SOURCE: "The Poet of Europe," in Acts of Recovery: Essays on Culture and Politics, University Press of New England, 1989, pp. 83-92.

In the following essay, Hart emphasizes the importance of history and politics in Belloc's work.

Have you seen the Pope's gentle remarks to the Modernists? They are indeed noble! I could not have done it better myself. He gently hints they can't think, which is true. The old Heretics had guts, notably Calvin, and could think like the Devil, who inspired them. But the Modernists are inspired by a little minor he-devil, with one Eye and a stammer, and the result is poor.

Belloc to Dorothy Hamilton October 8, 1907

In England before the First World War it seems (in historical reverie) always to have been a summer afternoon. This may owe something to half-conscious effects lingering in the mind of scenes in Impressionist paintings, their joy in light...