wyclif

The internet is full of photos of mid-century Americans in Brooks Brothers and sprezzed-out Italians, but what about the British? No Man Walks Alone writer William Phips had a nice post yesterday about the various ways you can wear a tweed sport coat. Included was something he called the “Old British Dude” look, where a tweed jacket is combined with a soft Viyella shirt, pair of whipcord trousers, and wool tie. A woven silk tie with dogs or pheasants would also do, he suggests, as old British dudes apparently love their hunting-themed accessories. “Before moving to England, I wasn’t sure anyone really dressed like this, but British country look is indeed alive and well,” he writes.  

The post reminded me of this photo series by Allen Warren, an English photographer known for his portraits of people in high society. In the early 1980s, he photographed a bunch of non-royal and royal dukes, some of which he later published in his book The Dukes of Britain. The English peerage system was on a “slow boat to extinction,” he thought, so he worked on documenting the disappearing class. 

Martin Luther, An Order of Mass and Communion for the Church at Wittenberg (1523).

“Such people are a nuisance even in other affairs, but in spiritual matters, they are absolutely unbearable.” Ouch. Said with feeling…

If you came this way, Taking any route, starting from anywhere, At any time or at any season, It would always be the same: you would have to put off Sense and notion. You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity Or carry report. You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more Than an order of words, the conscious occupation Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying. And what the dead had no speech for, when living, They can tell you, being dead: the communication Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of living. Here, the intersection of the timeless moment Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding. Little Gidding was the site of the religious community founded by Nicholas Ferrar in 1626. Ferrar is also known for publishing George Herbert’s poetry (Herbert left it to Ferrar to decide whether to publish them or to burn them).

Hermann Sasse, “The Lord’s Supper in the New Testament”, in We Confess the Sacraments, p. 88. (via simojoki)

As the description at that link notes, “The cathedral suffered fourteen hits by aerial bombs during World War II” - presumably the holes in the roof, especially on the north transept, were the result of some of these impacts. 

THE NEW STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS TRAILER, IN GIF FORM.