Initial commitHEADmain

8 files changed, 12700 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/75165-0.txt b/75165-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9e72092
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75165-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4550 @@
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75165 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_; boldface is
+enclosed in =equals signs=. Additional notes will be found near the end
+of this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                G. K. C.
+                     Done especially for this book
+                                   by
+                          CONRADO W. MASSAGUER
+]
+
+
+
+
+                              _CHESTERTON_
+
+                            _As Seen by His
+                            Contemporaries_
+
+                             CYRIL CLEMENS
+                               Author of
+                        “MY COUSIN MARK TWAIN,”
+                                  Etc.
+
+                          With Introduction by
+                             E. C. BENTLEY
+                               Author of
+                          “TRENT’S LAST CASE,”
+                                  Etc.
+
+                                  1939
+                    INTERNATIONAL MARK TWAIN SOCIETY
+                        Webster Groves, Missouri
+
+
+
+
+                     Number Eight of the Society’s
+                          Biographical Series
+
+                         WHOLE NUMBER FOURTEEN
+
+                      Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill,
+                    Chairman Biographical Committee
+
+                               Copyright
+
+                    INTERNATIONAL MARK TWAIN SOCIETY
+
+              All rights reserved, including the right to
+                 reproduce this book or parts thereof.
+
+                        Printed in the U. S. A.
+
+                                   by
+                   WEBSTER PRINTING & STATIONERY CO.,
+                        Webster Groves, Missouri
+
+
+
+
+                               DEDICATED
+
+                        with his kind permission
+
+                                   to
+
+                            BENITO MUSSOLINI
+
+                      a warm admirer of Chesterton
+                             and his work.
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+
+  Introduction                    by E. C. Bentley
+
+  Chapters
+
+  One                                 Boyhood Days
+
+  Two                      Literary Apprenticeship
+
+  Three                     Meetings with G. K. C.
+
+  Four                                Some Friends
+
+  Five                     On the English Platform
+
+  Six                     On the American Platform
+
+  Seven             Some Recollections of G. K. C.
+
+  Eight                    Chesterton at New Haven
+
+  Nine                               At Notre Dame
+
+  Ten              Chesterton and American Authors
+
+  Eleven              The Author Visits Top Meadow
+
+  Twelve                              Father Brown
+
+  Thirteen                         Some Appraisals
+
+  Fourteen                                The Poet
+
+  Fifteen                       Chesterton the Man
+
+
+
+
+_INTRODUCTION_
+
+by E. C. Bentley
+
+
+Mr. Cyril Clemens’ book about Gilbert Chesterton is of an unusual and,
+to my taste, a deeply interesting sort. Some one has remarked that
+the most satisfactory biographies were those in which the letters and
+journals of the subject bulked largest, since these, telling their
+own tale, showed the man better than any biographer could do it. Mr.
+Clemens has assembled a vast number of other people’s memories and
+appreciations of G. K. C.; and it may be said that they show the
+attitude of his contemporaries towards him better than any individual
+critic could describe it.
+
+There is a remarkable note of unanimity in these personal recollections
+and judgments. There are differences of view about the value of
+G. K. C.’s work; about the relative importance of this or that of
+its many aspects; about his matter or style in lecturing; about the
+quality of his wit, and many points more. But as to the nature of the
+man as he was there is hardly any difference at all. He won the hearts
+of those who met him because of his manifest goodness of heart and
+happiness of temper; these things were as apparent to all who came near
+him as was his physical being.
+
+I do not imagine that Mr. Clemens asked me to write this introduction
+with the idea of my setting forth any opinions about the place of
+G. K. C. in our literature. I could offer none of any critical value,
+because for me the man and his work have always been one, and I have
+been for most of my life intensely prejudiced in favour of the man.
+Mr. Clemens knew of me, I suppose, as a boyhood friend of G. K. C.--as
+I appear in his Autobiography--and perhaps as having dedicated a book
+of mine to him in terms which told some fraction of what my feeling
+towards him was. I may, then, say now that I first met him at that time
+of life when personal influence counts for most, and one’s nature is
+in the making for good or evil. His friendship was the best thing that
+ever happened to me, and I have always thanked God for it.
+
+Essential goodness, perfect sincerity, chivalrous generosity, boundless
+good-temper, a total absence of self-esteem--these are lovable traits;
+and with them, even in boyhood, were united brilliant intellectual
+powers and an enormous gift of humor. The effect of it all on an
+impressionable youth of fifteen or so can perhaps be guessed. For years
+we were as near to each other as it is possible for friends to be, I
+think; but there was no one who knew him even slightly that did not
+feel something of the spiritual attraction that he exercised--always in
+utter unconsciousness of it.
+
+G. K. C. was too conspicuously unlike the ordinary boy to be popular,
+in the sense of being on the best of terms with all and sundry. He
+was without any desire to excel or take the lead in any direction. He
+was unconscious of the very existence of games. He was steeped in
+literature and art; and he could, at need, be perfectly happy with his
+own thoughts and the fruits of his imagination. He was, on the other
+hand, not unpopular; it was impossible for even an ill-natured boy, I
+should think, to dislike him; but his circle of friends was small in
+those early days. I have written something about this time of our lives
+to Mr. Clemens who has quoted it at the outset of this book. What I
+have been saying in this place is an attempt to express what Gilbert
+Chesterton meant to me.
