The title of this post is a quote from Thomas Henry Huxley. I came across it a few months ago, when I was reading an old paperback I found in a used book store. The book was Voices from the Sky, by Arthur C. Clarke (Mayflower Press, 1969.) The cheap, high-acid paper hadn’t aged well [...]
All posts in category Irving Babbitt
“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing”
Posted by acilius on October 26, 2011
http://losthunderlads.com/2011/10/26/sit-down-before-fact-as-a-little-child-be-prepared-to-give-up-every-preconceived-notion-follow-humbly-wherever-and-to-whatever-abysses-nature-leads-or-you-shall-learn-nothing/
The Nation, 26 September 2011
James Longenbach contributes a surprisingly sympathetic review of a collection of letters by the young T. S. Eliot. Longenbach argues that Eliot’s Unitarian family made a fetish of doubt and complexity, and that the aspects of Eliot’s life and thought that puzzled them came from a rebellion against this fetish, against “the Eliot Way.” Eliot [...]
Posted by acilius on September 9, 2011
http://losthunderlads.com/2011/09/09/the-nation-26-september-2011/
Paradox of Humanism
The oldest of Irving Babbitt’s published writings is an essay called “The Rational Study of the Classics,” which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in March 1897 (in volume 79, issue 473, pages 355-365.) Babbitt, then in his early 30s, ends this piece with this paragraph: There was never a greater need of the Hellenic spirit [...]
Posted by acilius on April 23, 2011
http://losthunderlads.com/2011/04/23/paradox-of-humanism/
In what God did Irving Babbitt disbelieve?
Irving Babbitt (1865-1933) often made remarks to the effect that religion was a good thing, though he never endorsed any particular religion, and certainly never joined any. Such scholars as Claes G. Ryn have argued that Babbitt, despite his personal irreligion, is a powerful intellectual ally for believers. After Babbitt’s death, his closest friend, Paul [...]
Posted by acilius on March 18, 2011
http://losthunderlads.com/2011/03/18/in-what-god-did-irving-babbitt-disbelieve/
Religions and their atheisms
In his essay on Ernest Renan, Irving Babbitt wrote: Renan has evidently carried over to science all the mental habits of Catholicism. As Sainte-Beuve remarks, “In France we shall remain Catholics long after we have ceased to be Christians.” Renan, indeed, may be best defined as a scientist and positivist with a Catholic imagination. For [...]
Posted by acilius on January 28, 2011
http://losthunderlads.com/2011/01/28/religions-and-their-atheisms/
The Old Right in the New Year
The current issues of The American Conservative and Chronicles appeared in our mailbox yesterday; here are my notes on them. J. David Hoeveler, who in 1977 published the indispensable book The New Humanism: A Critique of Modern America, 1900-1940, contributes to this issue of The American Conservative an article about one of the main subjects [...]
Posted by acilius on January 5, 2011
http://losthunderlads.com/2011/01/05/the-old-right-in-the-new-year/
Ambrose Bierce and The Man Without Illusions
Several weeks ago, The Nation ran a review-essay about Ambrose Bierce. A few days before happening on this piece, I’d my old Dover Thrift Edition collection of Bierce’s Civil War stories, a paperback I’d bought for a dollar in 1996 and had been meaning to read ever since. I was interested in the reviewer’s remarks about one of those [...]
Posted by acilius on July 23, 2010
http://losthunderlads.com/2010/07/23/ambrose-bierce-and-the-man-without-illusions/
Left-wing conservatism
I’ve long been curious about the phrase “left-wing conservative.” It’s a label that’s been applied to Christopher Lasch, for example. And Jacques Delors once declared that “We have to struggle against the conservatives from all sides, not only the right-wingers, but also the left-wing conservatives.” Though I’ve never gotten around to any of Christopher Lasch’s [...]
Posted by acilius on February 24, 2010
http://losthunderlads.com/2010/02/24/left-wing-conservatism/
A Blast From The Past
I’m trying to figure out when the heck this thing was made. It’s definitely old. And seems, incidentally, to have worn well with the passage of time. aaaaa
Posted by lefalcon on September 29, 2009
http://losthunderlads.com/2009/09/29/a-blast-from-the-past/
Ash Wednesday
T. S. Eliot was a student of Irving Babbitt’s at Harvard. Afterward, Eliot often claimed to be a disciple of Babbitt’s. “Once to have been a student of Babbitt’s was to remain always in that position,” Eliot wrote. Eliot sent letters to Babbitt under the salutation “Dear Master.” Babbitt never answered any of these letters. Babbitt never [...]
Posted by acilius on February 25, 2009
http://losthunderlads.com/2009/02/25/ash-wednesday/
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