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Hilaire Belloc

Born 27 July 1870
La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France
Died July 16, 1953 (aged 82)
Guildford, England
Occupation Writer, Member of Parliament (1906-1910)
Nationality French-British
Writing period 1896-1953
Genres Poetry, History, Essays, Politics, Economics, Travel literature
Spouse(s) Elodie Hogan, 1896-1914

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953) was a French-born writer who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. Events 1214 - Battle of Bouvines: In France, Philip II of France defeats John of England. Year 1870 ( MDCCCLXX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common La Celle-Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Events 622 - The beginning of the Islamic calendar. 1054 - Three Roman legates fractured relations between the Western and Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Guildford ( IPA /ˈgɪlfəd/ is the County town of Surrey, England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Employment is a Contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. A writer is anyone who creates a written work although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally as well as those who have written in many different forms A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a Parliament. Nationality is a relationship between a Person and their State of Origin, Culture, association Affiliation and/or Loyalty This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located A literary genre is a category of literary composition Genres may be determined by Literary technique, tone, Content, or even (as in the case of fiction History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology An essay is usually a short piece of writing It is often written from an author's personal point of view. Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Travel literature is Travel writing considered to have value as Literature. Events 1214 - Battle of Bouvines: In France, Philip II of France defeats John of England. Year 1870 ( MDCCCLXX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 622 - The beginning of the Islamic calendar. 1054 - Three Roman legates fractured relations between the Western and Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. A writer is anyone who creates a written work although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally as well as those who have written in many different forms Naturalization is the acquisition of Citizenship or Nationality by somebody who was not a citizen or national of that country when he or she was born The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The twentieth century of the Common Era began on

Recent biographies of Belloc have been written by A. N. Wilson and Joseph Pearce. Andrew Norman Wilson (born 27 October, 1950) is an English writer known for his critical biographies novels and works of popular and cultural history Joseph Pearce (born 1961) is an English-born writer As of 2004 Writer in Residence and Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University in Naples

Contents

Life

Belloc was born in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France (next to Versailles and near Paris) to a French father and English mother, and grew up in England. La Celle-Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Versailles (vɛʀsaj in French) formerly de facto capital of the kingdom of France, is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and is still an important Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland

His mother Elizabeth Rayner Parkes (1829-1925) was also a writer, and a great-granddaughter of the English chemist Joseph Priestley. Joseph Priestley (13 March 1733 ( Old She married attorney Louis Belloc in 1867. In 1872, five years after they wed, Louis died, but not before being wiped out financially in a stock market crash. The young widow then brought her son Hilaire, along with his sister, Marie, back to England where he remained, except for his voluntary enlistment as a young man in the French artillery. Marie Adelaide Lowndes née Belloc (1868 - 1947 Mrs Belloc Lowndes, was an English Novelist, born in Marylebone London the only daughter of French

After being educated at John Henry Cardinal Newman's Oratory School Belloc served his term of military service, as a French citizen, with an artillery regiment near Toul in 1891. The Oratory School is an all-boys Catholic, boarding Public school in Great Britain Toul is a historic fortified town of France, a Sous-préfecture of the He was powerfully built, with great stamina, and walked extensively in Britain and Europe. While courting his future wife Elodie, whom he first met in 1890, the impecunious Belloc walked a good part of the way from the midwest of the United States to her home in northern California, paying for lodging at remote farm houses and ranches by sketching the owners and reciting poetry.

Hobbies

When later he could afford it he was a well known yachtsman as well as writer. He won many races and was in the French sailing team. In the early 1930s, he was given an old Jersey pilot cutter called 'Jersey'. The Bailiwick of Jersey ( Jèrriais: Jèrri) is a British Crown dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. He sailed this for some years around the coasts of England, with the help of younger men. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland One of whom, Dermond MacCarthy, wrote a book about his time on the water with Belloc, called Sailing with Mr Belloc (published 1986).

