Hilaire Belloc, 1911
“My country, it has been proved in the life of every man that though his loves are human, and therefore changeable, yet in proportion as he attaches them to things unchangeable, so they mature and broaden.” – The Four Men
Discussion questions:
1. Were the four men portrayals of the four temperaments? The four men can also be taken as different aspects of Belloc’s personality. How much self-knowledge and integrity would it take to write such a piece about oneself? Would a ‘modern man’ be capable of it?
2. Was anyone reminded of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ while reading this story?
3. The flavor of the book is autumnal; decay and death are recurring themes. Is it right to mourn loss and alienation? Does ‘modern man’ mourn effectively? How should one mourn the loss of a civilization and all that is dear to one? What gives rise to hope in the midst of mourning?
4. There are beautiful, poetic passages describing the capacity of common things to evoke fond memories. Are ‘modern’ things capable of being this evocative? How have the senses been affected by the ‘modern’ world?
5. What is the value of companionship to ‘modern’ men? How have the customs associated with companionship changed? (drinking, singing, joking)
6. “It takes an awareness of reality to make the best jokes. An appreciation of the absurd is only possible where a man already has a grasp of things in their everyday, normal proportions.”* What has happened to humor?
7. “There are certain moods in which [Homer] seems, as it were, boys’ poetry, depending both for its charm and for its limitations on a certain naivety …” ** Is it this Homeric ring which gives the story its boyish flavor?
8. “The [Greeks] heart’s desire was the timeless, the unchangeable, and they saw time as mere flux. But the Romans were different. … Virgil’s heroes were not men fighting for their own hand like Homeric heroes; they are men with a vocation, men on whom a burden is laid.”** The Homeric ring to the story is unmistakable; is there a Virgilian ring? Does Belloc go beyond mourning a lost civilization to contemplate the transition into a new one? We cannot fault Homer for not being Virgil, nor Belloc for not being … who? Are there writers today who tackle this theme of transition? Who chronicle the “shift of civilization … the transformation of the little remnant, the reliquas, of the old, into the germ of the new.”**?
9. If we are the remnant of Western Civilization, journeying from old to new, what type of things should we be taking with us?
* All Saints and the Sussex Countryside, Matthew Anger & Michael Hennessy, The Bellocian, 2004
** A Preface to Paradise Lost, C.S.Lewis