+
+That circle of friends which was so small was to become as wide as any
+man’s of our time, as the recognition of his genius increased, and the
+magic of his personality gained greater scope. No death can ever have
+been mourned with a deeper sincerity of personal affection by so many,
+in his own country and in others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+BOYHOOD DAYS
+
+
+One of Chesterton’s earliest and staunchest friends, Mr. E. C. Bentley,
+recalls,
+
+“Chesterton was in his schooldays the centre of a small group of boys.
+They formed a club under his chairmanship ... the Junior Debating Club,
+so called to distinguish it from the School Union Society, which was
+the preserve of the senior boys. He never did, as he states in his
+memoirs, any work at school in the academic sense, and so never rose to
+the position of a star boy. The star boys did not understand him and
+classed him as a freak who was unlikely to do the school any credit.
+He was so exceptionally untidy and absent-minded, even at the age when
+the ordinary boy becomes careful of his appearance, that he did not
+fit into the picture at all; and it needed the insight of Walker, the
+High Master of his day, to divine that there was the stuff of genius
+in him, and to ordain (as G. K. tells in his own modest way) that on
+the strength of a remarkable prize poem ... the only ‘regular’ thing
+he ever did at school ... he should ‘rank with the eighth form,’
+the highest, to which he would never have attained on his school
+performance. Very few of the boys of whom he saw most did anything
+in the field of letters in after life.” The poet Edward Thomas was
+not at St. Paul’s with G. K. C. as many think. Mr. Robert Eckert, the
+biographer of Thomas, states that the latter was a schoolmate of Cecil,
+G. K. C.’s younger brother.
+
+Mr. Bentley continues: “About G. K. C.:--His spare time at
+school--which, as he makes clear in his Autobiography, was mostly
+spent.... I should say entirely ... in talking, reading, writing, and
+drawing pictures. He had a wonderful decorative handwriting, and was
+already a masterly draughtsman. Apart from walking, of which he never
+tired as a boy, he took no part in any sport. His sight was always very
+bad without his glasses. He was nevertheless strong and healthy as a
+boy, rather slim than otherwise; it was not until the twenties that
+he began to put on flesh. It was not ordinary fatness; I believe some
+gland trouble must have been at the root of it.
+
+“Speaking generally, Chesterton would talk about everything when at
+school that had to do with the realm of ideas. He never took much
+interest in things that are called practical. Politics in a broad
+sense he would talk about, but for the details of legislation he cared
+nothing. He always was, of course, what we know as a Liberal; in the
+large sense he remained a Liberal all his days.
+
+“Literature he would discuss by the hour, especially poetry. He hated
+the fashionable decadence of that time ... say 1890–1900 ... as may be
+seen from the dedication to ‘The Man Who Was Thursday.’ He delighted in
+pictorial art, above all in the generous idealism of G. F. Watts.
+
+“As to books, G. K. C. never gave any attention to those which
+constituted school-work. He was passionately fond of Scott and of
+course, Dickens. He knew Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne by heart, and
+had enjoyed every other English poet in large degree. He did not care
+in those days for lighter reading.
+
+“There was a school library, but it was reserved for the use of the
+highest class in the school, which G. K. C. never attained. There was
+a popular fiction library also, but he did not, I think, make use of
+it. G. K. C. was too amiable to get into fights, but he would use his
+strength occasionally in standing between a small boy and others who
+were badgering him. He honored religion, but had none whatever of a
+doctrinal kind until years later.”
+
+“Chesterton, as I knew him in 1889,” writes Mr. E. W. Fordham, another
+old schoolmate, “was utterly unlike the average English schoolboy. He
+took no part in games. He showed no particular brilliance as a scholar,
+and yet far from being looked down upon, he was, I think, always
+regarded as one who lived in a different mental world from the rest of
+us, a world that many of us admired from afar but would never expect,
+or, it may be, ever hope to enter. We felt, though we never alluded
+to, his mental pre-eminence. Thus when the Junior Debating Club was
+formed, G. K. became Chairman without question and without a rival. It
+was obvious that he alone was fitted for the post, and most admirably
+he filled it. The teas at the houses of the various members of the Club
+which preceded the debates were often tempestuous to the last degree,
+but Gilbert, although he took no share in the more physical aspects of
+our revelry, was very far from playing the part of a wet blanket.
+
+“His laugh was the loudest and the most infectious of all. There were
+times when the boisterous manifestations of some of us overflowed
+into, and tended to overpower, the Debates. Then, with the utmost good
+temper, G. K. would assert himself, and order would be restored.
+
+“I remember once, after I myself had been particularly noisy and
+troublesome, Gilbert explained to me that the throwing of buns and
+slices of cake did not really help in the production of good debates,
+and he hinted, very kindly and seriously, that some restraining action
+might have to be taken if the rioting did not diminish. I hope, indeed,
+I believe, I took the hint. This occasion was thereafter referred to as
+the day ‘when the Chairman spoke seriously to Mr. F.’
+
+“G. K. was the mainspring of the Junior Debating Club. He was valiantly
+supported by Oldershaw, Bentley, and others, but without him neither
+the Club itself, nor that strange little magazine, ‘The Debater’ could
+have flourished as each of them did. Like boy, like man. That which he
+believed in he put his whole heart into, and never spared himself in
+furthering its interests. He gave the Junior Debating Club his eager
+and inspiring support for the two very good reasons, that it gave great
+enjoyment to himself and a few of his friends, and that he thought it
+a widening and humanizing influence--completely outside the range of
+ordinary school affairs. The Chairman loved the Junior Debating Club,
+and most certainly the J. D. C. loved the Chairman.”
