| Date | Author | Title | Source | Quotation by Merton |
| 1958/10/23 | Vladimir Sergeyewich Solovyov | Meaning of Love |
Ltrs: CforT p. 90
| Am I right in surmising that the ideas in this book run closely parallel to those in [Vladimir] Soloviev's Meaning of Love? There is a great similarity. Both works remind us to fight our way out of complacency and realize that all our work remains yet to be done, the work of transformation which is the work of love, and love alone. I need not tell you that I also am one who has tried to learn deeply from Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor, and I am passionately convinced that this is the most important of all lessons for our time. It is important here, and there. Equally important everywhere. |
| 1962/07/13 | Jules Romains | Men of Good Will |
Ltrs: HGL p. 212
| "¦ By the way, talking of books: Jules Romains. I don't care what he thinks about the Church. It is just that years ago when I read the first volumes of the Men of Good Will, I came to the conclusion that he was almost as pedestrian as Zola, which is saying a lot. I just think him a complete bore. Maybe he has got better lately, I don't know. If you really think I ought to be converted on this point, I am not averse to trying my best. |
| 1964/05/22 | Nora Kershaw Chadwick | Age of the Saints in the Early Celtic Church |
Ltrs: HGL p. 366
| The book I have on my mind and like very much is Nora Chadwick's lectures on the Celtic Church. This is really first-rate, and especially interesting to me as I really intend now to do something on recluses and the Irish started all that, or so it seems, at least in Europe (though the ones Gregory of Tours talks of in Gaul seem to have had an independent origin??). Certainly the recluses of the English Middle Ages were very characteristic of the English Church, and I am getting back to the Ancren Riwle, Aelred's Rule for his sister, and so on. |
| 1964/05/26 | Louis Gougaud | Celtic Christianity |
Ltrs: SofC p. 217
| I have begun some work on medieval recluses, and am of course very interested in finding out more about the Irish sources of this movement on the continent. I see you quote Marianus Scotus, and there are all sorts of interesting suggestions in your book that seem to lead in the direction which interests me. I have Gougaud's Ermites et Reclus and Celtic Christianity, and have run into the standard works on recluses in England. Can you give me any other good leads for Ireland? I am especially eager to get at the poetic material in Kuno Meyer, which I have never seen before, and probably will find a thing or two there. But I would greatly appreciate if you would give me some good leads for Irish hermits and recluses and their influence on the continent. |
| 1964/05/26 | Louis Gougaud | Ermites et Reclus |
Ltrs: SofC p. 217
| I have begun some work on medieval recluses, and am of course very interested in finding out more about the Irish sources of this movement on the continent. I see you quote Marianus Scotus, and there are all sorts of interesting suggestions in your book that seem to lead in the direction which interests me. I have Gougaud's Ermites et Reclus and Celtic Christianity, and have run into the standard works on recluses in England. Can you give me any other good leads for Ireland? I am especially eager to get at the poetic material in Kuno Meyer, which I have never seen before, and probably will find a thing or two there. But I would greatly appreciate if you would give me some good leads for Irish hermits and recluses and their influence on the continent. |
| 1964/05/26 | Nora Kershaw Chadwick | Age of the Saints in the Early Celtic Church |
Ltrs: SofC p. 217
| Having just read, and greatly enjoyed, your book The Age of Saints in the EarlyCeltic Church, I am emboldened by my friend [Eleanor] S. Duckett to write you a note about it. Speaking as a monk, I can hardly say how much I have responded to your ideas and theses. As I am not enough of a scholar to find reasons why they might not be perfectly correct, I am happy to agree with you throughout. So your book has come along just when I was about to start on Celtic monasticism with my novices and students at this Abbey. I also used your Poetry and Letters in Sixth Century Gaul with them last year and will, no doubt, use it again. One of my students reviewed it also for our little magazine which perhaps you have seen. If not, please let me know and I will have a copy sent to you. The magazine is called Monastic Studies. |
| 1964/05/26 | Nora Kershaw Chadwick | Poetry and Letters in early Christian Gaul |
Ltrs: SofC p. 217
| Having just read, and greatly enjoyed, your book The Age of Saints in the EarlyCeltic Church, I am emboldened by my friend [Eleanor] S. Duckett to write you a note about it. Speaking as a monk, I can hardly say how much I have responded to your ideas and theses. As I am not enough of a scholar to find reasons why they might not be perfectly correct, I am happy to agree with you throughout. So your book has come along just when I was about to start on Celtic monasticism with my novices and students at this Abbey. I also used your Poetry and Letters in Sixth Century Gaul with them last year and will, no doubt, use it again. One of my students reviewed it also for our little magazine which perhaps you have seen. If not, please let me know and I will have a copy sent to you. The magazine is called Monastic Studies. |
| 1964/08/21 | George Scott-Moncrieff | Scottish Islands |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 138
| Another nice letter from Nora K. Chadwick yesterday. Her sister was a Carmelite at Waterbeach for sixty years or so. Am finishing two excellent books Nora K. Chadwick recommended. [James Midley] Clark on St. Gall [The Abbey of St. Gall as a Centre of Literature and Art, 1926] and Dudley Simpson on the Celtic Church in Scotland (demythologizing St. Columba's mission-restoring others to importance). Have been reading about the Hebrides (G[eorge] Scott- Moncrieff [The Scottish Islands, 1952])-would like to see them someday. Astonishing number of monastic settlements used to be there-exactly the place for small, eremitical communities! Many especially on Tiree. I wonder why? Will I ever see the place? |
| 1967/02/03 | John Julius Norwich | Mount Athos |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 191
| Yesterday it got cold in the afternoon. Rain, sleet, snow. I walked in the woods, came home, built a fire, made tea, read a good urbane book of Viscount [John Julius] Norwich on Athos [Mount Athos (New York, 1966)]. He thinks Athos is in hopeless shape and doomed to end completely. I suppose he is right. |