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A clear boundary exists between the servile and the non-servile condition of labour, and the conditions upon either side of that boundary utterly differ one from another, Where there is compulsion applicable by positive law to men of a certain status, such compulsion enforced in the last resort by the powers at the disposal of the State, there is the institution of Slavery ; and if that institution be sufficiently expanded the whole State may be said to repose upon a servile basis, and is a Servile State. (Hilaire Belloc)

2First and Last

By Hilaire Belloc

“When a man weighs anchor in a little ship or a large one he does a jolly thing! He cuts himself off and he starts for freedom and for the chance of things. He pulls the jib a-weather, he leans to her slowly pulling round, he sees the wind getting into the mainsail, and he feels that she feels the helm. He has her on a slant of the wind, and he makes out between the harbour piers.” (quotation from Hilaire Belloc)

3On Something

By Hilaire Belloc

“Now that story is a symbol, and tells the truth. We see some one thing in this world, and suddenly it becomes particular and sacramental; a woman and a child, a man at evening, a troop of soldiers; we hear notes of music, we smell the smell that went with a passed time, or we discover after the long night a shaft of light upon the tops of the hills at morning: there is a resurrection, and we are refreshed and renewed.”<br/> - Hilaire Belloc

4On Nothing & Kindred Subjects

By Hilaire Belloc

“I knew a man once, Maurice, who was at Oxford for three years, and after that went down with no degree. At College, while his friends were seeking for Truth in funny brown German Philosophies, Sham Religions, stinking bottles and identical equations, he was lying on his back in Eynsham meadows thinking of Nothing, and got the Truth by this parallel road of his much more quickly than did they by theirs; for the asses are still seeking, mildly disputing, and, in a cultivated manner, following the gleam, so that they have become in their Donnish middle-age a nuisance and a pest; while he--that other--with the Truth very fast and firm at the end of a leather thong is dragging her sliding, whining and crouching on her four feet, dragging her reluctant through the world, even into the broad daylight where Truth most hates to be.”<br/> - Hilaire Belloc

5Europe and the Faith

By Hilaire Belloc

The Catholic brings to history (when I say "history" in these pages I mean the history of Christendom) self-knowledge. As a man in the confessional accuses himself of what he knows to be true and what other people cannot judge, so a Catholic, talking of the united European civilization, when he blames it, blames it for motives and for acts which are his own. He himself could have done those things in person. He is not relatively right in his blame, he is absolutely right. As a man can testify to his own motive so can the Catholic testify to unjust, irrelevant, or ignorant conceptions of the European story; for he knows why and how it proceeded. Others, not Catholic, look upon the story of Europe externally as strangers. "They" have to deal with something which presents itself to them partially and disconnectedly, by its phenomena alone: "he" sees it all from its centre in its essence, and together. (Hilaire Belloc)<br /><br /> Dedicated Proof-Listeners: mim@can; Betty M.

“It is, for that matter, self-evident that if one community decides in one fashion, another, also sovereign, in the opposite fashion, both cannot be right. Reasoning men have also protested, and justly, against the conception that what a majority in numbers, or even (what is more compelling still) a unanimity of decision in a community may order, may not only be wrong but may be something which that community has no authority to order since, though it possesses a civil and temporal authority, it acts against that ultimate authority which is its own consciousness of right. Men may and do justly protest against the doctrine that a community is incapable of doing deliberate evil; it is as capable of such an action as is an individual. But men nowhere do or can deny that the community acting as it thinks right is ultimately sovereign: there is no alternative to so plain a truth.” - Hilaire Belloc

Long before I knew that the speech of men was misused by them and that they lied in the hearing of the gods perpetually, in those early days through which all men have passed, during which one believes what one is told, an old and crusty woman of great wealth, to whom I was describing what I intended to do with life (which in those days seemed to me of infinite duration), said to me, "You are building castles in Spain." I was too much in awe of this woman not on account of the wealth, but on account of the crust to go further into the matter, but it seemed to me a very foolish thing to say, for I had never been to Spain, and I had nothing wherewith to build a castle and indeed such a project had never passed through my head. -- Hilaire Belloc

