The Face of the Enemy

I think the hardest teaching in the Gospels is Jesus's telling us to love our enemies. It's so easy, as Bernard Shaw pointed out, to "throw oil on the flaming hell of your own temper" and hate. In politics, in religion, in life. Even in intramural civil disputes over property in the Anglican Wars, I've seen each side treat the other treated as not fellow Christians with whom relationships have broken down, but with contempt as bigoted schismatics on the one hand and as libertine emissaries of Lucifer on the other. I have sometimes been guilty of this myself; I have a quick temper and years as a litigator have sharpened my ability to jab or cut with words.

Last week, I was profoundly touched by an article in the New york Times about restorative justice in criminal law; Andy and Kate Grosmaire (Andy is, like me, a postulant for the diaconate in the Episcopal Church)initiated a restorative justice process with the family of their daughter's fiancé, who had murdered her in an argument, and which, thanks to a prosecuting attorney who was willing to try the process, resulted in a surprising degree of healing and reconciliation. Even in cases as serious as murder, other examples can be found.

As the author, almost 20 years ago, of a study of dismissing criminal cases in the interests of justice, I have long hoped that my ministry would encompass trying to bring reconciliation between offenders and the larger society. What I have read on restorative justice in following up on the article about the Grosmaires seems to point a way forward to me. And then, of course, I read about the horrific murder of my law school classmate, Theresa Gorski. I was, simply, shocked. I still am, I think. I asked my church to put Theresa and her children on the prayer list--but I couldn't bring myself to add her husband, Christopher Howson,who is accused of her murder.

I once wrote that we are none of reducible to our worst moments. I believe this with all of my heart, mind, and soul. Andy and Kate Grosmaire, in the worst of circumstances, saw this, and were able to bring themselves to forgive the man who had killed his beloved daughter. That is living one's faith in the most extraordinary way. And it's necessary for healing, and to bring healing.

I'm not saying that, if I were so tested, I could do what the Grosmaires did, what Sharletta Evans did. I hope I never am so tested--save me from the time of trial, indeed--but I can try to apply the lesson demonstrated so heroically by them in my own way.

Pray for Theresa, and her children. Pray for Christopher. Pray for all whose lives were shattered by this horror, and all similarly situated. And, in conflicts great and small, try to remember the humanity of those who hurt me--and hope that those I offend do the same for me. A bit late for a New Year's Resolution, perhaps, but I think that's the one for me. That, and continue exploring the world of restorative justice, to see where I may be led.

Death by Domestic Abuse

When I got to my office, I was shocked to see this in the New York Law Journal:

Grief-stricken colleagues of Theresa Gorski, a 47-year-old Legal Aid Society attorney who devoted the last decade of her career to advocating for children, met with counselors yesterday in the aftermath of what was described as a domestic violence-related death.
...
Gorski died Jan. 9 when she was removed from life support at Phelps Memorial Hospital, a short distance from her home in Sleepy Hollow, Westchester County. According to law enforcement, she allegedly was choked early on the morning of Jan. 5 by her husband, Christopher Howson, in the home they shared with their 5- and 8-year-old daughters.

Howson, 49, was charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree strangulation. Additional charges are pending now that Gorski has died.

The article identifies her as the Theresa Gorski who "was admitted in 1991 after graduating from Columbia Law School."

My classmate. The minute I saw the name, I was hoping it wasn't, but that's our year and law school. The more it's sat with me today, the more horror-struck I am by it.

Theresa and I weren't close friends, but we were friendly; she was kind in a pretty tightly wound environment, and, although she worked hard and long, she was funny, and interested in her classmates. Columbia was a little lighter and brighter for her presence. What I remember of her in classes is borne out by how she's described as an advocate by one of her adversaries: "extraordinarily well prepared, and [her] low-key, soft-spoken nature was left at the doorstep when she went to court." We didn't keep up, as is so often the case. There are only a handful of friends from those days that I've stayed in touch with. Columbia Law School was not, for me, a place where deep friendships were forged--although at least one college friendship really bloomed when a fellow Fordham alum and I met up again there. (The friend in question is a conservative, but we disagree agreeably, and I'm grateful for that beyond words.)

