As we rocket toward tomorrow's thrilling finale, thank you for all your comments about this month's Tale for Our Time. Re Captain Dalroy's musings on the imperial cycle ("Victory over barbarians. Employment of barbarians. Alliance with barbarians. Conquest by barbarians.") Wanda Sherratt, a First Week Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes:
I've read a lot of Chesterton's non-fiction works, so that quote about the 4 acts in the destiny of Empire reminded me of another quote, from his 1905 book Heretics: 'It may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity. After that, the next step is to become a small power itself.'
As you say, Mark, we are at Stage 3 in this process, and Stage 4 will not be long in coming.
With America, Europe and HM Dominions, it is already underway, alas.
On which note: in tonight's penultimate episode of The Flying Inn, the Islamic character of Ivywood House is becoming more pronounced:
"Do you know what we are?" demanded Joan Brett, again. "We are a Harem."
"Why, what can you mean?" cried the younger girl, in great agitation. "Why, Lord Ivywood has never—"
"I know he has never. I am not sure," said Joan, "even whether he would ever. I shall never understand that man, nor will anybody else. But I tell you that is the spirit. That is what we are. And this room stinks of polygamy as certainly as it smells of tube-roses."
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Twenty-Six of The Flying Inn simply by clicking here and logging-in.
Chesterton wrote this novel in 1914. In case you're wondering whether there was any real-life basis to his Islamo-toff musings, well, the Misysra of his day was William Henry Quilliam of Liverpool, who in 1888 converted to Islam and became Abdullah Quilliam. In 1894 the Caliph himself, Abdul Hameed II, proclaimed Mr Quilliam the Sheikh of the British Isles.
It was Sheikh Abdullah who presided over the funeral of the third Lord Stanley of Alderley - or Abdur Rahman, as he preferred to be called. Having embraced Islam in 1862, he succeeded to his father's titles in 1869 and thereby became the first Muslim member of the House of Lords. (Lord Ivywood is a member of the Commons, so presumably his is a Scottish or Irish peerage.) According to Nancy Mitford, at the funeral Lord Stanley's brother and heir removed his hat as a mark of respect and the late baron's widow was obliged to hiss at her in-law, "Not the hat! The shoes!"
So an Islamic peer is not just a fanciful notion. In the last quarter-century, there have been many Muslim members of the House of Lords - such as the Rotherham paedo-peer "Lord" Ahmed, convicted of sexual assault and attempted rape of a boy and girl, both under the age of thirteen.
If you're new to our Club, or if the day's developments simply make you despair, there's nothing healthier than taking a short break from the hell of the hamster-wheel news-cycle and exploring the delights of our Tales for Our Time home page. It's configured in Netflix tile style, with the stories organised by category - thrillers, fantasy, romance, etc - which we hope will make it easy for you to find a favourite diversion of an evening. You can access over sixty of our cracking yarns here - and all previous episodes of our current adventure here.
If you've yet to hear any of our Tales for Our Time, you can do so by joining The Mark Steyn Club and enjoy our nightly audio adventures every evening twenty minutes before lowering your lamp - or hoard the episodes and binge-listen at the weekend or on a long car journey, if your government still permits you to leave your fifteen-minute city. For more details on that and other benefits to Steyn Club membership, see here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership.
Please join me right here tomorrow evening for the conclusion of The Flying Inn.
