Terribly Quiet...Again

"And how does your commerce go, you strange guardian of the past?" said Wayne, affably.

"Well, sir, not very well," replied the man, with that patient voice of his class which is one of the most heart-breaking things in the world. "Things are terribly quiet."

Wayne's eyes shone suddenly.

"A great saying," he said, "worthy of a man whose merchandise is human history. Terribly quiet; that is in two words the spirit of this age, as I have felt it from my cradle. I sometimes wondered how many other people felt the oppression of this union between quietude and terror. I see blank, well-ordered streets and men in black moving about inoffensively, sullenly. It goes on day after day, day after day, and nothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from which I might wake screaming. To me the straightness of our life is the straightness of a thin cord stretched tight. Its stillness is terrible. It might snap with a noise like thunder. And you who sit, amid the debris of the great wars, you who sit, as it were, upon a battle-field, you know that war was less terrible than this evil peace; you know that the idle lads who carried those swords under Francis or Elizabeth, the rude Squire or Baron who swung that mace about in Picardy or Northumberland battles, may have been terribly noisy, but were not like us, terribly quiet."

G.K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill

It seems that every few weeks or so, I find myself apologizing for the lack of activity in my blog. Since my readership has quadrupled to around eight, it becomes more important to apologize to my readers, since I am related, by blood, to roughly 75% of my readership. With the Yuletide season fast approaching, I don't think it would do to antagonize any family members. There's this disconcerting rumor running around about how the dismal state of the Philippine economy is spurring renewed interest in recycling the nine known fruitcakes that actually constitute the entire fruitcake population of Metro Manila. It looks like these valiant fruitcakes will be gifted and re-gifted even more this holiday season.

Truth be told, it has been a rather hectic week thus far, and the sites I normally peruse for either entertainment, relaxation, or indulgence have been unconscionably blah lately. Still, I came across a good read in, of all places, The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty entitled C.S. Lewis and Materialism. It's a little on the academic side, but for those people with a passing familiarity with one of Christendom's most engaging advocates, it's worth noting that what makes his literary works fun to read is what makes his unabashedly Christian worldview so compelling.

Photo Credits:
That Hideous Strength courtesy of Amazon.