I grieve for Theresa, who in the nearly 23 years since we graduated, did great things in the law; the same adversary quoted above called her "a champion for children." Not a bad epitaph. But, to die so young, and in such a horrible way, at the hands of the one person she should most have been able to trust! I think of the young woman I casually knew, and shared the pressure cooker environment of CLS with, and remember her bright promise, her potential, and it's like I'm there again, in the uncomfortable, pretty ugly law school building we called the Toaster (they've improved on it since then), and I feel vertigo at the thought of Theresa going into the dark in so terrible, unfair a way. And God alone knows what other revelations will surface about her life outside of the office, or what will never be known. She deserved better, far better. And so did her children, deprived of their champion at so young an age.

The kind of abuse that led to the death Theresa suffered is horribly common--the NYLJ says that

One of the crimes initially charged against Howson, first-degree strangulation, has been on the books for only two years. It was created to fill a gap in the Penal Law after authorities and advocates complained that domestic violence victims were often choked to the brink of death and, absent a visible physical injury, district attorneys could charge nothing more serious than harassment, a mere violation. Until November 2010, strangulation was not a crime in New York State.

Johanna Sullivan, counsel to the state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, said that law enforcement began charging under the new statute from the day it took effect. Now, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), about 1,000 strangulation arrests are made every month.
....

Sullivan said strangulation is a common way for abusers to exert power over their victims, bringing the victim to the very edge of death.

"Someone can strangle someone almost to the point of dying, and will use that over and over again as a way of gaining power and control," said Sullivan. "They threaten the victim by almost killing them."

Sullivan said studies show that victims who have been strangled in the past are almost 10 times more likely to be killed through domestic violence.

I'm a lawyer. For three years, I did criminal appeals for Legal Aid. How did I not know these facts? Because they didn't directly touch anyone I knew?

I'm not sure why I'm writing this; maybe it's because I want everyone to learn from this hideous tragedy that domestic violence can enter the lives of the competent, engaged professional women who protect its victims in their professional lives. Maybe it's just because I want to pay tribute to my classmate Theresa, who did good, and deserved so much better. Maybe it's because I don't want to let her slip into the dark without a salute and a shabash from me. We're middle aged, now. The number of those who remember that rough and tumble, and what we were all like then--it ain't going up.

Plotinus said that nothing that really is can ever die. I believe that, truly I do. And I believe that all that Theresa was is, in a very real way, not lost. But let's not fool ourselves. This is a cruel loss for every life she touched, and an indictment of us as a society. There are those who claim that we live in a culture of death, often are dubious grounds. These statistics, and the shattered lives they represent aren't dubious.

God be with her, and her family.

The Reports of the Death of J.M. Keynes Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Olivier Blanchard and Daniel Leigh of the International Money Fund have released a paper in which they acknowledge that their expectations of growth underpinning the IMF's support for fiscal consolidation (austerity to you and me) was the right approach to take in Europe in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008 to the present were, um, wrong. As the WSJ Blog summarizes:

In a new paper published Thursday [January 3, 2013], IMF Economic Counsellor Olivier Blanchard and research-department economist Daniel Leigh show the IMF recommended slashing budgets too fast early in the euro crisis, starving many economies of much-needed growth.

In “Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers,” Messrs. Blanchard and Leigh calculate IMF and European economists underestimated the euro-for-euro effect of cutting government budgets. While economists expected that cutting a euro from the budget would cost around 50 cents in lost growth, the actual impact was more like 1.50 per euro.

In other words, the assumption was that austerity would hinder growth one third the amount it in fact did. The paper itself states that in the last similar period, the Great Depression, the actual impact of austerity was a similar 1.6 ratio. In other words, austerity had the almost exact same impact in the wake of the Great Recession as it did in the Great Depression--a profoundly negative one, in almost the exact same amount. (See Paper at pp. 3-4).

As Peter Martin of the Sydney Morning Herald notes, this error had real consequences:

Rather than suffering far less than the savings they made on their budgets, the economies suffered far more. As mistaken advice it's monstrous - like going to see a doctor who tells you the medicine won't hurt much and finding it lays you low for years.
The fund forecast that if the eurozone took its advice it would grow 1.8 per cent throughout 2011. It grew 0.7 per cent. Italy would climb 1.3 per cent; it slid 0.5 per cent. Spain would surge 1.8 per cent; it grew not at all.

