Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm's
Storyfest Review of Travel & Pilgrimage Books - # 8
Hills and the Sea
by Hilaire Belloc
Chaucer began his Canterbury Tales:
When April with its gentle rains
the drought of March hath pierced to the root
and bathed every vein in such liquor
of which virtue engendered is the flower...
Then folk long to go on pilgrimage.
If you choose to Journey this spring with Hilaire Belloc by reading Hills and the Sea, head straight for the chapter titled “The Idea of a Pilgrimage.”
Joseph Hilaire Pierre Rene Belloc was a man who loved ideas; and a man who could write. Here are a few of his gems on pilgrimage:
A pilgrimage is a chapter of life. The meaning of life packed into a little space, like a small locket portrait.
A pilgrimage is a nobler kind of travel in which we tell our tales, draw our pictures, compose our songs.
A pilgrimage is to lose the mind and purge it in the ultimate contemplation of something divine.
Be a brother to the streets and trees and to all the new world.
Set out with the heart of a wanderer,
eager for the world as it is,
forgetful of maps and descriptions,
hungry for real colours
and men
and the seeming of things.
A pilgrimage is, of course, an expedition.
The best way is on foot, with the sky above and the road beneath and the world on every side and time to see all.
If you choose to travel with Hilaire Belloc, be prepared. This will be a pilgrimage of sorts. You will never quite know where you are, what time it is, who is with you. Being thus off balance, he will engage you with the thoughts of a philosopher, the stories of an historian, the observations of a traveler. Mostly, he visited England and France, at the turn of the last century. The contrast between the open fens of East Anglia and the jutting mountains of the Pyrenees suggest the scale of his soul, for he is as comfortable with space as with height.
To my mind, his most evocative writing is reserved for East Anglia. Listen: “Sand and mud commingle. Nowhere does the land fade into the sea so inconspicuously... the dry land slips, and wallows into a quiet, very shallow water, confused with a yellow thickness and brackish with the weight of inland water behind.”
Later, he praised East Anglia thus: “Miles and miles of emptiness and miles of bending grass and the shouting of the wind.”
Hilaire Belloc is entirely self-absorbed, content, sure of himself. He says, of himself, in third person, in the Forward, “There were once two men. They were young; they were intolerant; they were hale... They were men absolute.” If you can bear this insufferable, but honest attitude, you will enjoy your peregrinations with him.
To read this book is to travel with a wierd man. He thinks. He walks. He climbs. He writes about history. He gets in dangerous situations. He gets out of the situation. He goes to war. He puts out on the sea in a small unworthy craft. He climbs a mountain in the Pyrenees where evil is all about.
He seemed to be speaking directly to me? I turn my head slightly for surely there must be another person nearby. But no. I am alone. It is 100 years later. And I read on.
He has given himself the command, “A man must write down what he see.” Later he admonishes himself, “In a diary of route, everything must be set down faithfully and so I have set down all this sodden and empty day.”
“Ahem,” he coughs discreetly. “Are you still paying attention to me?”
“Yes, of course,” I mumble and I read on.
Mr. Belloc introduced the people he met. For instance: “I met, three days ago, a man... The Onion Eater ambled near the Roman Road, a powerful man, full of health and ease, whose clothes were in rags. The Onion Eater said, 'This is indeed a day to be alive.' And took a piece of bread and onion from his pocket. The two men talked and the onion eater opined, 'I think the door of heaven is ajar from time to time and that light shines out upon us for a moment between its opening and closing.'"
At the end of the book of essays, he related a stay at an inn run by two old people who were at peace. He said, “A man can here enjoy great refreshment. The memory of a complete repose is a sort of sacrament, a viaticum for the weary way.” I remembered those places of repose in my life.
Finally, he stood in a harbor at midsummer, two a.m., at the Northern tip of Scotland, where he met a certain man who, when asked, replied, “I am off to find what is beyond the sea. I am going to a place where everyone will call me by my name.”
Concluded Hilaire Belloc, “I did not follow him for even if I had followed him, I would not have found the town.”
I reread the Foreward, wondering what I had read. There, Belloc described his wanderings as “a mad and reckless enounter with the Gods!” That was grandiose enough. I thought he was trying to come to terms with his ideas about the ideals of Europe at a time when Europe was about to change irreparably.
If you read this book, what do you think it is about? One thing is for sure. It is unique onto itself. As, undoubtedly, Joseph Hilaire Pierre Rene Belloc was a man unique unto himself.
Hills and the Sea. Hilaire Belloc. The Marlboro Press/Northwestern, Evanston, IL 60208. First published in 1906. Published in 1990 by The Marlboro Press. The Marlboro Press/Northwestern edition published 1996. ISBN 0-8101-6009-9
Copyright©2000 Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm
ORDER INFORMATION
Order Belloc's Hills and the Sea Today!
Index to Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm's Reviews of Travel & Pilgrimage Books
Kelly with her nephews Emmett and Brendan
Kelly Wilhelm Welcomes Your Comments on this Review of Hilaire Belloc's Hills and the Sea. Please send an
Come Back Next Month for Kelly's Next Review
Storyfest Review of Travel & Pilgrimage Books - # 8
by Hilaire Belloc
Chaucer began his Canterbury Tales:
When April with its gentle rains
the drought of March hath pierced to the root
and bathed every vein in such liquor
of which virtue engendered is the flower...