Politics

An 1895 graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, Belloc was a noted figure within the University, being President of the Oxford Union, the undergraduate debating society. Balliol College (ˈbeɪlɪəl founded in 1263 is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Status and membership The Oxford Union is an Unincorporated association, holding its property in trust in favour of its objectives and members and governed He went into politics after he became a naturalised British citizen. A great disappointment in his life was his failure to gain a fellowship at All Souls College in Oxford. A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade All Souls College (in full The Warden and College of the Souls of all Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges This failure may have been caused in part by his producing a small statue of the Virgin and placing it before him on the table during the interview for the fellowship. This ecumenical article is about general Christian views on and veneration of the Virgin Mary

From 1906 to 1910 he was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Salford South, but swiftly became disillusioned with party politics. The Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the rise of the Labour Party in the 1920s and a third party A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a Parliament. Salford South was a parliamentary constituency in the city of Salford in Greater Manchester. During one campaign speech he was asked by a heckler if he was a "papist. " Retrieving his rosary from his pocket he responded, "Sir, so far as possible I hear Mass each day and I go to my knees and tell these beads each night. If that offends you, then I pray God may spare me the indignity of representing you in Parliament. " The crowd cheered and Belloc won the election.

Professional writer

Belloc wrote on myriad subjects, from warfare to poetry and many topics current in his day. He was closely associated with G. K. Chesterton; George Bernard Shaw coined the term Chesterbelloc for their partnership. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936 was an influential English writer of the early 20th century George Bernard Shaw ( (26 July 1856 &ndash 2 November 1950 was an Irish Playwright.

His only period of steady employment was from 1914 to 1920 as editor of Land and Water, a journal devoted to the progress of the war. Land and Water was a British weekly Journal published from 1914 to 1920 edited by the well-known Catholic writer Hillaire Belloc and devoted Otherwise he lived by his pen, and often felt short of money.

Family

He was the brother of the novelist Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story Marie Adelaide Lowndes née Belloc (1868 - 1947 Mrs Belloc Lowndes, was an English Novelist, born in Marylebone London the only daughter of French In 1896, he married Elodie Hogan, an American. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the They had five children before her 1914 death from influenza. His son Louis was killed in in World War I. He suffered a stroke in 1941, and never recovered from its effects. He lived quietly at home in Guildford, England, until his death on 16 July 1953. Guildford ( IPA /ˈgɪlfəd/ is the County town of Surrey, England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Events 622 - The beginning of the Islamic calendar. 1054 - Three Roman legates fractured relations between the Western and Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. [1] At his funeral Mass, homilist Monsignor Ronald Knox observed, "No man of his time fought so hard for the good things. Msgr Ronald Knox ( February 17[[ 888]]- August 24[[ 957]] was an English theologian, Priest and Crime writer. "

Old Thunder

His style during later life complemented the nickname he received in childhood, Old Thunder. Belloc's friend, Lord Sheffield, described his provocative personality in a preface to The Cruise of the Nona. Arthur Lyulph Stanley 5th Baron Sheffield 5th Baron Stanley of Alderley and 4th Baron Eddisbury MA, KCMG (14 September 1875 &ndash 22 August 1931 was an English [2]

In Belloc's novel of travel, The Four Men, the title characters supposedly represent different facets of the author's personality. One of the four improvises a playful song at Christmastime, which includes the verse:

'May all good fellows that here agree
Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me,
And may all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!
May all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel!'

It should be noted that the other characters regard the verse as fairly gauche and ill-conceived, so while part of Belloc may have agreed with this somewhat offensive song, it is not necessarily representative of Belloc's personality as a whole.

In controversy and debate

Belloc first came to public attention shortly after arriving at Balliol College, Oxford as a recent French army veteran. Attending his first debate of the Oxford Union Debating Society, he saw that the affirmative position was wretchedly and half-heartedly defended. Status and membership The Oxford Union is an Unincorporated association, holding its property in trust in favour of its objectives and members and governed As the debate drew to its conclusion and the division of the house was called, he rose from his seat in the audience, and delivered a vigorous, impromptu defense of the proposition. Belloc won that debate from the audience, as the division of the house then showed, and his reputation as a debater was established. He was later elected president of the Union. He held his own in debates there with F. E. Smith and John Buchan, the latter a friend. Frederick Edwin Smith 1st Earl of Birkenhead, GCSI, PC ( 12 July 1872 – 30 September 1930) was a British John Buchan 1st Baron Tweedsmuir GCMG GCVO CH PC ( August 26, 1875 &ndash February 11, 1940 [3][4]