Another lesson learned by Blanchard and Leigh?

lower output and lower income, together with a poorly functioning financial system, imply that consumption may have depended more on current than on future income, and that investment may have depended more on current than on future profits, with both effects leading to larger multipliers.

(Paper at 4.)

[Notably, the Paper cites for that last proposition a 2012 study co-authored by Keynesian Paul Krugman, in what must seem to Krugthulu (as he is known on the blogs), a sweet bit of irony.]

So let's recap: Austerity, tried in the 1930s failed miserably, producing $1.60 in lost growth for every dollar in deficit reduction. Tried again, it failed to almost exactly the same extent. Of course, Blanchard and Leigh still contend that:

Finally, it is worth emphasizing that deciding on the appropriate stance of fiscal policy requires much more than an assessment regarding the size of short-term fiscal multipliers. Thus, our results should not be construed as arguing for any specific fiscal policy stance in any specific country. In particular, the results do not imply that fiscal consolidation is undesirable. Virtually all advanced economies face the challenge of fiscal adjustment in response to elevated government debt levels and future pressures on public finances from demographic change. The short-term effects of fiscal policy on economic activity are only one of the many factors that need to be considered in determining the appropriate pace of fiscal consolidation for any single country.

Austerians, I have only this to say to you:



(H/t: Balloon Juice

More on Secession

A reader from South Carolina responded to my post Firing on Fort Sumter, and I think his views are worth addressing. Unfortunately, my response was too long to post as a comment, but I think the issues he raises are worth a separate post. I want to thank him for his comment, which led me to hone in and (I hope) clarify my own views on these issues. I especially want to thank him for coming over to what might feel like hostile territory to engage me civilly on the merits. I'll give potted versions of the critiques; the original comment may be read appended to the original post.

My reader (he signed his name, but had no way of knowing I'd reply in a full post, so I'll leave it out) raises three issues:

1. He contends that my statement in the original post that "it would appear to assert that the Breakaway Diocese, even though it has, to use its own word, 'disassociated' from the national church, remains the only Episcopal diocese in South Carolina. TEC should be, effectively, prohibited from having a diocese within the same boundaries as South Carolina" is inaccurate, as the "request for a declaratory judgement makes no such claim. You're building a straw man." He further states that "The Diocese of South Carolina has made it perfectly clear that those who left the diocese and wish to reassociate with TEC and form a NEW diocese in the South Carolina Lowcountry have every right to do so. Furthermore, any such parish can leave with all their property and cash intact. What those parishes CAN NOT do is present themselves as the Diocese of South Carolina or attempt to assume the identity (including the history, seal, etc) of The Diocese of South Carolina, which is a registered legal corporate entity in the State of South Carolina."

2. Second, he suggest that "you're being overly optimistic in your reading of the Wacamaw case. There is absolutely no evidence that South Carolina courts will by into TEC's cockamamie argument of 'implied trust.'"

3. "As to whether the Diocese of South Carolina can be a "free floating" diocese, the vast majority of Anglican around the world affirm the idea of extraterritorial dioceses."

My Response:

First, thanks for the comment. Really; I'm about to explain why I don't agree, but that doesn't mean I don't welcome the view from the other side.

Let me start with the easiest one. TEC's theory that a trust was created prior to the Dennis Canon's adoption is one that has been, as you note, accepted by several courts; the theory that the Dennis Canon was sufficient to create a trust, though, was not an invention of TEC but rather of the U.S. Supreme Court in Jones v. Wolf. The Court wrote that:

At any time before the dispute erupts, the parties can ensure, if they so desire, that the faction loyal to the hierarchical church will retain the church property. They can modify the deeds or the corporate charter to include a right of reversion or trust in favor of the general church. Alternatively, the constitution of the general church can be made to recite an express trust in favor of the denominational church. The burden involved in taking such steps will be minimal.

