My Opinion, My Conviction, Gains Immensely In

The Truth Is That A Lost Empire, Lost Power And Lost Wealth Provide Perfect Circumstances For Living Happily And Contentedly In Our Enchanted Island.

When I Look Back On My Life Nowadays, Which I Sometimes Do, What Strikes Me Most Forcibly About It Is That What Seemed At The Time Most Significant And Seductive, Seems Now Most Futile And Absurd. For Instance, Success In All Of Its Various Guises; Being Known And Being Praised; Ostensible Pleasures, Like Acquiring Money Or Seducing Women, Or Traveling, Going To And Fro In The World And Up And Down In It Like Satan, Exploring And Experiencing Whatever Vanity Fair Has To Offer. In Retrospect All These Exercises In Self-gratification Seem Pure Fantasy, What Pascal Called “licking The Earth.

Old Politicians, Like Old Actors, Revive In The Limelight. The Vacancy Which Afflicts Them In Private Momentarily Lifts When, Oncemore, They Feel The Eyes Of An Audience Upon Them. Their Old Passion For Holding The Centre Of The Stage Guides Their Uncertain Footsteps To Where The Footlights Shine, And Summons Up A Wintry Smile When The Curtain Rises.

Christianity . . . Sees The Necessity For Man To Have Spiritual Values And It Shows Him How To Get At Those Through Physical Sacraments.

One Of The Great Weaknesses Of The Progressive, As Distinct From The Religious, Mind, Is That It Has No Awareness Of Truth As Such; Only Of Truth In Terms Of Enlightened Expediency. The Contrast Is Well Exemplified In Two Exact Contemporaries - Simone Weil And Simone De Beauvoir; Both Highly Intelligent And Earnestly Disposed. In All The Fearful Moral Dilemmas Of Our Time, Simone Weil Never Once Went Astray, Whereas Simone De Beauvoir, With I Am Sure The Best Of Intentions, Has Found Herself Aligned With Apologists For Some Of The Most Monstrous Barbarities And Falsehoods Of History.