He was at his most effective in the 1920s, on the attack against H. G. Wells's Outline of History, in which he criticized Wells' secular bias and his belief in evolution by means of natural selection, a theory that Belloc asserted had been completely discredited. Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 &ndash 13 August 1946 He was an outspoken socialist and a pacifist, his later works becoming increasingly political The Outline of History, subtitled either " The Whole Story of Man " or " Being A Plain History of Life and Mankind Wells remarked that "Debating Mr. Belloc is like arguing with a hailstorm". Belloc's review of Outline of History famously observed that Wells' book was a powerful and well-written volume, "up until the appearance of Man, that is, somewhere around page seven. " Wells responded with a small book, Mr. Belloc Objects. [5] Not to be outdone, Belloc followed with, "Mr. Belloc Still Objects. "

G. G. Coulton, a keen and persistent academic opponent, wrote on Mr. George Gordon Coulton ( October 15, 1858 – March 4, 1947) was a British Historian, known for numerous works on Medieval history Belloc on Medieval History in a 1920 article. After a long simmering feud, Belloc replied with a booklet, The Case of Dr. Coulton, in 1938.

Belloc was one of the Big Four of Edwardian Letters along with H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and G. K. Chesterton, men who engaged in controversy and debate with one another for a generation or more.

For Belloc, the great question to be answered by every thinking man or woman is precisely, "What do you make of the Faith?" The answers that he and others gave to this question explain the battles he fought.

Writing

Asked once why he wrote so much[6], he responded, "Because my children are howling for pearls and caviar. " Belloc observed that "The first job of letters is to get a canon," that is, to identify those works which a writer looks upon as exemplary of the best of prose and verse. For his own prose style, he claimed to aspire to be as clear and concise as "Mary had a little lamb. "

Essays and travel writing

His best travel writing has secured a permanent following. The Path to Rome (1902), an account of a walking pilgrimage he made from central France across the Alps and down to Rome, has remained continuously in print. More than a mere travelogue, "The Path to Rome" contains descriptions of the people and places he encountered, his drawings in pencil and in ink of the route, humor, poesy, and the reflections of a large mind turned to the events of his time as he marches along his solitary way. At every turn, Belloc shows himself to be profoundly in love with Europe and with the Faith that he claims has produced it.

As an essayist he was one of a small, admired and dominant group (with Chesterton, E. V. Lucas and Robert Lynd) of popular writers. This article is an abbreviated list of Essayists - individuals notable for writing essays on various topics Edward Verrall Lucas ( June 11 /12 1868 – June 26 1938) was a versatile and popular English writer of nearly 100 books Robert Wilson Lynd (1879 - 1949 was an Irish writer an urbane literary Essayist and strong Irish nationalist. In the large he sometimes came across as too opinionated, and too dedicated a Catholic controversialist.

There is a passage in The Cruise of the Nona where Belloc, sitting alone at the helm of his boat under the stars, shows profoundly his mind in the matter of Catholicism and mankind; he writes of "That golden Light cast over the earth by the beating of the Wings of the Faith. "

Poetry

His "cautionary tales", humorous poems with an implausible moral, beautifully illustrated by Lord Basil Blackwood and later by Edward Gorey, are the most widely known of his writings. A cautionary tale is a traditional story told in Folklore, to warn its hearer of a Danger. Edward St John Gorey ( ca February 22, 1925 &ndash April 15, 2000) was an American Writer and Artist Supposedly for children, they, like Lewis Carroll's works, are more to adult and satirical tastes: Henry King, Who chewed bits of string and was early cut off in dreadful agonies. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (ˈdɒdsən (27 January 1832 &ndash 14 January 1898 better known by the Pen name Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ was an English [7] A similar poem tells the story of Rebecca, who slammed doors for fun and perished miserably.

The tale of Matilda (who told lies and was burnt to death) was adapted into the play "Matilda Liar!" by Debbie Isitt. Debbie Isitt is a comic writer Film director and performer Isitt set up world renowned theatre company 'Snarling Beasties' in the 1980's to great critical acclaim Quentin Blake, the illustrator, described Belloc as at one and the same time the overbearing adult and mischievous child. Quentin Saxby Blake CBE (born December 16 1932 in Sidcup) is a British Cartoonist, illustrator Roald Dahl is a follower. Roald Dahl ( 13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British Novelist Short story Writer But Belloc has broader if sourer scope:

It happened to Lord Lundy then
as happens to so many men
about the age of 26
they shoved him into politics. . .

leading up to

we had intended you to be
the next Prime Minister but three. . .

