...But back to the Birmingham Oratory. Fr Anton, the Parish Priest, very kindly made me free of 'the Cardinal's' study (with adjacent chapel). Little discoveries can be as satisfactory as large ones; we all know that on Monday December 3, Newman left Oxford for the foreign travels which led him to Sicily, serious illness, and the writing of Lead kindly light. The day before, he preached a University Sermon which could be regarded as the start of the Catholic Revival in the Church of England. But what was he doing on the preceding Saturday? I can now reveal the Truth. He was shopping ... for books. Devout tomes? Deary me, No. He bought a pocket copy of Thucydides; and one of Pindar. Isn't it a lovely mental picture; the slender, donnish, very English figure, sweat pouring down his face as he plodded round the bumps near Syracuse and traced (Thucydides in hand) the footprints of the ill-fated Athenian Expedition during the Peloponnesian War; then sitting in a cafe (I think I detected slight wine marks on some pages) and reading Pindar's mannered encomia upon the equestrian victories of Sicilian rulers in the Games.
Newman once said, I think, that he could never be a saint; because he loved literature too much. But Classicists, evidently, can become saints!...
Treat yourself and visit his blog Mutual Enrichment and read the whole post. If you were a member of the Anglican Use Society, you would also have been treated to his wonderful talk at last year's Anglican Use Society Conference, which was just published in Anglican Embers. Of course, you could register for this year's conference. Lots of other great speakers will be on hand in Kansas City November 8th through the 10th.
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