443 U.S. at 606 (emphasis added). This is exactly what the Dennis Canon did, and, assuming the South Carolina Supreme Court got its facts right in All Saints v. Campbell, "[i]n 1987, the Diocese amended its constitution and canons so as to include the 'Dennis Canon.'" Id., text at n. 4.

Whether the existence of the trust will be ultimately upheld is, as I noted in the main post, not a slam dunk. To my mind, that's because the current U.S. Supreme Court is very fractured in its approach to the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, and the stability of the precedents can't be taken for granted as a result. But the Supreme Court told the state courts and lower federal courts what steps would be necessary to create a trust, and TEC followed those steps, and SC explicitly ratified that decision. Normally, that should do it.

2. Slightly harder: Extraterritoriality. I agree that there are dioceses that are both called "extraterritorial" or "extra-provincial." However, they are under the metropolitan authority of a province (generally, the Archbishop of Canterbury). Most of these were formed in colonial days, or as mission churches, in areas where the Anglican population was too small to support a province.

My understanding--not disputed by my reader--is that the Breakaway Diocese intends to remain unaffiliated, as a self standing body. That seems to me to pose a problem, as does the notion that a constituent diocese can unilaterally break away and re-align, let alone exist in isolation. As Colin Podmore notes in his report to General Synod, "The Governance of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion,"

The Church of England is not simply an aggregation of dioceses. In the Middle Age, it was called "Ecclesia Anglicana" in Latin, and the"Church of England" in English, not "Ecclesiae Anglicanae" or "the Churches of England." The General Synod is not an assembly of diocesan deputations, but the synod of a national church.

This view is in harmony with Anglican thought from Hooker on. I don't know how these fundamentals of Anglican ecclesiology square with an independent diocese, or with one purporting to secede from the province to which it belongs. (I should in fairness note that Podmore is something of a critic of James Dator's Many Parts, One Body, originally written in 1957, and which argues that the rights of nullification and secession did not apply to TEC; the Dennis Canon, enacted subsequent thereto supports Dator, and the classic secessionist arguments deployed against him seem to me to presume against experience and against logic that TEC is somehow less of a province than is the Church of England.)

3. Status of the Respective Dioceses of SC: Which brings me to the last point. First, let me acknowledge an error on my part; had I read the Diocese's press release in addition to the January 4, 2013 letter of Mark Lawrence I cited in the earlier post, I would have found this statement:

“When the Diocese disassociated from The Episcopal Church we didn’t become a new entity,” Canon Lewis explained. “We have existed as an association since 1785. We incorporated in 1973; adopted our current legal name, ‘The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina,’ in 1987; and we disassociated from the Episcopal Church in October of 2012. The Episcopal Church has every right to have a presence in the area served by our Diocese – but it does not have a right to use our identity. The Episcopal Church must create a new entity.”

So I clearly did err in thinking that the Breakaway Diocese thought it had the right to simply geographically displace TEC. My apologies.

That said, for the reasons in part 2, I think the viewpoint has it rather backward--TEC doesn't recognize the right of a diocese to align itself with another province--and its case is pretty grounded in Anglican history; think of the original (1571/1662) text of Article 37 of the 39 Articles: "The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England." That's the basis from which Hooker postulates provinces based on national identity. Again, I think that the burden of proof is on those who assert that the Church of England is more of a national church theologically (not in civil law, obviously) than is TEC.

It seems to me that the TEC position--that the Episcopal Church-affiliated diocese in South Carolina is the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina is consistent with this history and ecclesiology, while the converse position amounts to congregationalism writ large.

I appreciate my reader's comment, and pressing me to think through these issues, as well as pointing out my factual error.

Firing on Fort Sumter

Per The Lead, I see that the Breakaway Diocese of South Carolina has filed a civil lawsuit against the Episcopal Church ("TEC") and, presumably, the continuing Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, seeking an order from

the court to prevent TEC from infringing on the protected marks of the Diocese, including its seal and its historical names, and to prevent it from assuming the Diocese’s identity, which was established long before TEC was formed. It also asks the court to protect our parish and Diocesan property, including church buildings and rectories, which our forefathers built and even shed blood over, and you have maintained without any investment of any kind from the national church.

