Coincidentally: A Cornucopia of Pharmacopoeia
The Scots are famously reserved in their habits and modest demeanor, but this has not restrained their substantial claim to…
Coincidentally: A Nation Mourns
Adolf Frederick V, grand duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was born during the presidency of James Knox Polk, who was born in…
J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: Handbook of Hope
by Emma Warner
“Where there’s life there’s hope, as my Gaffer used to say; and need of vittles, as he mostways used to add.”…
The Devilment and Duels of Life
Fyodor Dostoevsky was condemned to death—public execution by firing squad. The year was 1849 and the young Dostoevsky, fresh from…
Coincidentally: “Ebonics” for the new Mass
In 1996, the school board of Oakland, California, caused a stir by wanting to teach a dialect of English as…
Coincidentally: Old Boney
A reflection of Mark Twain abides: “How often we recall with regret that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor…
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan: The Importance of the Impossible
If all literature were based upon plausibility and credibility, there would be no such thing as fiction. Imagination is a deterrent…
Coincidentally: Medicine on the March
Among the benefactions of gruel wars has been the promotion of medical science. The Hyksos invasion of Egypt advertised the…
The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse by Beatrix Potter
If there is anything pleasant in life, it is doing what we aren’t meant to do. If there is anything…
Homesick at Home: A Chestertonian Thanksgiving
“Frances! Come here! Come here at once!” Frances Chesterton started and flew from her half-prepared afternoon tea to the study…
Thanksgiving and the Tall Tale
“Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys.” ~ Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar…
Guilt Gone Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
If Oscar Wilde had been a man of our time, he might have had rather mixed feelings about the LGBT liberation…
Coincidentally: A More Delightful Vision
Would anyone like a sure-fire formula for a Broadway hit? I think this fits the bill: a one-act play in…
Coincidentally: When the Curtain Falls
Sages have observed that while the public scene is afflicted with countless personalities who are false tinsel, only in Hollywood…
Chesterton’s The Man Who was Thursday: Nightmare or Dream Come True?
Although the delight of civilized readers everywhere, detective fiction is built upon an uncivilized pessimism that expects to find evil lurking…
Chesterton and the Romance of the Humdrum
G.K. Chesterton was known for his flamboyant personality, his avant-garde artistic taste, and his shocking conversion to Catholicism. Yet the…
Life Echoes in Eternity: On J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle”
Urging his troops to manly fortitude in the face of Germanic barbarians, General Maximus of the 2000 film, Gladiator does not downplay the…
Telling the Truth
“A lying mouth destroys the soul” (Wis. 1:11). Lying has become a governing etiquette in an age that has abandoned…