+
+Mr. Fordham pins further recollections around the “Autobiography”:
+
+“I am a prejudiced person. Fifty years of friendship and admiration are
+an insuperable bar to impartiality.
+
+“G. K. C. and I were at school together: we were fellow members of the
+Junior Debating Club of which he was Chairman. We both contributed to
+our Club’s magazine, ‘The Debater.’ I wrote rubbish; he wrote articles
+and verses of a very different quality. In this book he speaks almost
+with contempt of his ‘juvenilia.’ They were in fact such as very few
+boys of his age could have produced. Even then, at the age of fifteen
+or sixteen, he had a sense of style and a command of language which
+the High Master of St. Paul’s and other authorities did not fail to
+recognize. ‘The Dragon,’ one article begins, ‘the Dragon is the most
+cosmopolitan of impossibilities.’
+
+“As I say, I admired Gilbert Chesterton throughout his life, and after
+reading his ‘Autobiography’ I admire him still more. My attitude is
+rather that of a hero-worshipper than a critic, but I believe that no
+impartial critic could read this book and fail to see that here was a
+genius, and better, a brave and an honest man, a man who loved life
+and loved his friends, loved laughter and hated oppression; in short
+a very great man. Despite all the modesty with which it is written,
+the book makes all these things clear. From beginning to end it is a
+magnificent =apologia pro vita sua=; nevertheless I hope it will not be
+the sole record of his life. There are countless things that he could
+not and would not tell of himself but that should not be forgotten.
+‘Belloc,’ he writes, ‘still awaits a Boswell.’ It is equally true that
+Chesterton awaits one. Is it legitimate to hope that his Boswell may be
+Belloc? There is a grand harvest to be gathered by his Boswell, whoever
+that may prove to be. G. K. C. was a brilliant talker. He banished
+dullness from whatever company he was in. No argument arose but he
+would drive home his point by some arresting illustration. We were
+arguing once as to whether some policy or other were good or bad. ‘The
+word ‘good,’ said G. K., ‘has many meanings. For example, if a man were
+to shoot his grandmother at a range of 500 yards I should call him a
+good shot, but not necessarily a good man.’
+
+“No one could stump him by an unexpected question. He took part in a
+debate many years ago at, I think, the Lyceum Club, and in the course
+of his speech he discussed, as did other speakers, various racial
+characteristics. After the debate I was walking round with him when an
+elderly lady whom he did not know came up and said with something of a
+simper, ‘Mr. Chesterton, I wonder if you could tell what race I belong
+to?’ With a characteristic adjustment of his glasses he replied at
+once, ‘I should certainly say, Madam, one of the conquering races.’
+
+“Only a year or two ago he watched with tolerant, and indeed highly
+vocal amusement, (his was both the strangest and the jolliest laugh
+man ever had) a representation of himself in some private theatricals.
+When they were over he said to the daughter of the player who had
+impersonated him--a sturdy figure, it is true, but less generously
+planned than the original--‘Do you know I believe your father =is=
+Gilbert Chesterton and I am only a padded impostor.’
+
+“Reading this book has recalled these trifles to my mind just as it
+has recalled the figure of the boy Chesterton as I first knew him in
+the early nineties. I can see him now, very tall and lanky, striding
+untidily along Kensington High Street, smiling and sometimes scowling
+as he talked to himself, apparently oblivious of everything he passed,
+but in reality a far closer observer than most, and one who not only
+observed but remembered what he had seen. The fascination of this
+book is, in great part, due to the fact that he retained these powers
+of observation and memory throughout his life, and that he has applied
+them to himself as rigorously and as vividly as to his fellows.
+
+“‘I should thank God for my creation,’ said Gilbert’s grandfather,
+‘if I knew I was a lost soul.’ Gilbert would have done the same. ‘The
+primary problem for me,’ he writes, ‘was the problem of how men could
+be made to realize the wonder and splendour of being alive,’ and it is
+because he himself did realize it that he is able to say of his later
+years, ‘I have grown old without being bored. Existence is still a
+strange thing to me, and as a stranger I give it welcome.’
+
+“Chesterton begins this book with a joke about his baptism. It is
+characteristic of the man. He loved laughter as much as he hated
+hypocrisy. ‘I have never understood,’ he says, ‘why a solid argument is
+any less solid because you make the illustrations as entertaining as
+you can.’ It is because, in this autobiography the philosophy is spiced
+with fun, and the fun sometimes spiced with philosophy, that so true
+a picture of the man emerges from the book. When he looks at himself
+he sees not only an intensely interesting being but also an intensely
+amusing one. He speaks of his school days as the period during which ‘I
+was being instructed by somebody I did not know, about something I did
+not want to know.’ He tells how on his wedding day he stopped to buy a
+glass of milk at some haunt of his infancy, and again to buy a revolver
+and cartridges ‘with a general notion of protecting my bride from the
+pirates doubtless infesting the Norfolk Broads.’