The filing of the suit is remarkable for two reasons: First, it would appear to assert that the Breakaway Diocese, even though it has, to use its own word, "disassociated" from the national church, remains the only Episcopal diocese in South Carolina. TEC should be, effectively, prohibited from having a diocese within the same boundaries as South Carolina; secession precludes replacement, in their view. This claim is far-fetched; I really can't see the courts preventing TEC from having a Diocese of South Carolina, especially in view of Jones v. Wolf, in which the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the First Amendment "requires that civil courts defer to the resolution of issues of religious doctrine or polity by the highest court of a hierarchical church organization." And, if TEC can have an Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, then how can the breakaway Diocese retain exclusive rights to a name that suggests an affiliation that no longer exists? (I suppose they might win the seal as a trademark, though, if they get a sympathetic judge. That question seems pretty wide open, as far as I can see, though the seal might be required to be modified.)

Moreover, the Breakaway Diocese asserts that it has title, free of any trust interest on behalf of TEC, or the Continuing Diocese, of all property within the historic boundaries of the original diocese--although the communication states that "We respect the decision of those who wish to remain with TEC but believe they must also respect the identity and property of the Diocese of South Carolina, which has been painstakingly built over two centuries."

As I've previously written, I think that the claim of the invalidity of the Dennis Canon and the trust created thereby seriously overstates the impact of All Saints Parish v. Campbell, which turned on the fact that the quitclaim deed in question had been issued by the Diocese nearly a century prior to the property dispute, 70 years prior to the Dennis Canon's adoption, and eighty years prior to the diocese's explicit ratification of the Dennis Canon--all of which events happened decades before the consecration of Mark Lawrence as bishop of South Carolina. In All Saints, the Supreme Court found that any trust created could not include the property at issue, because the Diocese had abandoned any claim on the property before the creation of any trust under the canons of either TEC or the Diocese. Here, however, there is no dispute, as far as I can tell, that when Mark Lawrence became bishop, TEC had enacted, and South Carolina had adopted, canons creating a trust in all property within the Diocese on behalf of TEC.

Even if I believed (as I do not) that the Diocese had a right to secede from the province, then-bishop Lawrence* took his position as bishop subject to that trust, as did every member of the diocesan Standing Committee.

Now, TEC can bring causes of action based on breach of fiduciary duty, conversion and fraudulent conveyance within, at a minimum, three years after the transfers at issue, or discovery thereof. The quitclaim deeds were issued in November 2011. Thus, the Breakaway Diocese's action would, it seem to me, open it (as a corporation) and the individuals who took the actions to a very serious claim that the 2011 quitclaim deeds constituted conversion, fraudulent conveyances, and breach of fiduciary duty, in that they were issued with the intention of depriving TEC of its interest by the very trustees who owed TEC a duty to protect that interest. Obviously, there is no such thing as a slam dunk in litigation, which is part of why I have throughout advocated (and, where applicable, cheered) peaceful resolution to these property disputes, but I have yet to see a convincing--or, in fact, a plausible--argument as to why the Breakaway Diocese and its policy makers would not be liable. South Carolina's ecclesiastical authorities may have, a century and a half after the original Fort Sumter, made the same mistake that was made then.

*I know, I know; holy orders are indelible--but in what church is Mark Lawrence a bishop? The Church of South Carolina? It's certainly not not the Episcopal Church, and no other province has purported to consecrate him. In what world does Anglicanism support free-roaming bishops and upon what ecclesiological theory? I'm genuinely not trying to be snarky, here, but I don't understand how, having renounced his canonical obedience, and having been deemed by the Church which consecrated him to have abandoned his ministry (a decision which the courts clearly cannot review under the First Amendment), he can claim the title. Feel free to enlighten me in comments.

The Fable of the Fair Cloth

Today, the Episcopal Diocese of New York celebrated the ministry of our retiring bishop Mark Sisk. The celebration took the form of a festal Eucharist with choir and musical offerings by two of the artists in residence at the Cathedral of St. John of the Divine.the inimitable Judy Collins, and Paul Winter (of whom I'd often heard, but had never heard until today).