Of more weight are Belloc's Sonnets and Verses, a much admired volume that deploys the same singing and rhyming techniques of his children's verses. Often religious, often romantic, and ever unique is Belloc's poetry; throughout The Path to Rome he bursts into spontaneous song, and snaps at the idea that he is falling into doggerel with his typical tongue-in-cheek aversion to intellectual pretension.

History, politics, economics

Three of his best known non-fiction works are The Servile State (1912), Europe and Faith (1920) and The Jews (1922). The Servile State is a book written by Hilaire Belloc in 1912 about Economics.

From an early age Belloc knew Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, who was responsible for the conversion of his mother to Roman Catholicism. Henry Edward Manning ( July 15, 1808 - January 14, 1892) was an English Roman Catholic Archbishop and Cardinal Manning's involvement in the 1889 London Dock Strike made a major impression on Belloc and his view of politics, according to biographer Robert Speaight. The London Dock Strike was an industrial dispute involving dock workers in the Port of London. Robert Speaight (1904 – 1976 was a British actor and writer and the brother of George Speaight the puppeteer Belloc described this retrospectively in The Cruise of the Nona (1925); he became a trenchant critic both of unbridled capitalism[8], and of many aspects of socialism. Capitalism is the Economic system in which the Means of production are owned by private Persons and operated for Profit and where Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution

With others (G. K. Chesterton, Cecil Chesterton, Arthur Penty) Belloc had envisioned the socioeconomic system of distributism. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936 was an influential English writer of the early 20th century Cecil Edward Chesterton ( November 12, 1879 – December 6, 1918) was an English Journalist, known particularly for his Arthur Joseph Penty (1875 –1937 was a British architect and writer on Guild socialism and Distributism. Distributism, also known as distributionism and distributivism, is a third-way economic philosophy formulated by such Roman Catholic In The Servile State, written after his party-political career had come to end, and other works, he criticized the modern economic order and parliamentary system, advocating distributism in opposition to both capitalism and socialism. Belloc made the historical argument that distributism was not a fresh perspective or program of economics but rather a proposed return to the economics that prevailed in Europe for the thousand years when it was Catholic. He called for the dissolution of Parliament and its replacement with committees of representatives for the various sectors of society, an idea popular among Fascists under the name of corporatism. Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology Historically corporatism (corporativismo refers to a political or Economic system in which power is held by civic assemblies that represent Economic Original corporatism, sometimes called "paleo-corporatism", was a system that predates capitalism and fascism. Paleo-corporatism was based around the guilds of the Middle Ages and served to appoint legislators. Neo-corporatism is a fascist system that merges the state with the capitalistic corporations. Belloc's views fit medieval paleo-corporatism rather than neo-corporatist fascism.

With these linked themes in the background, he wrote a long series of contentious biographies of historical figures, including Oliver Cromwell, James II, and Napoleon. Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 Old Style &ndash 3 September 1658 Old Style) was an English military and political leader best known James II of England and Ireland James VII of Scotland (14 October 1633 &ndash 16 September 1701 was King of England, King of Scots, Later that same year James Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe. They show him as an ardent proponent of orthodox Catholicism and a critic of many elements of the modern world.

Outside academe, Belloc was impatient with what he considered to be axe-grinding histories, especially what he called "official history. " [9] Joseph Pearce notes also Belloc's attack on the secularism of H. Secularism is generally the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from Religion or religious beliefs G. Wells's popular Outline of History:

Belloc objected to his adversary's tacitly anti-Christian stance, epitomized by the fact that Wells had devoted more space in his "history" to the Persian campaign against the Greeks than he had given to the figure of Christ. The Outline of History, subtitled either " The Whole Story of Man " or " Being A Plain History of Life and Mankind