+
+“You will find the same amusement he found if you read and re-read his
+chapter on ‘Friendship and Foolery,’ his story of the sudden invasion
+of Henry James’ house at Rye by Mr. Belloc and another, unshaven and
+dishevelled but vociferous and irrepressible, his account of the
+birthday dinner to Mr. Belloc at which there were to be no speeches,
+and at which everybody present spoke, and his story of the aged
+negro porter in America with a face like a walnut whom, he says, ‘I
+discouraged from brushing my hat, and who rebuked me saying, ‘Ho, young
+man, yo’s losing ye dignity before yo times. Yo’s got to look nice for
+the girls.’
+
+“The sketches of his friends and those of the many public men with
+whom he came in contact are of extraordinary interest. In a few lines
+he paints sharp and unforgettable portraits not only of his intimate
+friends but of men and women with whom he had perhaps but one short
+conversation. It is thus he tells of his meeting with King George
+V at the house of the late Lord Burnham. He sums up his impression
+of ‘about as genuine a person as I ever met’ in these words--‘If it
+should ever happen that I hear before I die among new generations who
+never saw George the Fifth that he is being praised either as a strong
+silent man, or depreciated as a stupid and empty man, I shall know that
+history has got the whole portrait wrong.’
+
+“There are brilliant little sketches of George Wyndham, Charles
+Masterman and Cunninghame Graham, among many others; of each one it
+is the true thing and the generous thing that he sets down. No less
+arresting are the little cameos of wholly unknown men and women who
+said or did something that left an impression on his receptive and
+retentive mind. For example there was the ‘huge healthy simple-faced
+man of the plastering profession’ who at a Penny Reading, being unable
+to endure further recitations about to be provided by a gentleman who
+had already obliged with ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ and ‘The
+May Queen,’ ‘arose slowly in the middle of the room like some vast
+Leviathan arising from the ocean and observed, ‘Well, I’ve just ’ad
+about enough of this. =Good= evening, Mr. Ash. =Good= evening, ladies
+and gentlemen,’ and shouldered his way out of the Progressive Hall with
+an unaffected air of complete amiability and profound relief.’
+
+“Memorable as are all the records of his outer life, the insight that
+he gives us into his mental and spiritual development is of deeper
+significance. It would be impossible, for me at least, to summarize
+the subjective side of this autobiography. To be understood, even to
+be partly understood, it must be read in its entirety. Many readers
+will not be able to accept the conclusions to which Chesterton found
+himself inevitably driven, but none can fail to see that his steadfast
+faith, his sure hope, and his abounding charity were the outcome of no
+slipshod or haphazard thought, but of mental processes to which he gave
+the whole of his clear and original mind, and that in his life-long
+struggle towards the light which he felt assured he had ultimately
+found he was as completely honest with himself as he always was in his
+dealings with his fellow men.
+
+“This is a noble record of a noble life.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+LITERARY APPRENTICESHIP
+
+
+Chesterton had a shorter apprenticeship for a writing career than most
+men of letters. After leaving St. Paul’s he went to the Slade Art
+School where he graduated in 1891 at the age of seventeen. He forthwith
+began reviewing books on art for the “Bookman,” the “Speaker,” and
+other periodicals. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg whom he had known
+for some time. Among those present at the wedding was Miss Elizabeth
+Yeats, the sister of the poet William Butler Yeats, who recalls,
+
+“My sister and I were at the Chesterton’s wedding at St. Mary’s
+Abbots in Kensington. Gilbert wanted the ceremony as ceremonial as
+possible--but Frances, who then belonged to some new thought people
+in religious matters, wanted everything possible cut from the Church
+of England Service--except just the legal parts. Gilbert had been, of
+course, brought up a nonconformist.”
+
+Chesterton’s marriage was the beginning of thirty-five years of
+happiness with a wife who was ideally congenial.[A]
+
+His first book “Greybeards at Play,” consisting of jingles and
+sketches, had appeared in 1894. As time went on he gradually found the
+expression of ideas more satisfying than any kind of art work.
+
+    [A] Frances Chesterton died December 12, 1938.
+
+From 1898 to 1901 he and his brother Cecil helped Hilaire Belloc on
+“The New Witness,” a weekly paper pledged to wage eternal against
+political corruption. Some years earlier he had severed his connections
+with socialism and adopted Belloc’s ideas now known as “Distributism,”
+the progress of which was to be ultimately chronicled by the famous
+“G. K.’s Weekly” founded in 1926.
+
+Stephen Gwynn recalls the first book written for Macmillan.
+
+“It is so long ago that I only dimly remember my first encounter with
+G. K. C. He was married and they let a flat--Battersea Park--a tiny
+flat--in 1901. I never knew two people who changed less in nearly forty
+years.
+
+“On my advice the Macmillans had asked him to do Browning in the
+‘English Men of Letters,’ when he was still not quite arrived. Old
+Mr. Craik, the Senior Partner, sent for me and I found him in white
+fury, with Chesterton’s proofs corrected in pencil; or rather not
+corrected; there were still thirteen errors uncorrected on one page;
+mostly in quotations from Browning. A selection from a Scotch ballad
+had been quoted from memory and three of the four lines were wrong. I
+wrote to Chesterton saying that the firm thought the book was going
+to “disgrace” them. His reply was like the trumpeting of a crushed
+elephant. But the book was a huge success as it deserved to be.”
