Today is a day of great import and significance in the history of the world.
In 411 BC, Athenians pulled a successful coup of the existing democracy, establishing an Oligarchy of 400 aristocratic men who didn't want to share ruling power with the poor masses. In US history, this is known as the American Revolution. The Oligarchy didn't last long and was replaced by the earlier form of Democracy in which everyone had a vote (provided that he wasn't poor, foreign, nor disqualified by reason of being mad, frivolous, or a woman) ... also known as the American Revolution.
In 53 AD, Emperor Nero of Rome married Claudia Octavia. It must not have worked out because he committed suicide a mere 15 years later after quoting the entire Aeneid and, at the last, exclaiming, "Qualis artifex pereo!" usually translated as, "What an artist dies in me!"
In 1856, the Mormons set off from Iowa on the Mormon trail as described in their most holy religious text, The Book of Mormon. Proving how forward-thinking they were, they allowed polygamy from the jump and it took a mere century and a half for them to allow the priesthood to "all worthy men," ending the long-standing policy of excluding Black men.
In 1954, Joseph N. Welch spelled the end of the McCarthy hearings with the epic rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" 70 years later, in 2024, former president and current Felon-in-Chief T**** responded with, "Decency? I don't know what that is. I've heard there's seven seas and sea to shining sea. But I don't know anything about decency."
There's several notable birthdays today:
Czar Peter I of Russia was born on this day in 1672. He is most notable for instituting a "beard tax" in order to force the Russian people to Westernize. The Russian Orthodox Church declared being clean-shaven to be blasphemous and the police were empowered to forcibly shave people not found carrying a beard token (which looks like Salvador Dali as a coin). So I feel like he should be made a patron saint of WASPs.
Hazard Stevens was born on this day in 1842. He was an officer in the Union army, a mountaineer, a politician and an author. He received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Ft. Huger. He and Philemon Beecher Van Trump made the first documented climb of Mt. Rainier. While all that is very cool and impressive, really the most important thing about Hazard Stevens is that his name was Hazard and ain't that the most badass of badass names?
Side note, Philemon Beecher Van Trump insisted on calling the Battle of Ft. Huger the Battle of Ft. YUGE-r.
The blues singer Skip James was born on this day in 1902. His stuff is all amazing, but I'm particularly fond of Devil Got My Woman. He played a 12-string Stella guitar restrung as a six-string which was NOT made by luthier Les Paul, who was born 13 years later in 1915.
Dick Vitale of sports broadcasting fame was born a year later in 1916. I met him once at a Jillians I was managing. Johnny Depp and notable rapper Natalie Portman were both born on this day in 1963 and 1981 respectively. I ... don't have much to say about them. But I assume everyone knows who they are.
Today is the feastday of four of my favorite saints.
St. Ephrem the Syrian died on this day sometime in the late 4th century. He was known as the "Harp of the Holy Spirit" for his many hymns. Here is one which I particularly love:
Your mother is a cause of wonder:
the Lord entered into her and became a servant;
he who is the Word entered and became silent within her;
Thunder entered her and made no sounds;
there entered The Shepherd of all, and in her He became the Lamb, bleating as He comes forth.
Praise to You to whom all things are easy, for You are almighty.
Your mother's womb has reversed the roles:
the Establisher of all entered into His richness, but came forth poor;
the Exalted one entered her, but came forth meek;
the Splendrous one entered her, but came forth having put on a lowly hue.
Praise to You to whom all things are easy, for You are almighty.
The Mighty one entered, and put on insecurity from her womb;
the Provisioner of all entered and experienced hunger;
He who gives drink to all entered and experienced thirst;
naked and stripped there came forth from her He who clothes all!
Praise to You to whom all things are easy, for You are almighty.
St. Columba died on this day in 597 AD. He copied a psalter by the light of his own hand, fought a battle to get it back (after it was taken in one of the first copyright cases), was banished from Ireland to Scotland to save the same amount of souls he was responsible for killing in the battle, chased away the Loch Ness Monster with the Sign of the Cross and sang down the doors of Urquehart Castle so he could preach to a recalcitrant Pictish king. And probably made the Book of Kells. I love him. He wrote the following hymn, "Im aonarán dom ins an slied"...
Alone with none but thee, my God,
I journey on my way:
What need I fear when thou art near,
O King of night and day?
More safe am I within thy hand
Than if a host should round me stand.
My destined time is known to thee,
And death will keep his hour;
Did warriors strong around me throng,
They could not stay his power:
No walls of stone can man defend
When thou thy messenger dost send.
My life I yield to thy decree,
And bow to thy control
In peaceful calm, for from thine arm
No power can wrest my soul:
Could earthly omens e’er appal
A man that heeds the heavenly call?
The child of God can fear no ill,
His chosen, dread no foe;
We leave our fate with thee, and wait
Thy bidding when to go:
’Tis not from chance our comfort springs,
Thou art our trust, O King of kings.
Although they didn't die on this day and their Catholic/Orthodox feastdays aren't on this day, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America celebrates both St. Aidan of Lindisfarne and Bede the Venerable. St. Aidan appears to be the patron of introverts:
Leave me alone with God as much as may be.
As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore,
make me an island, set apart,
alone with you, God, holy to you.
Bede is the Father of English history and is the main source of much knowledge about early British, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Christianity. He's also the source of the "Easter = Pagan Goddess" thing. And by the source, I mean the ONLY source, as there is no archeological or contemporary evidence for the existence of said goddess, her worship, etc.