He wrote also substantial amounts of military history. In alternative history, he contributed to the 1931 collection If It Had Happened Otherwise edited by Sir John Squire. Alternate history or alternative history is a subgenre of Speculative fiction (or Science fiction) and Historical fiction If It Had Happened Otherwise (ISBN 028397821X is a 1931 collection of essays edited by J Sir John Squire ( John Collings Squire) ( April 2, 1884 – December 20, 1958) was a British Poet, Writer

Reprints

Ignatius Press of California and IHS Press of Virginia have been reissuing Belloc. Ignatius Press was founded in 1978 by Father Joseph Fessio SJ a Jesuit priest and former pupil of Pope Benedict XVI. IHS Press is a publishing house based in Virginia whose mission is to promote the social teaching of the Catholic Church TAN Books of Illinois publish a number of Belloc's works, particularly his historical writings.

Religion

One of Belloc's most famous statements was "the faith is Europe and Europe is the faith"; this sums up his strongly-held, orthodox Roman Catholic views, and the cultural conclusions he drew from them. Those views were expressed at length in many of his works from the period 1920-1940. These are still cited as exemplary of Catholic apologetics. They have also been criticised, for instance by comparison with the work of Christopher Dawson during the same period. Christopher Henry Dawson (1889 – 1970 was an English Independent scholar, who wrote many books on Cultural history and Christendom.

As a young man, Belloc lost his faith. Then came a spiritual event which he never discussed publicly, and which returned him to and confirmed him in his Catholicism for the remainder of his life. Belloc alludes to this return to the faith in a passage in The Cruise of the Nona.

On Islam

Belloc's 1937 book The Crusades: the World's Debate made no pretence at being impartial. Despite being concerned with events more than eight centuries old, it took sides very vehemently, from the first page on. [10] In his view, had the Crusaders captured Damascus, the Islamic World would have been cut in two and "bled to death of the wound" - which as Belloc explicitly stated, would have been a highly desirable and positive outcome. The Crusades were a series of military campaigns of a religious character waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents Damascus ( دمشق,, also commonly known as الشام ash-Shām) is the capital and largest city of Syria.

Since the Crusaders missed that chance, Islam survived and eventually overwhelmed the Crusader bridgehead in the Middle East. For other meanings including people named 'Islam' see Islam (disambiguation. For Belloc this was not a matter of old history: Islam continued to pose a dangerous present and future threat. [11]

At the time of his writing, the Islamic world was still largely under the rule of the European colonial powers and the threat to Britain was from Fascism and Nazism. Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Belloc, however, considered that Islam was permanently intent on destroying the Church, as well as the West, which Christendom had built. In The Great Heresies (1938) Belloc grouped the Protestant Reformation together with Islam as one of the major heresies threatening the "Church Universal. The Protestant Reformation was a reform movement in Europe that began in 1517 though its roots lie further back in time "

Belloc in that book cited the many beliefs and theological principles which Islam shares with Catholicism[12] - and exactly which, in Belloc's view, identify it as a heresy. Heresy is an introduced change to some system of belief especially a religion that conflicts with the previously established canon of that belief Where (in his view) Islam decisively diverges from Catholicism (and Christianity in general) is the "denial of the Incarnation and all the sacramental life of the Church that followed from it" - with Islam regarding Jesus as a human being, though honouring him as a Prophet. [13]

Accusations of anti-Semitism

For fuller discussion, see section in G. K.'s Weekly

In The Cruise of the Nona, Belloc reflected equivocally on the Dreyfus Affair after thirty years. G K's Weekly was a British publication founded in 1925 (pilot edition late 1924 by G The Dreyfus Affair a Political scandal which divided France from the 1890s to the early 1900s [14] Belloc has been charged with anti-Semitism, and the issue of his attitude to Jews is still raised. Antisemitism (alternatively spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism; also rarely known as judeophobia) is the Prejudice against or hostility PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ For example, Norman Rose's book The Cliveden Set (2000) poses the question of whether Nancy Astor [15], a friend of Belloc's in the 1930s until they broke over religious matters, was influenced by him against Jews in general. Nancy Witcher Astor Viscountess Astor, CH, ( May 19, 1879 &ndash May 2, 1964) was the first woman to serve as a Member of Parliament [16] He was repeatedly critical, from his days in politics onwards, of the influence some Jewish people had on society and the world of finance. The field of finance refers to the concepts of Time, Money and Risk and how they are interrelated