+
+J. Lewis May writes about another early book,
+
+“A book that created something of a sensation in its day was the
+penetrating study of George Bernard Shaw by Chesterton. The mention of
+Chesterton reminds me that it was Lane who published his ‘Orthodoxy’
+and his ‘Napoleon of Notting Hill,’ as well as ‘Heretics.’ Those, I
+think, were in the days before the royalty system came in, and I fancy
+Lane bought them outright. It was in regard to the first that I heard
+that Chesterton brought it in chapter by chapter as he wrote it, and it
+was written on any miscellaneous scraps of paper that came to his hand.
+He did not disdain, I have been told, even the paper that sugar is
+wrapped in, for the purpose of recording his valuable thoughts. Anatole
+France was accustomed to use the inside of envelopes or the backs of
+bills for the same object.”
+
+William Platt gave Chesterton encouragement at the start,
+
+“We are all aware that one of G. K. C.’s first successes was by a
+series of articles signed ‘The Defendant’ each one being headed ‘In
+Defense of....’
+
+“I wrote immediately to the clever young ‘Defendant’ telling him of the
+certainty of his future as a writer. He immediately came ’round to see
+me. Tall, young, handsome, vivacious. At once we fraternized.
+
+“After that our trends in life became rather diverse. We met
+occasionally, chiefly at public gatherings in London. At rare intervals
+we exchanged letters. But G. K. C. never forgot my early prediction of
+his inevitable rise to fame, or the many things we had in common, in
+his sense of knight-errantry and mine. In any hall the moment he caught
+sight of me he would greet me with his radiant smile, or, if free, he
+would at once come over to me.”
+
+A newspaperman once asked Chesterton what he considered his first most
+important book,
+
+“‘Napoleon of Notting Hill’ and I almost missed writing it. If I hadn’t
+written it, I would have stopped writing. I was what you Americans call
+‘broke’--only ten shillings in my pocket. Leaving my worried wife, I
+went down Fleet Street, got a shave, and then ordered for myself, at
+the Cheshire Cheese, an enormous luncheon of my favorite dishes and a
+bottle of wine. It took my all, but I could then go to my publishers
+fortified. I told them I wanted to write a book and outlined the story
+of ‘Napoleon of Notting Hill.’ But I must have twenty pounds, I said,
+before I begin.
+
+“‘We will send it to you on Monday.’
+
+“‘If you want the book,’ I replied, ‘you will have to give it to me
+today as I am disappearing to write it.’ They gave it.
+
+“Later Chesterton said, ‘What a fool a man is, when he comes to the
+last ditch, not to spend the last farthing to satisfy the inner man
+before he goes out to fight a battle with wits.’”
+
+Just before the War the Irish Lit-er-a-ry Society had a debate at which
+G. K. C. was the principal speaker: the Chairman being Stephen Gwynn,
+and among the other speakers was Jimmy Glover at that time conductor of
+the Drury Lane orchestra, whose father published the collected edition
+of Tom Moore’s melodies. In introducing Chesterton, Stephen Gwynn
+chipped him on his life of Browning in the “English Men of Letters
+Series,” and on certain mistakes he had made on it, and wondered why he
+had undertaken a subject, about which he apparently knew so little.
+Chesterton, with his usual chuckle and wiping the perspiration from
+his face on to the lapels of his frock coat, retorted that he had had
+some doubts on the undertaking, but when he had discovered in the
+series entitled “English Men of Letters,” a life written by an Irishman
+(Stephen Gwynn) on another Irishman (Tom Moore) he had no further
+qualms in the matter. The back-chat continued for a time, and Mr. Boyle
+recalls, ended by Chesterton suggesting that he should get on with
+the subject of the evening and then proceed with the important matter
+before them, which was the weighing of himself against Jimmy Glover
+who had had the audacity to state that he was heavier than the famous
+author. After the meeting George Boyle had a few words with G. K. C.
+and reminded him that he was in St. Paul’s School with him but that he
+had been in a higher class than himself. With the same good-natured
+chuckle G. K. C. said this was quite impossible as he had always
+remained in the very lowest class he could while at that school.
+
+As known from his “Autobiography,” Chesterton wrote a great deal for
+“The Speaker” under J. L. Hammond’s editorship. The latter came to know
+him through L. R. Oldershaw (an old school friend of his who shared
+rooms with Hammond at that time in the Temple.) Oldershaw wrote for
+“The Speaker” (mainly fiction reviewing) and he brought Chesterton to
+see Hammond. As we can imagine he made a deep impression on Hammond,
+and on the other young men who worked for “The Speaker.” The first
+contribution he made was an article on Ruskin in the form of a review
+of a life by W. G. Collingwood. This appeared on April 26th, 1900. The
+first number of “The Speaker” after it had passed into the hands of
+a group of Liberals to which Hammond belonged, was published at the
+beginning of October, 1899.
+
+Chesterton wrote much during the Boer War, including some excellent
+skits on Chamberlain and other topics at the General Election of 1900.
+
+F. W. Hirst has recollections about “The Speaker”:
+
+“As regards G. K. Chesterton, I was partly responsible for publishing
+his early contributions to ‘The Speaker’ which I helped edit from
+1899 (when I first met him) until after the end of the Boer War. My
+political cooperation with Chesterton (and Belloc) was mainly due to
+our antipathy to aggressive imperialism which was shared with Mark
+Twain.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+MEETINGS WITH G. K. C.