A minor note, but important for me: as a postulant, this was the first time I have ever processed with the clergy of the diocese, among the seminarians, in cassock and surplice. It was a wonderful experience, chatting with the seminarians and my fellow diaconal postulants, seeing my friends among the clergy, and being welcomed to the fold.

Bishop Sisk's sermon was a combination of gentle thanks for all who had contributed to his episcopacy, and personal reflections, gathered around two anecdotes. One of them, especially, resonated with me. As the Bishop told the story, one day, as he stood at the High Altar in the Cathedral, he noticed that the fair cloth had a gash in it, which had been painstakingly, delicately stitched back together. Curious, the Bishop made inquiries, and found out that some years before, a mentally disturbed man had come into the Cathedral, and had hacked at the altar, through the fair cloth. The Bishop compared the Church to the fair cloth--torn, but still beautiful, rent, but still performing its function.

A little later, Judy Collins stood during the passing of the peace, and walked to the same pulpit where the bishop had spoken. In her remarks, she said that the bishop's story about the fair cloth had reminded her of Leonard Cohen's song Anthem, and its lyric, "There's a crack in everything/that's how the light gets in." She sang the 1860s hymn (as reworked by Pete Seeger, and, apparently, two of his neighbors whose names have been forgotten), "How can I Keep From Singing." Then, "because we need it, in these times," led us in singing "Amazing Grace." She sang it a cappella, in the supernally clear, melodious voice that has occupied a place in my heart since I was a child, and we sang it with her.

You can get something of the flavor of the moment here; though the video is nearly 40 years old, the singer sounds very much the same (although she knew her audience--no effort to get us to do harmony!)



Paul Winter sent us out after the Eucharist and the last hymn with his "Sun Singer," which he performed in conjunction with the Cathedral organist. The piece was well chosen, I think; with the organ accompaniment, it had just the right valedictory feel to mark the celebration of what has been, in the breathing space between that and what is to come.



Taken all in all, a good day.

The Land of Lost Content

In one of his novels (I'm pretty sure it's Murther and Walking Spirits) Robertson Davies describes the notion of the "Land of lost content"--the home from which severed, the exile cannot find rest, always yearning for return, but the place doesn't exist in our mundane world, so the exile always futilely yearns. For Davies's father, that land was Wales (the related concept of hiraeth gets a workout in Davies's earlier novel, A Mixture of Frailties).

For me, as for Helene Hanff, I think for me it has always been England, but not just any England--the England of literature. (Like Helene, I got there, and the guy she spoke to was right--it's there.) I have a particular weakness for the Victorians, the Edwardians and their successors through the 1940s.

All of which is to say that the return of Downton Abbey and the publication of William Manchester's and Paul Reid's The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm are both very welcome news to me--albeit at different levels. Manchester's first two volumes, the superb Visions of Glory (1983) and Alone led me to deeper study and greater admiration of Churchill, warts and all. So volume 3, long despaired of, is an unlooked for benison, even if, at times, it reads a tiny bit as ersatz, not completely authentic, brew. It's not that there weren't ways of pursuing the story without Manchester; the war years are well documents and often told, by WSC himself, and by the estimable Martin Gilbert, and Gilbert's final volume, Never Despair: 1945-1965, is less the work of the academic historian Gilbert has been and more a wonderfully human coda to the titanic life he had chronicled, and a long farewell after the distance Gilbert travelled with his subject.

But I wanted to read Manchester's version, because his storytelling was very, very different from Gilbert's. You want to know why? Here's Manchester's description of Dunkirk, from the Preamble to volume 1:

he French had collapsed. The Dutch had been overwhelmed. The Belgians had surrendered. The British army, trapped, fought free and fell back toward the Channel ports, converging on a fishing town whose name was then spelled Dunkerque.

It was England’s greatest crisis since the Norman conquest, vaster than those precipitated by Philip II’s Spanish Armada, Louis XIV’s triumphant armies, or Napoleon’s invasion barges massed at Boulogne. This time Britain stood alone. If the Germans crossed the Channel and established uncontested beachheads, all would be lost, for it is a peculiarity of England’s island that its southern weald is indefensible against disciplined troops. Now the 220,000 Tommies at Dunkirk, Britain’s only hope, seemed doomed. On the Flanders beaches they stood around in angular, existential attitudes, like dim purgatorial souls awaiting disposition. There appeared to be no way to bring more than a handful of them home. The Royal Navy’s vessels were inadequate. King George VI has been told that they would be lucky to save 17,000. The House of Commons was warned to prepare for “hard and heavy tidings.”

