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Chesterton, Lewis, and Solitude

I love to find literary connections. Something about them gives me a small thrill, and my imagination's fires glow a little brighter. Recently, as I picked my way through C.S. Lewis's The Allegory of Love, I was pleased to find this on page 378 (I share the page number now because it comes into play later):

"...There is only one English critic who could do justice to this gallant, satiric, chivalrous, farcical, flamboyant poem: Mr. Chesterton should write a book on the Italian epic."

The Allegory of Love was published in May 1936; G.K. Chesterton died the next month. Of course, as I read the section on the Italian epic -- specifically on Boiardo and Ariosto, both of whom I am now compelled to read -- I wanted what Lewis suggested. And the main reason I wanted Chesterton's take was because I've also been reading his Autobiography, and every time I read Chesterton I am encouraged and renewed.

In his Autobiography, in the chapter titled "Friends and Foolery," I read this just the other night:

"There are some who complain of a man for doing nothing; there are some, still more mysterious and amazing, who complain of having nothing to do. When actually presented with some beautiful blank hours or days, they will grumble at their blankness. When given the gift of loneliness, which is the gift of liberty, they will cast it away; they will destroy it deliberately with some dreadful game with cards or a little ball. I speak only for myself; I know it takes all sorts to make a world; but I cannot repress a shudder when I see them throwing away their hard-won holidays by doing something. For my own part, I never can get enough Nothing to do. I feel as if I had never had leisure to unpack a tenth part of the luggage of my life and thoughts."

And then this: after reading the above suggestion from Lewis on page 378 with a smile on my face at the thrill, I continued and read this on page 379:

"Johnson once described the ideal happiness which he would choose if he were regardless of futurity. My own choice, with the same reservation, would be to read the Italian epic -- to be always convalescent from some small illness and always seated in a window that overlooked the sea, there to read these poems eight hours of each happy day."

The obvious connection is leisure; both Chesterton and Lewis found leisure to be "hard-won." Many times in his letters, Lewis can be found recording pleasure in "some small illness" because it gave him the opportunity to read. The other connection, perhaps more thrilling because it includes me more deeply, is the less obvious hint of solitude. Not that it's all that hidden, of course.

Somehow this kind of connection seems to reach across decades and thousands of miles just to softly touch my tired mind. And I'm thankful.

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