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| (Photo: Jonathan Kim, Lejac, B.C.) |
Man is not a reasoning animal; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating, acting animal. He is influenced by what is direct and precise. – Bl. J. H. Newman
This summer I read W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage for the first time and found it thoroughly engrossing. It is a magnificent Bildungsroman chronicling the life of its protagonist, Philip Carey, from his early childhood through to his early thirties. At the same time, though probably not by design, the novel provides a good portrait of the early twentieth century, having particularly vivid depictions of Bohemian Paris and lower- and middle-class London during that period.
As a young man living abroad, Philip loses his Christian faith, never to regain it. It is an abrupt experience for him, coming in the middle of a conversation with a freethinking, American theology student.
Philip paused for a while, then he said: “I don’t see why one should believe in God at all.” The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he realised that he had ceased to do so. It took his breath away like a plunge into cold water … It was the most startling experience he had ever had.
