Working at Bill Buckley’s magazine can be quite a treat. I have been trying to create some order in our messy conference-room library, and in the course of this task I today came across a nicely bound, slipcased copy of the 1868 Verses on Various Occasions by Cardinal Newman. Now, Newman has always been one of my favorite writers–even James Joyce called him the best prose writer of the 19th century–but I had never read his poetry, except for the famous “Dream of Gerontius.” So I took the book home with me this evening. There I was, on the A train, opening the book . . . only to discover that it was inscribed by Cardinal Newman. I understand that the late Cardinal is to be beatified soon–which means that this book is not only a valuable literary object, but also a considerable relic, according to the Catholic theology of the communion of saints.