G.k. chesterton

Americans will believe in anything

The US has not known social and domestic peace since the start of the present decade, and it is unlikely that it will know it again for the foreseeable future. This is because it has ceased to be a country at all, assuming that nationhood implies fundamental unity, which America no longer has. When novelist John Dos Passos wrote in the late 1930s, “All right, we are two countries,” the boundary he had in mind was economic, separating the rich from the poor. Today the obvious divide is political, between left and right. But what seems obvious is not always true, as in this case. The reason is not that

Are angels real?

One day while out walking, William Blake saw angels sitting in the trees: “bright angelic wings bespangled every bough like stars.” He was eight years old. His fascination – some have called it an obsession – with angels lasted for the rest of his life. When he sat to have his portrait painted by Thomas Phillips, the two men began to argue about who painted a better angel, Michelangelo or Raphael. Phillips, not unreasonably, suggested that since Blake had never seen even an engraving by Michelangelo, he was not qualified to give an opinion on the matter. “But I speak from the opinion of a friend who could not be