There are moments in life when you find a buried treasure. That Robert Louis Stevenson moment. I'm showing my age... kids today would say that Captain Jack Sparrow moment or something equally as Hollywood.
They are usually unexpected, and this makes the moment even more enjoyable, heightening the feeling of a wonderful discovery.
They don't happen very often - and this is just as well otherwise the special feeling of excitement would become as monotonous as waiting for a bus and finally seeing the thing approach (in a quartet) 1o minutes late. A welcome thing, but neither exciting nor exhilarating.
One immediately springs to mind. Around 6 years ago I was browsing a second hand book shop in a highland town called Helmsdale, known primarily for its folk music festival when a myriad of folkies invade to enjoy their music.
I hadn't even planned on going in the shop, but having queued in the local Post Office, I discovered the family had decamped into the kind of shop that sells household china (a brave thing for the Mrs to undertake with the sprogs in tow, but there they were nonetheless).
Taking the coward's route I decided to make haste to the second hand book shop, just a few doors up, and here it was, during my unplanned browse through the books I found a hardback, signed first edition (with dust jacket) of AK Chesterton's (pictured) New Unhappy Lords.
Anyway, to return to my point, these moments (thankfully) happen all too rarely, thus allowing us to annoy our friends and relatives to the point of distraction when said moments do rear their magnificently bejeweled heads.
But why, you ask, do you bring up this event which happened so many years ago?
And I shall answer you dear reader. Because I recently enjoyed another such gem of a discovery, albeit of a different kind, though still (bizarrely enough) anchored in the world of literature.
One of the things I like doing is reading material which have news on historical, cultural - as well as political - affairs that you wouldn't normally read in nationalist journals (in fact the way some people act you'd be hard pressed to find anything of interest in some of them!)
One of the best resources for this is the Protestant pressure group/charity The Christian Institute. Although (as with most of this kind of thing) I wouldn't agree with them on everything, they publish some excellent material - especially on matters of morality such as drugs, homosexuality, the family etc. Their material on the repeal of Section 28 (the law which stopped the promotion of homosexuality in schools and by local councils) in Scotland especially was amazing: it blew apart all the arguments of the homosexual lobby and the government as they lied their way through the changes.
There are other groups of the same ilk which provide a wealth of information and material, for example the UK Life League.
Anyway, in my travels recently I came across a magazine entitled 'Mass of Ages' which is published by the Latin Mass Society in England and Wales. Most of the mag seemed to be concerning the cultural side of Liturgy (with some interesting items on monastic traditions, Eastern rites and so on). So for 1.95 I bought it, flicked through it a little and put it in the car's glove box for further perusal.
It was a few weeks later when I was waiting for one of the sprogs (I don't have a taxi sign on the car - yet) when I opened the glove box to retrieve one of the FC mags I always leave in there (never missing an opportunity for a passenger to be educated) and the Mass of Ages mag fell out.
Thus it was I found myself reading the mag again as I waited. Mid way through the magazine I found a book review of a title published by TAN Books in America. Bells rang (and I don't have tinnitus) .
TAN published some cracking books on the Inquisition and Isabella of Spain by an author called (if memory serves me right) William Thomas Walsh, both of which were (as I recall) very critical of the role of Jews in Spain in acting against the Christian majority, the Spanish nation, the royal family etc.
So it was I dived into the review. It was of a book called Dressing With Dignity by Colleen Hammond, something close to my heart (though many who saw me in previous years - in the vanity of youth? - with my questionably coloured Bermuda shorts on various nationalist camps would call into question my dignity in these matters).
The book, it seems, is written by an ex-fashion model who had had enough of the lack of morality and normality in the fashion world.
OK, you might say, that's grist for the mill to Christians, nothing startling there.
And you'd be right of course. But here's the hidden treasure which almost had me leap out of the car and run up and down the street accosting passers-by to spread the "good news" like a man who'd read The Talmud Unmasked for the first time!
After talk of women's fashions having descended into the gutter, the review mentions the "corruption of fashions during the French Revolution" and then - the crowning glory:
"[the author] lays the heaviest burden of responsibility on Freemasonry and its "designs against modesty"."
I nearly sat on my bowler hat in all my excitement. It's not so very often you find articles clued up on the French Revolution and the corrupting influence of Freemasonry. OK, the review doesn't mention the influence of adherents to Judaism... but does the book? That would be interesting!
On telling a friend about the book he said "oh yeah, I heard about her, she's doing a lecture tour of the UK" - so it really is a small world.
And so it is that such a small Robert Louis Stevenson moment came and went. It added a jaunt to my step and when the sprog came to the car for his lift home he couldn't grasp why I had a Cheshire Cat smile.
Some might say small things please small minds. Maybe so.
But if such moments raise a smile and provide us with the impetus to get through life's more monotonous moments, where's the harm?
