On (Essays Collection). Hilaire Belloc

       Table of Contents

       On the Pleasure of Taking Up One's Pen

       On Getting Respected in Inns and Hotels

       On Ignorance

       On Advertisement

       On a House

       One the Illness of My Muse

       On a Dog and a Man Also

       On Tea

       On Them

       On Railways and Things

       On Conversations in Trains

       On the Return of the Dead

       On the Approach of an Awful Doom

       On a Rich Man Who Suffered

       On a Child Who Died

       On a Lost Manuscript

       On a Man Who was Protected by Another Man

       On National Debts (Which are Imaginaries and True Nothings of State)

       On Lords

       On Jingoes: In the Shape of a Warning

       On a Winged Horse and the Exile Who Rode Him

       On a Man and His Burden

       On a Fisherman and the Quest of Peace

       On a Hermit Whom I Knew

       Of an Unknown Country

       On a Faery Castle

       On a Southern Harbour

       On a Young Man and an Older Man

       On the Departure of a Guest

       On Death

       On Coming to an End

      _King's Land,

       December the 13th, 1907

      My dear Maurice,

      It was in Normandy, you will remember, and in the heat of the year, when the birds were silent in the trees and the apples nearly ripe, with the sun above us already of a stronger kind, and a somnolence within and without, that it was determined among us (the jolly company!) that I should write upon Nothing, and upon all that is cognate to Nothing, a task not yet attempted since the Beginning of the World.

      Now when the matter was begun and the subject nearly approached, I saw more clearly that this writing upon Nothing might be very grave, and as I looked at it in every way the difficulties of my adventure appalled me, nor am I certain that I have overcome them all. But I had promised you that I would proceed, and so I did, in spite of my doubts and terrors.

      For first I perceived that in writing upon this matter I was in peril of offending the privilege of others, and of those especially who are powerful to-day, since I would be discussing things very dear and domestic to my fellow-men, such as The Honour of Politicians, The Tact of Great Ladies, The Wealth of Journalists, The Enthusiasm of Gentlemen, and the Wit of Bankers. All that is most intimate and dearest to the men that make our time, all that they would most defend from the vulgar gaze—this it was proposed to make the theme of a common book.

      In spite of such natural fear and of interests so powerful to detain me, I have completed my task, and I will confess that as it grew it enthralled me. There is in Nothing something so majestic and so high that it is a fascination and spell to regard it. Is it not that which Mankind, after the great effort of life, at last attains, and that which alone can satisfy Mankind's desire? Is it not that which is the end of so many generations of analysis, the final word of Philosophy, and the goal of the search for reality? Is it not the very matter of our modern creed in which the great spirits of our time repose, and is it not, as it were, the culmination of their intelligence? It is indeed the sum and meaning of all around!

      How well has the world perceived it and how powerfully do its legends illustrate what Nothing is to men!

      You know that once in Lombardy