There are a number of grounds on which Belloc has been deemed by some to be anti-Semitic and not concerned to conceal his views. [17]

On the other hand, Canadian broadcaster Michael Coren wrote:

Belloc's polemics did periodically drift into the realms of bigotry, but he was invariably a tenacious opponent of philosophical anti-Semitism, ostracized friends who made attacks upon individual Jews, and was an inexorable enemy of fascism and all its works, speaking out against German anti-Semitism before the National Socialists came to power. Michael Coren (born January 15, 1959 in Essex, England) is a Canadian Columnist, Author, public speaker A bigot is a person who is intolerant of opinions lifestyles or identities differing from his or her own and bigotry is the corresponding state of mind Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German

Robert Speaight cited a letter by Belloc in which he pilloried Nesta Webster because of her accusations against "the Jews". Robert Speaight (1904 – 1976 was a British actor and writer and the brother of George Speaight the puppeteer Nesta Helen Webster, (Mrs Arthur Webster ( August 24, 1876 - May 16, 1960) was a controversial Historian, occultist and aristocratic In February 1924, Belloc wrote to an American Jewish friend regarding an allegedly anti-Semitic book by Webster. Webster had rejected Christianity, studied Eastern religions, accepted the Hindu concept of the equality of all religions and was fascinated by theories of reincarnation and ancestral memory. Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings Eastern religion is a group of Religions originating in India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia. A Hindu ( Devanagari: हिन्दू is an adherent of the philosophies and scriptures of Hinduism, a set of religious, Philosophical [18] Belloc expressed his views very clearly:

"In my opinion it is a lunatic book. She is one of those people who have got one cause on the brain. It is the good old 'Jewish revolutionary' bogey. But there is a type of unstable mind which cannot rest without morbid imaginings, and the conception of a single cause simplifies thought. With this good woman it is the Jews, with some people it is the Jesuits, with others Freemasons and so on. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order The world is more complex than that. "[19]

Speaight also points out that when faced with anti-Semitism in practice — as at elitist country clubs in America before World War II — he voiced his disapproval. Belloc condemned Nazi anti-Semitism in The Catholic and the War (1940). [20] Dennis Barton[21] has defended Belloc at length. He notes that Belloc condemned wild accusations against the Jews, in his own book, The Jews.

