.




Number CCCLXII (362)                                     21st June 2014


DIC-KENS' BROADSTAIRS

         A number of friends have asked me how I like the house newly purchased for the “Resistance” in Kent, England. I like it. It is spacious and it is being beautifully set up by a fellow-exile from the Society of St Pius X, Fr Stephen Abraham. Only Heaven knows how it intends the house to be used in the near and distant future, but it is meanwhile a delightful refuge, five minutes on foot from the sea which God created, and which the liberals cannot touch.

          Several famous English artists and writers from the past have also found refuge in this delightful corner of north-east Kent. Most famous of the artists is J.M.W. TURNER (1775-1751). Born in London where he spent most of his working life, from age 11 he spent several formative years in Margate, some four miles up the coast from Broadstairs. Here he discovered the sea, which with its light effects was a lifelong inspiration for his painting, and to Margate he frequently returned later in life.

          Also in Margate the most famous poet in English of the 20th century, T.S. ELIOT (1888-1965), composed in an open-air pavilion still standing on Margate's beach, a substantial section of the third part of his most famous poem, The Wasteland (1922). He had come to the seaside town as a refugee from London where an unhappy marriage had seriously affected his health. He did not stay long, but went on to Lausanne, Switzerland, where thanks to the care of a good doctor he completed his recovery and The Wasteland. But the prospect of the sea at Margate had no doubt helped.

          Another famous poet, at least in England, was a frequent visitor to Ramsgate, two miles down the coast from Broadstairs. Samuel Taylor COLERIDGE, one of England's five outstanding Romantic poets, is best-known for his long poem, The Ancient Mariner. He loved bathing in the sea at Ramsgate, perhaps also for health reasons. In any case, the colder the sea, the more he liked it.

          Most famous of all, however, was a frequent visitor to Broadstairs itself, the novelist Charles D!ckens (1812-1870). He first resorted to Broadstairs in 1837, as a quiet place in which to complete his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, but he so fell in love with the antiquated little seaside town that he often returned with his family to write, or to rest from writing, through the 1840's and into the 1850's. His name and names of his novels, or of characters from his novels, are to be found all over the old town that he knew. It is now surrounded, not to say strangled, by Victorian and modern suburbs, but Broadstairs still celebrates every year its most famous visitor with a Dic`kens Festival in June.

          Dr. David Allen White, a Catholic teacher of literature and music who is well-known to many Catholics striving to keep the Faith all over the English-speaking world, is a great lover of Dickens. Since he is passing through London this summer, he agreed to visit Broadstairs in order to hold on August 2 and 3 a 24-hour weekend seminar on Di~ckens, open to the public and including three conferences and Sunday Mass, and a visit which he will guide to the Dic.kens Museum in town, set up in a little old house known to, and visited by, Di/ckens himself. If you are interested in attending, let us know soon (through info@dinoscopus.org), because if numbers have to be limited, first come will be first served. Meals will be provided in-house, but visitors will have to find their own accommodation outside. Beware, it will be the height of the holiday season.

          Di*ckens was not Catholic, but Dostoevsky called him “a great Christian”. D-ickens certainly had a warm and open heart, and a brilliant pen.

          Kyrie eleison.


For Dickens, Broadstairs was a great delight.
To find out why, come listen to Dr White.
   



Contact Us:

Please write to the applicable email address from among the following with your questions, comments, or concerns:

letters@dinoscopus.org

- for comments to the author about a particular issue of Eleison Comments.

info@dinoscopus.org

- for general questions or comments.

admin@dinoscopus.org

- to resolve technical concerns or problems.

editorial@dinoscopus.org

- for back issues of Eleison Comments.
Donate

While Eleison Comments is provided free of charge, there are administrative and technical costs associated with making it available to subscribers worldwide and with operating this site. Contributions to offset these costs are appreciated, and may be made via the button below or by contacting:

donate@dinoscopus.org

© 2011-2014 Richard N. Williamson. All Rights Reserved.

A non-exclusive license to print out, forward by email, and/or post this article to the Internet is granted to users who wish to do so provided that no changes are made to the content so reproduced or distributed, to include the retention of this notice with any and all reproductions of content as authorized hereby. Aside from this limited, non-exclusive license, no portion of this article may be reproduced in any other form or by any other electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review, or except in cases where rights to content reproduced herein are retained by its original author(s) or other rights holder(s), and further reproduction is subject to permission otherwise granted thereby.

Permissions inquiries should be directed to editorial@dinoscopus.org.
www.dinoscopus.org


................................................................
This email should only be sent to those who have asked to receive it. It is intended that this email be sent only to those who have asked to receive it, and who have completed a formal and completely voluntary subscription process. In the event you have received this message unwillingly, and/or you wish to unsubscribe from the mailing list, return to http://www.dinoscopus.org/english/eleisonenglish.html click the "unsubscribe" button after your email has been entered in the appropriate box. Otherwise, contact admin@dinoscopus.org with your concerns.

Chaucer and jasmine will be just fine but shall trade the cognac for wine.

.

Speaking of cigars, I've run into a certain movement afoot.  It seems that the cigar brand H. Upmann is widely regarded as an icon of long-established cigar craftsmanship which has for over a century been something that counted for something.  Since 1844, they've put out a CONSISTENT product, and one that has repeatedly met with approval from aficionados.  But in recent years, a kind of revolution has been going on, not limited to the cigar industry, but rather spilling over to other aspects of culture in the main.  There is a new trend to set aside longstanding icons in search for something new.  But this touches the cigar world by way of a few upstarts having drawn a significant market share away from the old warhorses.  At first it was considered to be a lark, but the same trend has been going on year after year, now, for about 5-10 of them.  The stodgy old wisdom seems to be starting to crack.  There is a new bar in town that goes by the logo, "Not your old man's bar."  And this is surprising because word on the street was that the local sheriff was quite opposed to the idea of providing wild youths (implication of drugs, crime and rowdiness) with a place to gather, but they managed to get their liquor license no problem.

Sorry if this is off-topic.  But the EC brought it to mind, somehow.


.

  Seriously, I believe Bishop Williamson likes his new home and is thankful to Our Lord for allowing him to have it.  
I don't understand those who condemn him for buying it.  Must a priest be homeless or live in a shack order to be holy?  

Are there photos of his new residence?

Marsha

It is hard to know whom these media whores like Searchlight represent these days. They easily sell their favours far and wide and their funding often comes via PR firms quietly employed by mainstream institutions intent on maintaining their grip on the world they have created and their target is anyone and anything that looks like upsetting that hold.

The current SSPX may or may not welcome the attention of so-called researchers with 'juicy' bits of information to spring onto those who have heard it all before but joining the mainstream should give it some relief from such attacks. Meanwhile the bishop will continue to carry that part of ABL's legacy that so infuruated the reformers and the poltical establishment. His voice now needs to be louder otherwise others will fill the vacuum.