A Teotihuacan emperor named Atlatl Cauac or "Spearthrower Owl" died on this day in 439. That ... is a cooler name than Hazard.
Finally, Charles Dickens died on this day in 1870. I'm interested in the amount of people who read his works, or at least watch A Christmas Carol yearly, and somehow think that a government which engages in the welfare of its people, is somehow bad. He said in A Tale of Two Cities, "How it would have been a weakness in the government to break down in this attempt to practice, for popularity, on the lowest national antipathies and fears."
But what I really want to do is use this opportunity to give some Chesterton quotes about Charles Dickens. It's a bunch of quotes because I find that, whenever I read Chesterton, I just end up highlighting the entire book because it's all so good!!!
There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.
Fiction means the common things as seen by the uncommon people. Fairy tales mean the uncommon things as seen by the common people.
When some English moralists write about the importance of having character, they appear to mean only the importance of having a dull character.
Now, the error of Diogenes is evident. The error of Diogenes lay in the fact that he omitted to notice that every man is both an honest man and a dishonest man. Diogenes looked for his honest man inside every crypt and cavern; but he never thought of looking inside the thief.
It is in our own daily life that we are to look for the portents and the prodigies.... Compared with this life, all public life, all fame, all wisdom, is by its nature cramped and cold and small. For on that defined and lighted public stage men are of necessity forced to profess one set of accomplishments, to rise to one rigid standard. It is the utterly unknown people, who can grow in all directions like an exuberant tree.
Cruelty to animals is cruelty and a vile thing; but cruelty to a man is not cruelty, it is treason. Tyranny over a man is not tyranny, it is rebellion, for man is royal. Now, the practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is pitiful, but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades. This dark scientific pity, this brutal pity, has an elemental sincerity of its own; but it is entirely useless for all ends of social reform. Democracy swept Europe with the sabre when it was founded upon the Rights of Man. It has done literally nothing at all since it has been founded only upon the wrongs of man. Or, more strictly speaking, its recent failure has been due to its not admitting the existence of any rights, or wrongs, or indeed of any humanity. Evolution (the sinister enemy of revolution) does not especially deny the existence of God; what it does deny is the existence of man. And all the despair about the poor, and the cold and repugnant pity for them, has been largely due to the vague sense that they have literally relapsed into the state of the lower animals.
You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it. You cannot fight without something to fight for. To love a thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all; it is lust. It may be an airy, philosophical, and disinterested lust; it may be, so to speak, a virgin lust; but it is lust, because it is wholly self-indulgent and invites no attack. On the other hand, fighting for a thing without loving it is not even fighting; it can only be called a kind of horse-play that is occasionally fatal.
Much of our modern difficulty, in religion and other things, arises merely from this: that we confuse the word "indefinable" with the word "vague." If some one speaks of a spiritual fact as "indefinable" we promptly picture something misty, a cloud with indeterminate edges. But this is an error even in commonplace logic. The thing that cannot be defined is the first thing; the primary fact. It is our arms and legs, our pots and pans, that are indefinable. The indefinable is the indisputable. The man next door is indefinable, because he is too actual to be defined. And there are some to whom spiritual things have the same fierce and practical proximity; some to whom God is too actual to be defined.
It is currently said that hope goes with youth, and lends to youth its wings of a butterfly; but I fancy that hope is the last gift given to man, and the only gift not given to youth. Youth is pre-eminently the period in which a man can be lyric, fanatical, poetic; but youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged; God has kept that good wine until not. It is from the backs of the elderly gentlemen that the wings of the butterfly should burst.
The fierce poet of the Middle Ages wrote, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," over the gates of the lower world. The emancipated poets of to-day have written it over the gates of this world. But if we are to understand the story which follows, we must erase that apocalyptic writing, if only for an hour. We must recreate the faith of our fathers, if only as an artistic atmosphere. If, then, you are a pessimist, in reading this story, forego for a little the pleasures of pessimism. Dream for one mad moment that the grass is green. Unlearn that sinister learning that you think is so clear, deny that deadly knowledge that you think you know. Surrender the very flower of your culture, give up the very jewel of your pride, abandon hopelessness, all ye who enter here.
Herein is the whole secret of that eerie realism with which Dickens could always vitalize some dark or dull corner of London. There are details in the Dickens descriptions - a window, or a railing, or the keyhole of a door - which he endows with demoniac life. The things seem more actual than things really are. Indeed, that degree of realism does not exist in reality: it is the unbearable realism of a dream. And this kind of realism can only be gained by walking dreamily in a place; it cannot be gained by walking observantly. Dickens himself has given a perfect instance of how these nightmare minutiae grew upon him in his trance of abstraction. He mentions among the coffee-shops into which he crept in those wretched days one in St. Martin's Lane, "of which I only recollect that it stood near the church, and that in the door there was an oval glass plate with 'COFFEE ROOM' painted on it, addressed towards the street. If I ever find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, but where there is such an inscription on glass, and read it backwards on the wrong side, MOOR EEFFOC (as I often used to do then in a dismal reverie), a shock goes through my blood." That wild word, "Moor Eeffoc," is the motto of all effective realism; it is the masterpiece of the good realistic principle - the principle that the most fantastic thing of all is often the precise fact. And that elvish kind of realism Dickens adopted everywhere. His world was alive with inanimate objects.
