One swallow

Fr dear Fr: It appears from your articles here that someone has swallowed a Dictionary, am I totally mistaken?

How very amusing, much like the Russia Today Series on that hate object of Dominic Cummings character, Rafe Hubris, that is entertaining lots and lots of Russiaphiles all over the old USSR at the moment, and especially amusing that dead pan presenter, Ross Ashcroft, on his programme Renegade dot inc. But if one must swallow a Dictionary, then the question remains as to which Dictionary is most worthy of a jolly good swallowing? Webster’s? Chapman’s? Charlton Lewis’s? The Oxford English Dictionary? The Cambridge English Dictionary? Collins’ English Dictionary? If one is to swallow anything resembling a Dictionary then it might well be that rare but much envied tome of Samuel Johnson, his Lexicon, since he was one of the great lexicographers of ancient times. The quip from a female wag of some amusement with two nice daughters reminds me of a funny story told to me in a silent and solemn cloister once upon a time far away from here in milder and calmer times by a tall and elegant monk whose job it was to polish the chandeliers each day. St Thomas Aquinas was so large that the monks cut a curve into his table for his meals, and when he was asked once how a famous theologian could be so large and round, he responded quite simply - “one swallow doesn’t make a summa.”