A Note from the Publisher: Hammering Away
There is no such thing as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.
-C.K. Chesterton
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
-H.G. Wells
Reading over this fine volume before it went to print I was reminded of a governing metaphor one of my mentors, an American novelist, was fond of using. It was of the Norse god Thor making a circle around Middle earth, beating back the enemies of order. Thor got older every year, like the rest of us do, and the circle occupied by the gods and men grew ever smaller. Desperate, Woden, the god of wisdom, cornered the king of the trolls and demanded to know of him how order might triumph over chaos. The king of the trolls promised to give an answer in return for Woden's left eye, and, when he received it, gave Woden the answer: "The secret," he said, "is to watch with both eyes."
Cruel irony, to be sure, and yet the metaphor does seem to reflect a gnarly truth about our existence. There is no sure hope against the darkness that surrounds us-those things that threaten the light of culture, the order and beneficent richness of highest civilization-ignorance, narcissism, and what Chesterton himself claimed to be the worst of all sins against life, indifference. Thor, along with the other gods, has withdrawn from our immediate view, and all we have is his hammer, which represents-my novelist friend averred-not brute force but art, or, "counting both hammerheads, art and criticism." I would add to that good scholarship of all stripes: the impulse to learn and share what is learned, to think and share what is thought, to create and share what is made. It is a forging of ideation, a smithing of art, an active and energetic engagement in civilization's learned conversation that arches toward whatever might be true, because whatever is true is relevant. Our task is to figure out how to use this hammer to these ends. It's our only hope.
Here is where the project of the liberal arts education plays its role, and in these pages we see evidence of the endeavor at its best. These poems and vignettes and essays and stories are hardy, graceful swipes at the darkness, one after the other. It is work that has been researched and written and composed by bright and engaged and curious scholars and writers and poets, interested and gifted young men and women who engage themselves in those intellectual and creative activities that are among the best of all our pursuits. We can only be pleased, and not a little proud, to know we are passing the hammer on to sure and able hands.
Robert Mooney
Publisher