Juliet du Boulay: To recognize the enduring quality of much that I describe is not, however, to ignore the fact that change has always been a part of village life, and indeed so many changes have happened since I was in Ambeli in the 1960s and 1970s that much of the way of life recounted here can no longer be found. Earlier changes begin with the village itself, which had been built around 1800 by families who escaped there from a lower village which had been devastated by the Turks. Before this some of the big families were said to have come in a boat from the north, perhaps Pelion. These upheavals, however, dramatic though they were, did not necessitate a deep change of values but simply a reinterpretation of ancient themes in the new situation.
Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé: It cannot be repeated too often: it is the characters of those resolute men which take hold of the people, not their ideas; and the philosopher’s piercing eye in this matter looks beyond Russia. Men are everywhere becoming less and less unreasonable as regards ideas, and more and more skeptical as regards cut-and-dried formulas. Those who believe in the virtue of absolute doctrines are now rare to find. What does captivate men is character, even if their energies are put to a wrong purpose, for that guarantees a leader and a guide, the first requirements of an association of human beings. Man is born the “serf” of every will stronger than his own that passes before him.
Andrew Sinclair: The running style in this extended account is that of a newsman, sniffing out the good stories. And there are plenty of them, from that golden age of gossip and occasional retribution. Although there is a great deal of dazzle and detail, there is little new in the causes and consequences of Prohibition – the rural saloon and the rise of women’s rights, the conflict of the country against the city, the attack on foreigners and the surge of nativism, and the economic reasons for Repeal.
Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé: One feels angry with the author for being so prolix, one runs on ahead of him, and, all of a sudden, he is no longer understood – the electric current has been interrupted. That, at least, is what everybody tells me who has tried it.
Verlaine:
Yes indeed, new old Paris leaves you stranded.
I’m too much the old-school Parisian
To cope with today — old habits die hard.
Anthony O’Hear: It is interesting to see in these three very different books some thoughtful intellectuals demurring from the secularism which had until recently reigned virtually unchallenged among the self-professed thinking classes.
Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé: During his last year of freedom (before going to prison) the obsession of imaginary maladies, trouble with his nerves, and a “mystic fright,” were driving him straight into a state of mental derangement, and we can believe him. He assures us that he was only saved by the sudden change in his manner of life, for it compelled him to brace himself against the misfortunes which had hitherto mastered him. I accept this statement, for the secrets of the soul are unassailable; and it is certain that there is nothing better to cure an imaginary illness than real misfortune.
Anthony O’Hear: Perhaps our days are not quite so tolerant, after all. The two figures who loom over the book as a whole and over many of the individual chapters are the now largely forgotten nineteenth century writers, Andrew Dickson White and John William Draper. Both argued noisily and vociferously that religion in general and Christianity, especially Catholic Christianity, in particular had been major obstacles to scientific progress and discovery, and it is against this view that most of the articles are directed.
Harry Stein: Who knew, for example, that the Breton bonnet Charlotte Corday wore in the tumbrel en route to the guillotine would give rise to a fashion craze? (And, yet, knowing, who can truly be surprised?) But after a while, even such details become suspect.
Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé: In commenting on the labours and life of this man I invite the reader to accompany me on a journey, always sad, often frightful, at times ominous. Those who feel a repugnance on entering hospitals, courts of justice, prisons, and who are afraid to pass through a cemetery at night, had best keep away. Part one of a five-part series.
