In January, we lost the fine writer Wilfrid Sheed; I’ve recently been reading the memoirs, published in 1964, of his mother, the famous Catholic apologist Maisie Ward. Early on, she describes her grandfather, the famous Tractarian W. G. Ward:

[He was] thrown out by his University and branded as disloyal to his Church — and, as it was felt by many, even to his country, for the Church of England stood for England. Not that he would have cared much about that for, in theory at least, W. G. Ward condemned patriotism, asking why he should love a country just because it happened to be his. Later he was to say, “I have no affection for my children as such, e.g., Bernard.” I hope my uncle never heard this, for he shared fully in the near-idolatry his children felt for W.G.

People say that nothing — not even poetry — translates worse between cultures than their particular senses of humor. But I think the special light-heartedness of the English is evident in these lines, to anyone who is willing to read between them.