. ………. Holiness the true test of a Church. p. 250. ………. True Church: successor to the Apostles, the creed believed by the Apostles and holiness. p. 251. ………. Liberalism the Antichrist? p. 281. ………. The idea of the Blessed Virgin and the Eucharist developed and magnified through the centuries. p. 285.

The principle of development of doctrine and Christian thought. p. 286. ……….. Newman’s changing religion and positions caused others to doubt his truthfulness. p. 291. ………. “People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original Revelation.” p. 318. ………. "On the matter of Transubstantiation: I can’t say why. But I also can’t say, ‘Why not?’ " p. 318. ………. On the idea of the Trinity. I can’t say why. But I can’t say, ‘Why not?’ p. 318.

"The existence of God is as certain as my own existence." p. 319. ………. “And thus I am brought to speak of the Church’s infallibility, as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the creator, to preserve religion in the world, and to restrain that freedom of thought, which of course in itself is one of the greatest of our natural gifts and rescue it from its own suicidal excesses.” p. 323. ………. “The energy of the human intellect ‘does from opposition grow.’ ” p. 328.

The limits of infallibility: “The great truths of the moral law, of natural religion, and of Apostolical faith are both its boundary and its foundation. It must not go beyond them, and it must ever appeal to them.” p. 329. ……….. Infallibility: “It must ever profess to be guided by Scripture and by tradition.” p. 329. ………. Infallibility: No absolutely new truth. Must be related to the old truths. p. 329. ………. “…Catholics have not come to believe it [the Immaculate Conception] because it is defined, but it was defined because they believed it.” p. 330.

Next Blog: Sample quotes (3)

Apologia Pro Vita Sua. John Henry Cardinal Newman (1)

Garden City, New York: Image Books. A Division of Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1864 (1956)

Why read it? If you are a fan of argumentation, you’ll love it. If you are interested in an explanation of Catholic doctrine, you will find it helpful. Otherwise, a good skimming is enough. By reputation, Dr. Newman was well known as the staunch Anglican who converted to Catholicism. This book is a review of his religious thoughts leading to his conversion.

When Charles Kingsley suggested that Dr. Newman did not believe in truth for truth’s sake, inferred from some of Dr. Newman’s sermons while an Anglican, Dr. Newman got his dander up, stated accurately that he never said that and the two exchanged acerbic words about each other’s honesty. It was that exchange that led to Newman’s Apologia. Not an apology asking for forgiveness, but an explanation of his thoughts on religion.

The Oxford Movement, as part of Newman's Anglican career, began with a study of the early Christian Fathers, which then led to his converting to Catholicism.

One section at the end of the book deals with the whole topic of lying that is really very interesting with all sorts of quotes on the topic. The only mention of a lie in the Ten Commandments is the Ninth in which we are commanded not to bear false witness against our neighbors. But Newman cites any number of examples that seem to imply lying—half-truths, silence, etc.—that seem to be implied lies for the purpose of deceiving but are not forbidden as one of the Ten Commandments. So, is lying, except in the sense of the Ninth Commandment, a sin?

Another interesting section concerns Catholicism, especially its belief in miracles, which Kingsley had called incredible and unscientific, without any good evidence. And Newman also presents a masterful explanation of the Catholic belief in the Pope’s infallibility. He points out as part of that explanation the belief that the development of Catholic doctrines takes time, even centuries, before being promulgated as Catholic doctrines.

Newman is opposed to what he calls “Liberalism,” which he defines as making the world and its daily existence more important for people than the afterlife with God.

In writing style, his sentences tend to be long and convoluted. I start a sentence and I wonder, “When will it ever end?” For example, this sentence on page 202: “After thus stating the phenomenon of the time, as it presented itself to those who did not sympathize in it, the Article proceeds to account for it; and this it does by considering it as a re-action from the dry and superficial character of religious teaching and the literature of the last generation, or century, and as a result of the need which was felt both by the hearts and the intellects of the nation for a deeper philosophy, and as the evidence and as the partial fulfillment of that need, to which even the chief authors of the then generation had borne witness.” Now that’s a jaw full.

Why read it? For those interested in a defense of the Catholic religion; for those who want to read a masterful argument in response to perceived charges of untruthfulness, you will be rewarded with some thought-provoking ideas. For most people, the argument develops so slowly and in such often convoluted logic that reading a single sentence a page will help you find the interesting parts, the parts that are direct and clear. Reading a single sentence a page is one method of what Francis Bacon describes as “Some books are to be tasted.” To which I add, “…and when caught up in the flow of the text, keep reading.” RayS.

Next Blog: Sample quotes (2)

Sense and Sensibility (Novel). Jane Austen.

Oxford, new York: Oxford University Press. 1811.

Why read it? Because Jane Austen writes excellent character sketches, conveys a vivid sense of the life in her social circle and has a wry sense of humor that will keep you chuckling—not laughing, but chuckling. In this contrast of personalities, Elinor represents sense. Marianne represents an intense emotional enthusiasm for everything she encounters.