+
+
+Miss Alice Henry of Melbourne, Australia, has kindly pointed out to
+the author that the following is something which has never had any but
+ephemeral publication in a newspaper, and yet it is surely one of the
+most striking messages he ever uttered. Chesterton was the one British
+writer, utterly unknown before, who built up a great reputation during
+the South African War, and it was gained, not through nationalistic
+support, but through determined and persistent opposition to the
+British policy. After the war ended, he ran a column in the “London
+Daily News.” A correspondent had asked him for a definition of his
+anti-war attitude. This was his reply,
+
+“The unreasonable patriot is one who sees the faults of his fatherland
+with an eye which is clearer and more merciless than any eye of hatred,
+the eye of an irrational and irrevocable love.”
+
+The reader will recall that in his “Autobiography” Chesterton states
+that it was in Fleet Street that he first met Sir Philip Gibbs “who
+carried a curious air of being the right man in the wrong place.”
+
+However, in a letter to the author, Sir Philip disagrees with this,
+
+“As regards G. K. C., he was a good friend of mine and has placed
+me on record in his ‘Autobiography’ as ‘the right man in the wrong
+place’--though as a matter of fact I claim to have been the right man
+in the right place--which was Fleet Street, where he and I met many
+times as writers for the Press. His books belong to my mental library
+and he will live in English literature as one of our great essayists,
+and above all as a good poet.”
+
+Sir Oliver Lodge recalls:
+
+“G. K. C. at one time lived at the set of flats in Artillery Mansions
+where I had one of them, and I used to meet him outside sometimes
+waiting for a cab in the street and had a few words with him. I also
+met him at the Synthetic Society dinners, and once I impounded a
+piece of blotting-paper on which he had made a lot of characteristic
+scribbles (clever sketches of faces) absentmindedly during a discussion
+at one of these dinners.”
+
+Robert Blatchford, the well known editor of “The Clarion” and author
+of “Merrie England,” who was born away back in 1851, tells of a long
+controversy he had with Chesterton in the press some thirty years ago
+about determinism: “Some years later he wrote in some paper, I forgot
+which, and paid me the finest compliment I ever received. He said,
+
+“‘Very few intellectual minds have left such a mark on our time: have
+cut so deep or remained so clean. His case for Socialism, so far as it
+goes, is so clear and simple that any one would understand it when it
+was put properly: his genius was that he could put it properly. His
+triumphs were triumphs of strong style, active pathos, and picturesque
+metaphor: his very lucidity was a generous sympathy with simple minds.
+For the rest he had triumphed with being honest and by not being
+afraid.’
+
+“Now in paying me that compliment he complimented himself, for only
+a very warm-hearted and generous man could have treated an opponent
+with such gallantry and kindness. But you cannot publish that
+tribute without giving the impression that I am fishing for a cheap
+advertisement.
+
+“Then as to his books. I liked what he wrote about Dickens and some of
+his poetry, and I recognize his brilliance: but a good deal of his work
+I found rather tiresome, and you cannot publish such an opinion.
+
+“We met several times and got on quite pleasantly together.”
+
+W. W. Jacobs, the author of “Many Cargoes,” recollects,
+
+“I cannot recall my first meeting with Chesterton: it was so very long
+ago. But I do remember an occasion when he sat next to me at dinner and
+said that he had rheumatism so badly that he did not know how he would
+be able to stand up for his speech. A difficulty which he solved by
+keeping my right shoulder in a strong hand and bearing down upon it. It
+was a good speech, but it seemed to be the longest I had ever listened
+to.”
+
+“I regret that I never met G. K. C. personally,” laments James Hilton,
+“but I did when quite a small boy send him a poem I had written (a
+drinking song as a matter of fact), modeled after his own style, and
+received a charming letter from his wife, I think, saying that he had
+been much interested and ‘believed that after the war there would be a
+great recrudescence of drinking songs.’ This was my first letter from
+even the wife of a celebrity and I was very proud of it. As a matter
+of fact, in my entire life I have only written anything you could call
+fan letters to two authors, Chesterton on this one occasion, and again
+later to Galsworthy.
+
+“I wish I could give you more interesting reminiscences of Chesterton,
+whose work I admire very much, but we were of different generations
+and it happened that we never met, though we had many mutual friends.
+I think my favorite book of his is ‘The Man Who Was Thursday,’ which I
+remember reading during my school days. I am very pleased to hear from
+you that he expressed admiration for ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips.’ I did not
+know of this and it is a source of deep gratification to me.”
+
+Christopher Hollis first met G. K. C. in company with one of Belloc’s
+sons:
+
+“The first time that I met Mr. Chesterton was, when as an undergraduate
+at Oxford, I was in the company of Hilary Belloc, the son of Mr.
+Belloc, to see the Association Football Cup Final--the culminating
+event of the English football season--at Wembley. We were traveling by
+motor bicycle from Oxford to Wembley and, passing through Beaconsfield
+in the middle of the morning, Hilary Belloc took me to pay a call on
+Mr. Chesterton, whom we found walking in the garden with his wife.”
+
+And Hilaire Belloc himself:
+
+“I met Mr. Chesterton first when I was thirty, and he, I think,
+twenty-six. That was at the end of the year 1900. I had already
+written and spoken for some years on what later became known as
+‘Distributism.’ I do not think that he had by that time written or
+spoken upon public affairs.”
+
+Gilbert Frankau is “afraid that I only met G. K. Chesterton once.