In the media

Trivia

See also

Notes

  1. ^ His estate was probated at £7,451. This is a chronological bibliography of books (with a few pamphlets by the author Hilaire Belloc. Probate is the Legal process of settling the estate of a deceased person specifically resolving all claims and distributing the decedent's Property
  2. ^ Time and again I have seen him throw out a sufficiently outrageous theory in order to stimulate his company, and, be it said, for the pleasure of seeing how slowly he might be dislodged from a position he had purposely taken up knowing it to be untenable. . . Of course Belloc was prejudiced, but there were few who knew him who did not love his prejudices, who did not love to hear him fight for them, and who did not honor him for the sincerity and passion with which he held to them. Once the battle was joined all his armoury was marshalled and flung into the fray. Dialectic, Scorn, Quip, Epigram, Sarcasm, Historical Evidence, Massive Argument, and Moral Teaching --of all these weapons he was a past master and each was mobilised and made to play its proper part in the attack. Yet he was a courteous and a chivalrous man. A deeply sensitive man, his was the kindest and most understanding nature I have ever known. In spite of a rollicking and bombastic side he was as incapable of the least cruelty as he was capable of the most delicate sympathy with other people's feelings. As he himself used to say of others in a curiously quiet and simple way, 'He is a good man. He will go to Heaven. '
  3. ^ Sir John Simon who was a contemporary at Oxford, described his ". John Allsebrook Simon 1st Viscount Simon GCSI GCVO OBE PC ( 28 February 1873 &ndash 11 January 1954 . . resonant, deep pitched voice. . . " as making an ". . . unforgettable impression".
  4. ^ Francis West, Gilbert Murray, p. 107 describes Murray's impression on an occasion in 1899: In July [. George Gilbert Aimé Murray ( January 2, 1866 &ndash May 20 1957) was a British classical scholar and Public intellectual . . ] [Murray] attended a meeting on the principles of Liberalism, at which Hilaire Belloc spoke brilliantly although Murray could not afterwards remember a word that he had said.
  5. ^ Wells, H. G. , Mr. Belloc Objects, to the Outline of History, Watts & Company, London, 1926
  6. ^ See Hilaire Belloc's books for a chronological list of work by Belloc
  7. ^ :The Chief Defect of Henry King
    Was chewing little bits of String. This is a chronological bibliography of books (with a few pamphlets by the author Hilaire Belloc.
    At last he swallowed some which tied
    Itself in ugly Knots inside.
    Physicians of the Utmost Fame
    Were called at once; but when they came
    They answered, as they took their Fees,
    "There is no Cure for this Disease.
    Henry will very soon be dead. "
    His Parents stood about his Bed
    Lamenting his Untimely Death,
    When Henry, with his Latest Breath,
    Cried - "Oh, my Friends, be warned by me,
    That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch and Tea
    Are all the Human Frame Requires. . . "
    With that the Wretched Child expires.
  8. ^ Raymond Williams, Culture and Society, p. Raymond Henry Williams ( 31 August 1921 &ndash 26 January 1988) was a Welsh academic Novelist and Critic. 186: Belloc's argument is that capitalism as a system is breaking down, and that this is to be welcomed. A society in which a minority owns and controls the means of production, while the majority are reduced to proletarian status, is not only wrong but unstable. Belloc sees it breaking down in two ways — on the one hand into State action for welfare (which pure capitalism cannot embody); on the other hand into monopoly and the restraint of trade. There are only two alternatives to this system: socialism, which Belloc calls collectivism; and the redistribution of property on a significant scale, which Belloc calls distributivism.
  9. ^ There is an enormous book called volume 1 of A Cambridge History of the Middle Ages. It is 759 pages in length of close print . . . It does not mention the Mass once. That is as though you were to write a history of the Jewish dispersion without mentioning the synagogue or of the British empire without mentioning the city of London or the Navy (Letters from Hilaire Belloc, Hollis and Carter, 75).
  10. ^ Our fathers all but re-established the spiritual mastery of Europe over the East; all but recovered the patrimony of Rome (. . . ) . Western warriors, two thousand miles and more from home, have struck root and might feel they have permanently grasped the vital belt of the Orient. All seaboard Syria was theirs and nearly [emphasis in the original] the whole of that "bridge", a narrow band pressed in between the desert and the sea, the all-important central link joining the Moslem East to the Moslem West (. Syria ( سوريّة or) officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic ar الجمهورية العربية السورية . . ) Should the link be broken for good by Christian mastery of Syria, all Islam was cut in two and would bleed to death of the wound.
  11. ^ The story must not be neglected by any modern, who may think in error that the East has finally fallen before the West, that Islam is now enslaved - to our political and economic power at any rate if not to our philosophy. It is not so. Islam essentially survives, and Islam would not have survived had the Crusade made good its hold upon the essential point of Damascus. Islam survives. Its religion is intact; therefore its material strength may return. Our religion is in peril, and who can be confident in the continued skill, let alone the continued obedience, of those who make and work our machines? (. . . ) There is with us a complete chaos in religious doctrine (. . . . ) We worship ourselves, we worship the nation; or we worship (some few of us) a particular economic arrangement believed to be the satisfaction of social justice (. . . . )Islam has not suffered this spiritual decline; and in the contrast between [our religious chaos and] the religious certitudes still strong throughout the Mohammedan world lies our peril.
  12. ^ For Belloc, the common ground includes: the unity and the omnipotence of God; the personal nature, the all-goodness, the timelessness, and the providence of God; His creative power as the origin of all things, and His sustenance of all things by His power alone; the world of good spirits and angels and of evil spirits in war against God, with a chief evil spirit; the immortality of the soul and its responsibility for actions in this life, coupled with the doctrine of reward and punishment after death; the Day of Judgment with Christ as Judge; the Lady Miriam [Mary] as the first among womenkind.
  13. ^ On this see Islamic view of Jesus
  14. ^ I, for my part, pretend to no certain conclusion in the matter. Etymology The Anglicized name of Jesus is derived from the Latin Iēsus, which in turn comes from the Greek (Iēsoûs . . Of my own intimate acquaintance who were on the spot [at Dreyfus' trial] and competent to judge, most were for the innocence of Dreyfus: but the rest, fully competent also, were and are, convinced of his guilt. . . There are in England to-day two Englishmen whose wide knowledge of Europe and especially of Paris, and the French tongue and society, enable them to judge. They are both close friends of mine. One is for, the other against. . . I believe that, when the passions have died down, the Dreyfus case will remain for history very much what the Diamond Necklace has remained, or the Tichborne case; that is, there will be a popular legend, intellectually worth nothing; and, for the historian, the task of criticising that legend, but hardly of solving the problem. The affair of the Tichborne claimant was the celebrated 19th-century legal case in the United Kingdom of Arthur Orton (1834&ndash1898 an Imposter who
  15. ^ see Cliveden set, for the context
  16. ^ Rose asserts that Belloc 'was moved by a deep vein of hysterical anti-Semitism'. The Cliveden Set were allegedly a 1930s Right-wing, Upper class group of prominent individuals politically influential in pre- World War II Britain
  17. ^ A. N. Wilson's biography expresses the opinion that Belloc had a tendency to allude to Jews in conversation, in a seemingly obsessive fashion on occasion. Anthony Powell's review of that biography contains Powell's opinion, that Belloc was thoroughly anti-Semitic, except at a personal level. Anthony Dymoke Powell, CH, CBE (December 21 1905&ndashMarch 28 2000 was an English novelist best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music
  18. ^ Nesta Webster, Spacious Days, London and Bombay, 1950, pp. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. Mumbai ( Marathi:,, IPA: formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the financial 103 and 172-175
  19. ^ The Life Of Hilaire Belloc by R. Speaight, 1957, pp. 456-458
  20. ^ The Third Reich has treated its Jewish subjects with a contempt for Justice which even if there had been no other action of the kind in other departments would be a sufficient warranty for determining its elimination from Europe. . . Cruelty to a Jew is as odious as cruelty to any human being, whether that cruelty be moral in the form of insult, or physical. . . You may hear men saying on every side, 'However, there is one thing I do agree with and that is the way they (The Nazis) have settled the Jews'. Now that attitude is directly immoral. The more danger there is that it will grow the more necessity there is for denouncing it. The action of the enemy toward the Jewish race has been in morals intolerable. Contracts have been broken on all sides, careers destroyed by the hundred and the thousand, individuals have been treated with the most hideous and disgusting cruelty. . . If no price is paid for such excesses, our civilisation will certainly suffer and suffer permanently. If the men who have committed them go unpunished (and only defeat in war can punish them) then the decline of Europe, already advanced, will proceed to catastrophe. (pages 29ff. )
  21. ^ in his "In Defense of Hilaire Belloc" [1]

