Presented at the 2017 National Conference in Austin, TX.

In his 1949 essay “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis described the human heart as constantly longing for beauty and constantly seeking it in the intellectual and artistic glories of a cultural tradition. “But all this is a cheat,” he warned. “The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them.” Adam Andrews discusses the implications of this idea for readers and teachers of literature who revere both the Western classics and the God who gave them to us.