Marianne can’t help criticizing everything. In the following quotes, she is especially hard on poor, old, decrepit Col. Brandon. Guess whom she ends up marrying?

Sample quotes:

“She [Elinor] had an excellent heart; Her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them; it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn, and which one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught.” p. 6. ………. “Marianne…was sensible and clever; but eager in everything; her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation….” p. 6. ………. Marianne on Edward’s reading: “…how spiritless, how tame was Edward’s manner in reading to us last night. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference…. If he is not to be animated by Cowper…. To hear him read with so little sensibility.” p. 17. [Without TV, people in Jane Austen’s day read aloud to provide entertainment to the family. Marianne, obviously, does not like Edward’s manner of reading. RayS.]

“She [Elinor] knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next—that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.” p. 21. ……….

“…Lady Middleton had taken the wise precaution of bringing with her their eldest child, a fine little boy about six years old, by which means there was one subject always to be recurred to by the ladies in case of extremity, for they had to inquire his name and age, admire his beauty, and ask questions which his mother answered for him, while he hung about her and held down his head, to the great surprise of her ladyship, who wondered at his being so shy before company as he could make noise enough at home…took up to ten minutes to determine whether the boy were most like his father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either.” p. 31.

“Mrs. Jennings was a widow…had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably marred, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world. Promotion of this object she was zealously active. Missed no opportunity of projecting weddings among all the young people of her acquaintance. Was remarkably quick in the discovery of attachments…always anxious to get a good husband for every pretty girl.” p. 36.

Marianne on thirty-five-year-old Col. Brandon: “Colonel Brandon is certainly younger than Mrs. Jennings, but he is old enough to be my father; and if he were ever animated enough to be in love, must have long outlived every sensation of the kind. Did you not hear him complain of the rheumatism? And is not that the commonest infirmity of declining life?” p. 37. ………. Marianne: “But he [Col. Brandon] talked of flannel waistcoats and with me a flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps, rheumatisms and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble.” p. 38. ………. Marianne: “I abhor every common-place phrase by which wit is intended; and ‘setting one’s cap at a man,’ or ‘making a conquest,’ are the most odious of all. Tendency is gross…and if their construction ever be deemed clever, time has long ago destroyed all its ingenuity.” p. 45.

Comment: The scene is set. Read the story. You will enjoy it. I enjoy everything that Jane Austen writes. It’s kind of fun to try to characterize the people I know and socialize with in the manner of Jane Austen. An interesting exercise in writing. RayS.

Silas Marner (Novel). George Eliot.

New York: Washington Square Press. 1861/ 1960.

Why read it? The following quotes set the scene of a rural people who were locked into an area beyond which they never traveled. The people consist of ordinary citizens and the wealthy farmers who ruled the town of Raveloe. Then one day, a stranger, a weaver, comes along. He is viewed with suspicion. He spends every day weaving “like a spider” and hoarding his gold coins. When he is robbed, he is crushed, but a young girl comes into his life and he once again has something beyond money to live for.

It’s hard for us in the modern world of automobiles and air liners to imagine a world that was as enclosed as the world of Silas Marner. But that is the world that George Eliot portrays vividly. It’s just a fairy tale with a realistic setting.

Sample quotes:

“”No one knew where wandering men had their homes or their origin; and how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother?” p. 1. ……….”To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery….” p. 1. ………. “All cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to the villagers, was in itself suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly not over-wise or clever—at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the weather….” p. 2. ………. "…and that was how folks got over-wise, for they went to school…to those who could teach them more than their neighbors could learn with their five senses and the parson.” p. 6.

“He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without reflection.” p. 17. ………. “…to reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect.” p. 18. ………. “His life had reduced itself to the functions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of an end toward which the functions tended.” p. 22.

The wealthy farmer: “The lives of those rural forefathers, whom we are apt to think very prosaic figures—men whose only work was to ride round their land, getting heavier and heavier in their saddles, and who passed the rest of their days in the half-listless gratification of senses dulled by monotony…and then what was left to them, especially when they had become too heavy for the hunt, or for carrying a gun over the furrows, but to drink and get merry, or to drink and get angry, so that they might be independent of variety, and say over again with eager emphasis the things they had said already any time that twelvemonth.” p. 35.

“…that if he had tried to give them utterance, he could only have said that the child was come instead of his gold—that the gold had turned into the child.” p. 158. ………. “No child was afraid of approaching Silas when Eppie was near him: there was no repulsion around him now, either for young or old; for the little child had come to link him once more with the whole world.” p. 169. ………. Silas: “But there’s this to be thought on, Eppie: things will change, whether we like it or no; things won’t go on for a long while just as they are and no difference.” p. 189.