“When Fame comes upon a man well before death then must he most particularly beware of it, for is it then most dangerous. Neither must he, having achieved it, relax effort nor (a much greater peril) think he has done his work because some Fame now attaches thereto.” -- Hilaire Belloc

9Free Press

By Hilaire Belloc

I propose to discuss in what follows the evil of the great modern Capitalist Press, its function in vitiating and misinforming opinion and in putting power into ignoble hands; its correction by the formation of small independent organs, and the probably increasing effect of these last. (Introduction by Hilaire Belloc)

This rollicking novel captures the minor moral dilemma of thin, shy, nervous, Professor Higginson, psychologist, as he comes under the eye of the enemy of his soul through an encounter with a green overcoat. The quixotic adventure that follows will bring the childlike reader laughter like rainfall. This is Belloc at his Chestertonian best! - Summary by Russ Hobbs

11Verses

By Hilaire Belloc

A collection of poetry by Hilaire Belloc ranging from religious verses to drinking songs. - Summary by Larry Wilson

12On Everything

By Hilaire Belloc

Hillaire Belloc of French by birth, British by naturalization was a diverse and prolific writer of the early 20th century. His writing runs the range from poetry, political writings and children’s stories. He was a close friend, and sometimes collaborator with fellow Catholic G.K. Chesterton.<br><br> This book is a collection of essays and other short writings on a vast array of subjects ranging from observations on the barber, the duel, reflections on war and religion. Some are in the form of drama, dialogue and letters but always engaging with wit and satire. - Summary by Larry Wilson<br><br>Proof-listened by LynnJM and ADKreader

13On

By Hilaire Belloc

Hilaire Belloc, French by birth, British by naturalization, was a diverse and prolific writer of the early 20th century. His writing runs the range from poetry, political writings and children’s stories. He was a close friend, and sometimes collaborator with fellow Catholic G.K. Chesterton. <br> This book is a collection of essays and other short writings on a vast array of subjects ranging from observations on Bad Verse and Mumbo-Jumbo to Sailing the Seas and Hatred of Numbers. - Summary by Larry Wilson

14Road

By Hilaire Belloc

"We are arrived at a chief turning-point in the history of the English highway. New instruments of locomotion, a greater volume of traffic, a greater weight in loads, and vastly increased rapidity in road travel have between them brought us to an issue: either some very considerable and immediate change in the character of the Road, or a serious and increasing handicap in our rivalry with other nations through the strain and expense of an out-worn system.<br> "The moment therefore calls for some examination of the Road, its theory and history. That need has prompted me to write this essay; but I must say at the outset that I approach my task with no expert qualification. My only equipment for the general sketch I intend is historical reading and the experience acquired in the writing of certain monographs upon the topography of the Road in the past. I can do no more than suggest lines of thought which, if they lead to practice, need a detailed science I do not possess. ...<br> "We have had (as I shall develop in more detail) five great moments ... in the history of the English road system: the moment when the British trackway was superseded by the Roman military road; the moment when the latter declined in the Dark Ages; the moment when the mediaeval system of local roads grew up on the basis of the old Roman trunk roads and around them; the moment when this in its turn declined in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the re-casting of the road system by the turnpikes of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. To-day the sixth great change is upon us.<br> "It is incumbent upon us then to-day to get ourselves clear upon the theory and the history of the Road, and I propose in this essay to take them in two sections: first, the Road in general; next, that special institution the English Road." - From the introduction<br><br> Listeners are encouraged to access the online text of this book at Project Gutenberg in order to view the excellent maps and diagrams that enrich the text.

15Footpath Way: An Anthology for Walkers

By Hilaire Belloc

This 1911 anthology is a collection of musings on the pleasures, challenges, and experience of walking. It features some famous authors (Thoreau, Dickens, Whitman, etc.) and others who are less well known. The works include essays, excerpts from fictional works, and first-person accounts of adventures had while walking. The collection was compiled by Hilaire Belloc, a Franco-English writer, many of whose books have been recorded for Librivox. - Summary by Verla Viera