Then folk long to go on pilgrimage.
If you choose to Journey this spring with Hilaire Belloc by reading Hills and the Sea, head straight for the chapter titled “The Idea of a Pilgrimage.”
Joseph Hilaire Pierre Rene Belloc was a man who loved ideas; and a man who could write. Here are a few of his gems on pilgrimage:
A pilgrimage is a chapter of life. The meaning of life packed into a little space, like a small locket portrait.
A pilgrimage is a nobler kind of travel in which we tell our tales, draw our pictures, compose our songs.
A pilgrimage is to lose the mind and purge it in the ultimate contemplation of something divine.
Be a brother to the streets and trees and to all the new world.
Set out with the heart of a wanderer,
eager for the world as it is,
forgetful of maps and descriptions,
hungry for real colours
and men
and the seeming of things.
A pilgrimage is, of course, an expedition.
The best way is on foot, with the sky above and the road beneath and the world on every side and time to see all.
If you choose to travel with Hilaire Belloc, be prepared. This will be a pilgrimage of sorts. You will never quite know where you are, what time it is, who is with you. Being thus off balance, he will engage you with the thoughts of a philosopher, the stories of an historian, the observations of a traveler. Mostly, he visited England and France, at the turn of the last century. The contrast between the open fens of East Anglia and the jutting mountains of the Pyrenees suggest the scale of his soul, for he is as comfortable with space as with height.
To my mind, his most evocative writing is reserved for East Anglia. Listen: “Sand and mud commingle. Nowhere does the land fade into the sea so inconspicuously... the dry land slips, and wallows into a quiet, very shallow water, confused with a yellow thickness and brackish with the weight of inland water behind.”
Later, he praised East Anglia thus: “Miles and miles of emptiness and miles of bending grass and the shouting of the wind.”
Hilaire Belloc is entirely self-absorbed, content, sure of himself. He says, of himself, in third person, in the Forward, “There were once two men. They were young; they were intolerant; they were hale... They were men absolute.” If you can bear this insufferable, but honest attitude, you will enjoy your peregrinations with him.
To read this book is to travel with a wierd man. He thinks. He walks. He climbs. He writes about history. He gets in dangerous situations. He gets out of the situation. He goes to war. He puts out on the sea in a small unworthy craft. He climbs a mountain in the Pyrenees where evil is all about.
He seemed to be speaking directly to me? I turn my head slightly for surely there must be another person nearby. But no. I am alone. It is 100 years later. And I read on.
He has given himself the command, “A man must write down what he see.” Later he admonishes himself, “In a diary of route, everything must be set down faithfully and so I have set down all this sodden and empty day.”
“Ahem,” he coughs discreetly. “Are you still paying attention to me?”
“Yes, of course,” I mumble and I read on.
Mr. Belloc introduced the people he met. For instance: “I met, three days ago, a man... The Onion Eater ambled near the Roman Road, a powerful man, full of health and ease, whose clothes were in rags. The Onion Eater said, 'This is indeed a day to be alive.' And took a piece of bread and onion from his pocket. The two men talked and the onion eater opined, 'I think the door of heaven is ajar from time to time and that light shines out upon us for a moment between its opening and closing.'"
At the end of the book of essays, he related a stay at an inn run by two old people who were at peace. He said, “A man can here enjoy great refreshment. The memory of a complete repose is a sort of sacrament, a viaticum for the weary way.” I remembered those places of repose in my life.
Finally, he stood in a harbor at midsummer, two a.m., at the Northern tip of Scotland, where he met a certain man who, when asked, replied, “I am off to find what is beyond the sea. I am going to a place where everyone will call me by my name.”
Concluded Hilaire Belloc, “I did not follow him for even if I had followed him, I would not have found the town.”
I reread the Foreward, wondering what I had read. There, Belloc described his wanderings as “a mad and reckless enounter with the Gods!” That was grandiose enough. I thought he was trying to come to terms with his ideas about the ideals of Europe at a time when Europe was about to change irreparably.
If you read this book, what do you think it is about? One thing is for sure. It is unique onto itself. As, undoubtedly, Joseph Hilaire Pierre Rene Belloc was a man unique unto himself.
Hills and the Sea. Hilaire Belloc. The Marlboro Press/Northwestern, Evanston, IL 60208. First published in 1906. Published in 1990 by The Marlboro Press. The Marlboro Press/Northwestern edition published 1996. ISBN 0-8101-6009-9
Copyright©2000 Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm
ORDER INFORMATION
Order Belloc's Hills and the Sea Today!
Index to Mary Jo Kelly Wilhelm's Reviews of Travel & Pilgrimage Books
Kelly with her nephews Emmett and Brendan
Kelly Wilhelm Welcomes Your Comments on this Review of Hilaire Belloc's Hills and the Sea. Please send an
Come Back Next Month for Kelly's Next Review