Godfrey: “Nancy…when I married you, I hid something from you—something I ought to have told you…. The woman Marner found dead in the snow—Eppie’s mother—that wretched woman—was my wife. Eppie is my child.” p. 206. ………. Silas to Godfrey: “Then, Sir, why didn’t you say so sixteen years ago, and claim her before I’d come to love her i’stead o’ coming to take her from me now, when you might as well take the heart out i’ my body?” p. 214. ………. “…it is too late to mend some things….” p. 222.

Comment: For some reason I never read Silas Marner in junior or senior high school, even though it was standard 10^th-year literature. I became an English teacher at a time when “relevance” in literature was important, the late 60’s and middle 70’s. I remember a reference to Silas Marner in one of my professional journals in which the writer referred to Silas Marner as “that Silas Marner crap.” So I never assigned it either.

When I finally did read it, I was amazed at how entertaining it was. Eliot’s comments about life in general and rural society in particular, are delightful and thought-provoking. The scenes at the pub are hilarious. Her rendering of the language of the people is accurate. If you have not read it, I think you will enjoy it as I did. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) never wrote “crap.” RayS.

The Greek Way. Edith Hamilton.

Time. Inc. 1930 (1963).

Why read it? What made the ancient Greeks a unique culture? Greeks faced the ugliest matters with candor. Greeks created the scientific spirit. Greeks were protagonists for the mind in an irrational world. They observed the world around them and reasoned on what they observed. They did not depend on the "authorities." They knew that only the disinterested will find the truth.

The Greek spirit was to rejoice in life; the world is a beautiful place and delight to live in. Joy, sorrow, exultation, tragedy stood hand-in-hand in Greek literature. Even in the darkest moments, the Greeks did not lose their taste for life.

The tomb represented Egypt; the theater represented Greece. Believed in the exercise of vital powers along the lines of excellence. Believed that the mind ordered chaos. Believed that everything is to be examined and called into question. Philosophy was the love of knowledge. Reason makes man man.

The truth of poetry and the truth of science were both true. Art unites what is outside the mind with what is within. The Greeks saw the beauty of common things. No one who desired power was fit to wield it. The Greeks faced facts; did not desire to escape from them. The extent of freedom of speech in Athens would have been staggering to us.

A unique culture.

Sample quotes:

Editor’s Preface: “It is charming and instructive to find that…men of reason were not contemplative hermits.” p. xiii. ………. Time Reading Program Introduction: “To her [Edith Hamilton] what counted most in the Greeks was their gift for life, their taste for action and for thought, their positive, unwearying search for truth, their courage in facing even the ugliest matters with candor.” p. xvii. ………. “In their search for truth, which had for them a religious seriousness, the Greeks created the scientific spirit, which is perhaps the dominating and most impressive power in the modern world.” CM Bowra. p. xix.

“The Parthenon was raised in triumph to express the beauty and the power and the splendor of man….” p. 51. ………. “The English method [of poetry] is to fill the mind with beauty; the Greek method was to set the mind to work.” p. 67. ………. Pindar: “May God give me to aim at that which is within my power.” p. 85.

“…it is always to be borne in mind that the Greeks did not only face facts, they had not even a desire to escape from them.” p. 93. ………. “The society he [Plato] introduces us to is eminently civilized, of men delighting to use their minds, loving beauty and elegance…keenly alive to all the amenities of life, and, above all, ever ready for a talk on no matter how abstract and abstruse a subject.” p. 95. ………. Socrates: “I am a lover of knowledge…and men are my teachers.” p. 100.

“…Aristophanes is capable of more kinds of vulgarity and indecency than Shakespeare ever dreamed of.” p. 108. ………. “Aristophanes was amused by grand talk that covered empty content.” p. 125. ………. “He [Aristophanes] is so frank, so fearless, so completely without shame, one ends by feeling that indecency is just a part of life and a part of specially humorous possibilities.” p. 139.

Socrates: “Wisdom begins in wonder.” p. 145. ………. “Herodotus never judged or condemned.” p. 149. ………. Aeschylus: “All arrogance will reap a harvest rich in tears./ God calls men to a heavy reckoning/ For overweening pride.” p. 158.

Thucydides: “The thing that hath been is that which shall be.” p. 165. ………. “…circumstances swayed by human nature are bound to repeat themselves and in the same situation men are bound to act in the same way unless it is shown to them such a course in other days ended disastrously.” p. 165. ………. “His [Thucydides’] History of the Peloponnesean War is really a treatise on war, its cause and its effect.” p. 166.

“Power, whoever wields it, was evil, the corrupter of men.” p. 167. ………. “…great power brought about its own destruction.” p. 168. ………. "The arrogance that springs from a consciousness of power was the sin Greeks had always hated most.” p. 172.

Comment: Hamilton goes on to discuss Xenophon, the idea of tragedy, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Greek religion, and a comparison between the ancient Greeks and the modern world.

When John Kennedy was assassinated, someone, I think it was Jackie K., gave Bobby Kennedy a copy of Hamilton’s The Greek Way. By reading this book about the supreme realists, the Greeks, Bobby began once again to face the world. RayS.