The Catholic Spirit In Modern English Literature

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The publisher of this book utilises modern printing technologies as well as photocopying processes for reprinting and preserving rare works of literature that are out-of-print or on the verge of becoming lost. This book is one such reprint. Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER TWO KKNELM DIGBY AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE PAST "Neither for gold nor for gifts did I undertake this book so great and difficult . . . only, I prayed that my book might be beautiful." Gaelic Monk, X!!th Centubt. THE discovery of a romantic past and its application as a creative force in literature was due, beyond any doubt, to the genius of Sir Walter Scott. His festive mind, browsing amid heaps of ragged books which the generations immediately preceding had frowned upon, and searching the landscape of Scotland for the sites of chivalric prowess, admired the Christian Ages for their picturesque strength. Scott's neighbors had largely tired of the sour, matter-of-fact philosophy which had been provided for them, and read his tales with abounding delight. The virility of the Waverly Novels was a tremendous thing; on account of them new literary currents began to move in Europe generally, and America imbibed so much of their teaching that Mark Twain's diatribe on the chivalry of the South was by no means directed at an abstraction. Sir Walter, however, was quite content with the role of entertainer, and it was probably as much of a surprise to him as to anyone when a French disciple of Rousseau, Fran9ois-Rene de Chateaubriand, followed him into the romantic past, accepted the old faith, andpublished the first part of "La Genie du Christianisme" just as the bells of Notre Dame were ringing out again, after a silence of twelve years. In this and in his subsequent defenses of the Catholic Spirit Chateaubriand missed something of the peace of God; as a French critic says, he "presents Christianity not as a safe port amidst the storm, but rather as the storm itself which would carry men into a new world." He had more than a little of the pose of an explorer who is en...

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