Then, from the streams and estuaries of Kent and Dover, a strange fleet appeared: trawlers and tugs, scows and fishing sloops, lifeboats and pleasure craft, smacks and coasters; the island ferry Grade Fields; Tom Sopwith’s America’s Cup challenger Endeavor; even the London fire brigade’s fire-float Massey Shaw — all of them manned by civilian volunteers:

English fathers, sailing to rescue England’s exhausted, bleeding sons.

Even today what followed seems miraculous. Not only were Britain’s soldiers delivered; so were French support troops: a total of 338,682 men. But wars are not won by fleeing from the enemy. And British morale was still unequal to the imminent challenge. These were the same people who, less than a year earlier, had rejoiced in the fake peace bought by the betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich. Most of their leaders and most of the press remained craven.

It had been over a thousand years since Alfred the Great had made himself and his countrymen one and sent them into battle transformed. Now in this new exigency, confronted by the mightiest conqueror Europe had ever known, England looked for another Alfred, a figure cast in a mold which, by the time of the Dunkirk deliverance, seemed to have been forever lost.

England’s new leader, were he to prevail, would have to stand for everything England’s decent, civilized Establishment had rejected. They viewed Adolf Hitler as the product of complex social and historical forces. Their successor would have to be a passionate Manichean who saw the world as a medieval struggle to the death between the powers of good and the powers of evil, who held that individuals are responsible for their actions and that the German dictator was therefore wicked. A believer in martial glory was required, one who saw splendor in the ancient parades of victorious legions through Persepolis and could rally the nation to brave the coming German fury.

An embodiment of fading Victorian standards was wanted: a tribune for honor, loyalty, duty, and the supreme virtue of action; one who would never compromise with iniquity, who could create a sublime mood and thus give men heroic visions of what they were and might become. Like Adolf Hitler he would have to be a leader of intuitive genius, a born demagogue in the original sense of the word, a believer in the supremacy of his race and his national destiny, an artist who knew how to gather the blazing light of history into his prism and then distort it to his ends, an embodiment of inflexible resolution who could impose his will and his imagination on his people — a great tragedian who understood the appeal of martyrdom and could tell his followers the worst, hurling it to them like great hunks of bleeding meat, persuading them that the year of Dunkirk would be one in which it was “equally good to live or to die” — who could if necessary be just as cruel, just as cunning, and just as ruthless as Hitler but who could win victories without enslaving populations, or preaching supernaturalism, or foisting off myths of his infallibility, or destroying, or even warping, the libertarian institutions he had sworn to preserve.

Such a man, if he existed, would be England’s last chance.

In London there was such a man.

I wanted the end of the story from the author of that prose poem. And now, insofar as it can be done, I am reading it.

Downton, is, of course, a much lighter affair. But skillfully wrought and acted, with moments of light comedy edging the pathos from the verge of bathos. Like its predecessors Upstairs, Downstairs (hats off to Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins for creating the template) or The Forsyte Saga, Downton is a bit of a wallow in what's come to be known as "Theme Park Britain."

These are not, I hasten to add, my Land of Lost Content. They are sentimental (though Galsworthy's novels have tougher fiber than people give them credit for) evocations of the affection that real Anglophile bears the place, but rest on the fire kindled by greater writers--Trollope, Shakespeare, Herbert, Wodehouse, Gore, Shaw, Doyle, Snow, and, yes, I admit it, poor old Galsworthy, as well as so many others--Wilde, Pope, Fraser--there I go again.

Downton capitalizes on the pre-existing goodwill, true, but delivers a good ride. Churchill, in Manchester's telling, reminds us of the power of the Victorian mindset and Victorian values when confronted by the starkest of adversity. Mock them if you will, but at your peril--the Victorians could be repressed, but were never conquered.