References

External links

Online editions of his works

Other sites

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
James Grimble Groves		 Member of Parliament for Salford South
1906–1910		 Succeeded by
Anderson Montague-Barlow


Persondata
NAME Belloc, Hilaire
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Belloc, Joseph Hilaire Pierre René
SHORT DESCRIPTION Writer
DATE OF BIRTH 27 July 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH La Celle-Saint-Cloud, Yvelines, France
DATE OF DEATH 16 July 1953
PLACE OF DEATH Guildford, England
Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to Digitize, archive and distribute Cultural works The Tablet is an international Catholic weekly Newspaper, published in London The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a Parliament. Salford South was a parliamentary constituency in the city of Salford in Greater Manchester. The United Kingdom general election of 1906 was held from 12 January to 8 February 1906 The United Kingdom general election of December 1910 was held from 3 to 19 December Sir (Clement Anderson Montague-Barlow 1st Baronet KBE ( 28 February 1868 &ndash 31 May 1951) was an English Barrister Events 1214 - Battle of Bouvines: In France, Philip II of France defeats John of England. Year 1870 ( MDCCCLXX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common La Celle-Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. Yvelines is a French department in the region of Île-de-France. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Events 622 - The beginning of the Islamic calendar. 1054 - Three Roman legates fractured relations between the Western and Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Guildford ( IPA /ˈgɪlfəd/ is the County town of Surrey, England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland
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