"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Wednesday, February 11, 2004 While waiting for Mass. lawmakers to develop some spine…
Here's that photo of Jane Fonda and John Kerry at a 1970 anti-war rally. Kerry may be seen at about 12 o'clock to Fonda, a few rows behind. (Via ELC)
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Inspired by the pipe gone missing from the bulldog's mouth, this excerpt from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Monsignor Darcy's house was an ancient, rambling structure set on a hill overlooking the river, and there lived its owner, between his trips to all parts of the Roman-Catholic world, rather like an exiled Stuart king waiting to be called to the rule of his land. Monsignor was forty-four then, and bustling—a trifle too stout for symmetry, with hair the color of spun gold, and a brilliant, enveloping personality. When he came into a room clad in his full purple regalia from thatch to toe, he resembled a Turner sunset, and attracted both admiration and attention. He had written two novels: one of them violently anti-Catholic, just before his conversion, and five years later another, in which he had attempted to turn all his clever jibes against Catholics into even cleverer innuendoes against Episcopalians. He was intensely ritualistic, startlingly dramatic, loved the idea of God enough to be a celibate, and rather liked his neighbor.
Children adored him because he was like a child; youth revelled in his company because he was still a youth, and couldn't be shocked. In the proper land and century he might have been a Richelieu—at present he was a very moral, very religious (if not particularly pious) clergyman, making a great mystery about pulling rusty wires, and appreciating life to the fullest, if not entirely enjoying it.
He and Amory took to each other at first sight—the jovial, impressive prelate who could dazzle an embassy ball, and the green-eyed, intent youth, in his first long trousers, accepted in their own minds a relation of father and son within a half-hour's conversation.
"My dear boy, I've been waiting to see you for years. Take a big chair and we'll have a chat."
"I've just come from school—St. Regis's, you know."
"So your mother says—a remarkable woman; have a cigarette—I'm sure you smoke. Well, if you're like me, you loathe all science and mathematics——"
Amory nodded vehemently.
"Hate 'em all. Like English and history."
"Of course. You'll hate school for a while, too, but I'm glad you're going to St. Regis's."
"Why?"
"Because it's a gentleman's school, and democracy won't hit you so early. You'll find plenty of that in college."
"I want to go to Princeton," said Amory. "I don't know why, but I think of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men as wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes."
Monsignor chuckled.
"I'm one, you know."
"Oh, you're different—I think of Princeton as being lazy and good-looking and aristocratic—you know, like a spring day. Harvard seems sort of indoors——"
"And Yale is November, crisp and energetic," finished Monsignor.
"That's it."
They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.
"I was for Bonnie Prince Charlie," announced Amory.
"Of course you were—and for Hannibal——"
"Yes, and for the Southern Confederacy." He was rather sceptical about being an Irish patriot—he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat common—but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause and Irish people quite charming, and that it should, by all means, be one of his principal biasses.
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A vintage Handsome Dan pipe tobacco box is pictured at a page of antique tobacco tins.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