+This was at a debate. He took the chair and was, I remember, a little
+sarcastic about my own contribution. But the sarcasm was so beautifully
+done that it became almost a compliment. He really had a rare charm
+of manner. And he really was a character. Characters being only too
+rare in this modern world where all tend to become stereotyped. I
+was, of course, a Father Brown fan. But which really made the deepest
+impression on my young mind was Chesterton’s poetry. It had, for me,
+the supreme virtue of vigor.”
+
+The critic Coulson Kernahan admired Chesterton hugely:
+
+“The first time I met him was when he was lunching with dear old Robert
+Barr at the Savage Club. Barr came over to my table to say ‘Chesterton
+is my guest and I told him who you were.’ He said ‘Kernahan and I are
+two of the rather uncommon authors, today, who write of serious and
+religious subjects. I’d like to meet him.’ ‘So come over to my table,
+Kernahan, and meet him.’
+
+“I did. At about two o’clock Barr had to leave to keep an editorial
+engagement, and I said to G. K. C. ‘I am a member. Won’t you stay on as
+my guest now your host is going?’ He did. He stayed till six o’clock,
+talking brilliantly all the time (with an interlude for tea--’till then
+he had enjoyed the club’s excellent wine), and never once repeated
+himself. Then we met again at the Centenary Celebration of George
+MacDonald. Ramsay MacDonald was President of the Centenary Memorial,
+with Chesterton and myself as Vice-Presidents, and G. K. C. was one of
+the speakers, and very happy and interesting in what he said.
+
+“My last meeting with him was in Hastings. My wife and I were passing
+the Queen’s Hotel on the front, and I heard myself hailed by name. It
+was G. K. C. sitting outside in the sun at a table, with a bottle of
+wine before him, and he invited us to come and share it, and as many
+more bottles as we felt inclined for. Once again, he talked in that
+brilliant paradoxical and ‘intriguing’ way of his and for hours on at a
+time. My wife and I came away with his musical, but rather high voice,
+still in our ears, and with new and many beautiful, but sometimes
+perplexing thoughts, born of what that man of genius had said, in our
+minds.
+
+“That, alas, is all I can tell you of G. K. C. But if you can get sight
+of my book ‘Celebrities’ which I think Dutton published in America, you
+will find G. K. C. figuring there as Judge, (Bernard Shaw as Foreman
+and myself as one of the Jury), at the much discussed Edwin Drood trial
+held in the June before the war by the Dickens Fellowship of which I
+was, and still am, a Vice-President. Chesterton, as I say in my book,
+took the part of Judge seriously and finely, for we wished to come to
+some discovery about Edwin Drood. But Bernard Shaw ‘guyed’ the show,
+and turned a serious inquiry into a farce.”
+
+Eric Gill, the well known sculptor, recalls,
+
+“Apart from seeing Chesterton many times at meetings I don’t think I
+actually met him in a personal way until about 1925 on the occasion of
+the founding of ‘G. K.’s Weekly,’ when I stayed the night at his house
+and we discussed the policy of his paper, especially with reference to
+industrialism and art. After we came to live here (which is only a few
+miles from Beaconsfield) we saw him more often.”
+
+A party of members of St. George’s Rambling Society, devoted to
+historical and archaeological research were visiting Beaconsfield on
+a pleasant afternoon in the September of 1935. They called upon the
+author at his home, “Top Meadow.” Mrs. Chesterton received them with
+much courtesy, and while they were talking to her, he came into the
+Lounge Hall of his house, which was fitted up in the Tudor style, with
+large fire-place, around which everyone grouped. They rose when he
+entered, and he soon engaged all in conversation. He was in excellent
+form. His first question, “What really did you come here to see?” was
+promptly answered by one of the members, Fred H. Postans, “We came to
+see Mr. Chesterton.” He then told an amusing anecdote against himself.
+He had been much annoyed by the noise made by the local film studios
+quite close to his home, and after sending several ineffectual letters
+of protest, eventually asked his secretary to call upon the manager
+of the studios. Upon doing so, that lady made a strong protest saying
+emphatically, “The position is becoming impossible.... Mr. Chesterton
+can’t write,” to which the manager replied, “We were well aware of
+that.” He relished the telling of this story immensely. He went on to
+give some local details about Beaconsfield. It was asked him whether
+he ever intended to write a Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and he said
+he thought that had already been done very well by Boswell. Postans
+pointed out that there was a little too much Boswell in that, in his
+opinion. He seemed to agree and said that he greatly admired the Doctor
+and it was not entirely impossible that he might undertake to write his
+life.
+
+“My only meeting with Chesterton,” writes Hugh Kingsmill, “was in
+the autumn of 1912, when I went to Beaconsfield to interview him for
+‘Hearth and Home,’ which was being edited by Frank Harris. One of
+his arms was in a sling, and he found great difficulty in pouring
+out drink. To my surprise he was not quaffing ale but sipping a
+liqueur. He insisted however in pouring the drinks for both of us,
+out of courtesy. He seemed to me very absent-minded and gentle, and I
+formed an extremely pleasant impression of him. At the same time he
+did not strike me as at all alive to ordinary existence. His praise
+of the man in the street and of common life has always seemed to
+me a defense thrown up against his own temperament. I think he was
+naturally an artist and poet of the self-absorbed, rather limited
+kind, and that he was afraid of this tendency, and fled to democracy,
+Dickens and eventually the Roman Church, in order not to lapse into
+pure aestheticism. As far as I know, and I have met many of them,
+his friends were drawn from rather cranky people, not from normal
+types, and this illustrates the division between his opinions and his
+temperament. He was not a good judge of individuals, in my opinion.
