A City of Bells

“Nothing whatsoever, not even the existence of God to his lovers, can be proved, but...every man, if he is to live at all finely, must deliberately adopt certain assertions as true, and those assertions should, for the sake of the enrichment of the human race, always be creative ones. He may, as life goes on, modify his beliefs, but he must never modify them on the side of destruction.”

A somewhat creaky, old-fashioned, definitely far-fetched tale of a lovely place and of the kind of delightfully varied, human characters which Goudge excels in creating and making completely real to us. Some find it “too pious,” but I find that the piety is couched in bracing philosophical terms like the above, which emphasize the bravery and daring it actually takes to be a person of faith, to place oneself on the side of creation in an age full of destruction. It's not about taking comfort in bland platitudes or fixed certainties, but it does give me comfort to think that (as is said elsewhere in the book) it doesn't matter what happens to one in life, or how long life lasts, as long as one strives to live beautifully.