In this ‘Cautionary Tale’, we hear what happened when naughty Jim gave his nurse the slip.
Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children first appeared in 1907, and this story of Jim, his nurse and Ponto the lion was the first in the collection. The moral is that those who are plotting the overthrow of some tyrant, real or imagined, should be careful what they wish for.
The English language is the most valuable part of our national heritage, and the patriotic citizen is careful to treat it with respect.
Hilaire Belloc ran in the same head-spinning literary company as GK Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw. In this essay, he urges us to think of the English language as our most prized possession, neither to be put under glass in a museum, nor to be mangled in the media, but used thoughtfully and responsibly, because one day it will be the only record of what kind of people the English were.