Regular visitors to the Ink Desk will know that I do my best to post to the site on a regular and frequent basis. Such visitors will no doubt have noticed my protracted absence and might be wondering why I seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth – or at least from my place at the Desk.

My excuse, for such it is, is that I have been travelling more than ever lately and am finding it difficult to fulfill all my regular duties.

Last week I was in New Hampshire, teaching at Thomas More College. On the Monday night I spoke on Romeo and Juliet at a parish in Concord. During the week I taught a tutorial at TMC on British Romanticism, surveying the poetry of Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. I’m also teaching two full sections on The Lord of the Rings for Homeschool Connections.

Last Friday the college was honoured and excited to host Daniel Mahoney, possibly the foremost expert on Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the English-speaking world. We assigned to the students two of Solzhenitsyn’s most provocative lectures, his Harvard address and the lecture he gave to a group of Catholic philosophers in Liechtenstein. These formed the topic of discussion in the afternoon session at which Professor Mahoney and I both spoke briefly before inviting the students to ask questions. In the evening, Professor Mahoney gave an excellent lecture on violence and mendacity as tools of totalitarianism.

This week, upon my return to South Carolina, I’ve been editing the latest issue of the St. Austin Review, doing a number of radio interviews, teaching my classes for Homeschool Connections and trying to find time to exercise at the gym. Tonight I gave a talk at St. Mary’s parish in Greenville on the Catholicism of The Hobbit.  

Tomorrow I’ll be preparing for a trip to Orlando, where I’m giving a talk on Saturday night, writing my article for the Imaginative Conservative and spending some time with my children.

Life is good but a little on the full side!