On Having Faces

by | Jan 26, 2014

Recently, I received a letter, post-marked Lima, from a young Peruvian student who had attended Georgetown. She tells me that she has just finished reading C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, a book that I recommend to anyone who will listen. She writes: One of my...

On W. C. Fields’s Tombstone

by | Nov 15, 2013

In Joseph Epstein’s recent book, Essays in Biography, we find a chapter entitled “Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.” It is obviously an essay devoted to the great comedian W. C. Fields. I have often wondered: What would happen to me if I did not take Field’s famous...

Intellectual Courage and the Bitter Truth

by | Oct 6, 2013

On Essays and LettersIn the handsome new book, The Loss and Recovery of Truth (St. Augustine’s Press), we find a short 1978 essay of Gerhart Niemeyer. It was written on the occasion of two commencement addresses. One was the justly famous Harvard Address of Alexander...

On General Wolfe’s Preference

by | May 13, 2013

On Essays and LettersWill Cuppy (1884–1948) was born in Auburn, Indiana, and he is buried there. He attended the University of Chicago and dithered with a higher degree. He wrote a number of books, the first of which I have. It is called How to Get from January to...

On Avoiding ‘Prosperous Wickedness’

by | Apr 21, 2013

On Essays and LettersOn my desk, I have a copy of the 2003 Penguin edition of Samuel Johnson, Selected Essays. When I turn on my computer to warm up, I have about two minutes of reading, which I do at random from Johnson. It is amazing what you find in Johnson. He was...