Ladydale Diary
Saint Martha, 2021
This is a week which begins and ends with travel. Last Friday I drove to Charleston on the other end of the state and this Friday (tomorrow) I will fly to Chicago.
The purpose of my trip to Charleston last weekend was to give a talk at the CIRCE Institute national conference and to accept an award at the conference on behalf of my friend, Anthony Esolen, who was unable to make the journey south from his home in New Hampshire.
For those who don’t know, the CIRCE Institute is one of the leading organizations in the United States promoting classical education. I gave a talk entitled “Exalting the Humble: The Glory of Humility” and another brief talk in acceptance of Dr. Esolen’s award. In the afterglow following the banquet at which I made the aforementioned acceptance speech, I visited a cigar bar near the hotel in which the conference was being held, at which a bizarre human menagerie of all sorts of people were gathered. The eccentric nature of the clientele was characterized by one tattooed young man who was wearing an eight-foot long albino python around his neck, which he proceeded to hand to his friends and, at some point, let loose to slither on the floor.
From the cigar bar I proceeded to a room in the hotel at which several people were gathering to discuss highbrow philosophical topics. I became embroiled in a discussion about quidditas, haecceitas and individuation as understood in Thomist and Scotist scholasticism. Feeling that I needed something a little less challenging, involving more levitas and less gravitas, I slipped out with a friend for a nightcap at a nearby whisky bar, where a glass of Elijah Craig rounded off a very enjoyable day.
On the following morning, I rose early, bought myself a coffee to go and drove back home. Leaving at 7:30, I was home by 10:30, enabling me to enjoy a relatively relaxing weekend with the family. Susannah and Evangeline had a social event to attend on Saturday afternoon and they went to a play on Sunday afternoon, which meant that I got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with Leo. On Sunday evening, we sat down for an Agatha Christie movie night, watching Death on the Nile, which I thought much better than Murder on the Orient Express, which we watched a few weeks ago.
On Monday, I gave a video interview to a Catholic organization in Brazil on various aspects of my work, including Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, Chesterton and literature in general, as well as the connection between distributism, the ideas of E. F. Schumacher and Catholic social teaching, as discussed in my book Small is Still Beautiful. In the evening I went to a local restaurant to meet a young man who had driven from Knoxville to see me. He’s a recent convert and was full of enthusiasm for the Faith.
On Tuesday, I wrote my weekly offering for the Imaginative Conservative, focusing on Belloc’s Path to Rome, which members of the Inner Sanctum will know that we’ve been reading for over a year. I also wrote an article on “Our Lady in Literature” for Inside the Vatican.
On Wednesday morning I had a phone meeting with my publisher to discuss the marketing of a new book of mine, which will be published in the autumn. I’m going to refrain from offering further details at this point. Then, after lunch, I had an online meeting with a media production company to discuss the possibility of turning my verse drama, Death Comes for the War Poets, into a film. Again, I’m going to remain coy at this point. It’s too early to know if anything will come of this. Yesterday evening, to end a long and busy day, I taught my online class on Tolkien for Memoria College.
This morning (Thursday), I’ve been concentrating on delivering content to the Inner Sanctum. I’ve recorded the first of what will be a min-series on Tolkien’s philosophy of myth, I read poems by three Jesuit poets (Southwell, Hopkins and Milward) to celebrate this week’s feast of Saint Ignatius Loyola, and, a long last, after more than a year, I trudged within the walls of the Eternal City with Hilaire Belloc as we finally concluded our marathon pilgrimage on the Path to Rome. I invite you to listen to all these newly posted podcasts and, if you’re relatively new to the Inner Sanctum, to plunge into the ocean of podcasts and posts to be found lurking in the archives and hidden corridors of this exclusive corner of my world. Thanks for joining me!
This afternoon, I need to pack and otherwise prepare for my trip to the Chesterton Conference in Chicago this weekend. I’m also planning to do some shopping for Susannah’s birthday, which is next week, and then, this evening, I’m taking Evangeline and Leo to a local Thai restaurant.
Before closing, a quick note on the portrait sketch which illustrates this week’s diary. It’s by my friend, Igor Babailov, the great Russian artist, now based in Tennessee, who is best-known for his portraits of the last three popes.
And thus ends another week of manifold blessings.
