Macbeth in Canada

with a bust of the Bard

Few things satisfy a person like Macbeth, performed without gimmicks, without extensive script-cuts.  Without nonsense.  Just the subtle workings of ambition, of manipulation, and of craven hopelessness.  Then the revenge of honesty and the restoration of order.  With good witch scenes in the middle.

Tomorrow, we get to see As You Like It.

Thank you, dear people of St. Joseph’s in Martinsville, who gave us this trip!

Can’t come to Canada without reading Francis Parkman.  In Montcalm and Wolfe, Parkman formulates a fascinating thesis:  What we call the French and Indian War–the part of the European Seven Years War fought in the American colonies–marks the decisive turning point in modern history.  The hegemony of medieval authoritarianism–incarnated in the French colonial system–got crushed, unleashing the forces of the English Enlightenment, which proceeded to rule the world.

Parkman wrote before our 20th-century sensibilities about the native tribes in America.  He knew how much closer the French got to the Indians than the English ever did.  Frenchmen married Indian women.  And of course the French hoped to share their religion with the Indians.  But Parkman did not regard the French interaction with the Indians as inherently virtuous, as we sons and daughters of latter times might regard it.  (The North-American Jesuit martyrs are among my most-beloved heroes, so I certainly regard the French interaction with the natives as amazingly virtuous!)

Anyway, Parkman’s thesis begs the question:  Where does the war between the Roman Church and the Enlightenment stand now?  In the 1880’s, Parkman saw a decisive victory achieved in 1763.  But aren’t we “Romish zealots” still standing and fighting?  We Romish zealots may yet decide the course of the 21st century.