+Nothing could be further from the truth than his picture of Dickens as
+a roistering lover of the poor. On the other hand, his intelligence was
+very acute in the destructive criticism of the fads and poses against
+which he was always contending. If he did not understand ordinary life,
+he certainly understood the aesthetes, faddists and millenarians of
+the twenty years before the war, and made brilliant game of them in
+‘Heretics.’ Since the war, his work seems to me to have fallen off
+greatly. I have seen him several times, wandering about the streets or
+in Marylebone station, and was touched by his melancholy look. I think
+life depressed him. In his youth he praised the poor man’s literature
+of thrillers and shockers. In his later life he denounced the cinema.
+What the distinction, at any rate in mind, between printed nonsense
+and visible nonsense is, he never explained. I attribute this change
+of fact that as he grew older, he could not summon up enough energy
+to continue his celebration of the man in the street, and was more
+concerned with finding reasons for his faith in his last refuge from a
+perplexing world, the Roman Catholic Church.
+
+“But he did a valuable work in destructive criticism, and he was a
+lovable figure. I cannot think of any other well-known writer of the
+day in England whom one would not sooner spare from the scene than
+G. K. My friend Hesketh Pearson was staying with me when I read of
+Chesterton’s death. I told him of it through the bathroom door, and he
+sent up a hollow groan which must have been echoed that morning all
+over England.”
+
+Philip Guedalla recollects, “I first saw Gilbert Chesterton on the
+occasion of a visit of his to Oxford when I was an undergraduate
+’round about 1909 or 1910. It was a dark vision of the inside of a
+four-wheeled cab almost entirely filled with Chesterton. From its
+interior an arm and hand emerged and proceeded to struggle wildly with
+the outside handle of the vehicle. There was a College debate the
+same evening of which Chesterton was the opener; and I was offered
+up to him as the only undergraduate with insufficient impudence to
+attempt this suicidal controversy. He came back with me to my room
+in College and performed two acts which would have struck him as
+sacramentally Chestertonian. First he sat through my only arm chair to
+its destruction; then he finished all my whisky. On the next morning I
+piously presented for signature by its author a copy of ‘Orthodoxy’ and
+was profoundly shocked when he inscribed it ‘BOSH BY G. K. CHESTERTON.’”
+
+“Yes, I should be delighted to go on record as one of the admirers
+of G. K. Chesterton,” writes Clements Ripley. “He has always been an
+enthusiasm of mine. The first book of his I ever read was ‘The Man
+Who Was Thursday.’ I couldn’t have been more than fourteen when I
+picked this up and of course a great deal of the symbolism and the
+metaphysical quality of the book escaped me at that age. I read it for
+the story and it was a very fast moving and fascinating story. I think
+even then I appreciated the brilliancy of Chesterton’s paradoxical
+style, although at that time I certainly wouldn’t have called it that.”
+
+“It seems hardly possible,” ponders Walter de la Mare, “that a human
+being with the least claim to a vestige of intelligence should
+have forgotten his first meeting with G. K. C. I am, however, that
+unfortunate kind of man, and cannot even remember my first observations
+on entering this (at least) exceptionally interesting world. I recall
+most vividly, of course, many meetings and these memories are not
+in the slightest degree composite ones--even if memories ever are
+composite. And so vividly, indeed, that it all but amounts to an
+hallucination--as if we were meeting again!
+
+“Like how many, many friends of his, I have the greatest affection for,
+and admiration of, his work--and how much his work was he himself,
+though not, of course, all himself! That, I suppose, can never be.”
+
+“There is in London a distinguished Society,” declares Marie Belloc
+Lowndes, “called The Wiseman Dining Society. As its name implies, it
+is a Catholic Society, but no distinction is made with regard to the
+religion of the speakers. A great number of outstanding men and women
+have delivered addresses on every kind of subject of interest to an
+educated man and woman. The net thrown has been large, among those who
+have spoken being people as different as Lord Cecil (of the League of
+Nations), Algernon Blackwood, the famous novelist, Liddell Hart, the
+most noted military critic in the English-speaking world, and Bernard
+Pares, the great authority on Russia. Of them all, and the Society
+has been in existence now for something like ten years--by far the
+most interesting, and the most beautifully delivered address, was that
+of G. K. C. on Joan of Arc. This was the more remarkable, as to the
+best of my belief, Chesterton was not celebrated in this country as
+a speaker. I myself never heard him speak in public, but on that one
+occasion. No reporters can be admitted to these dinners because a very
+free discussion follows every paper read, so I fear no record of the
+speech exists.”
+
+Father Owen F. Dudley records, “I remember still quite vividly my
+first meeting with Mr. Chesterton and having tea with him in his house
+in Beaconsfield, Bucks. He was tremendously jovial over H. G. Wells,
+whom we discussed, and whom he considered a thinker who always stopped
+thinking. As I watched him, I realized that all the jokes that were
+bubbling out of him, as well as the epigrams, would in all probability
+appear in some article or book. Mrs. Chesterton and the Secretary were
+at tea and it struck me as one of the cheeriest households I had ever
+been in.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+SOME FRIENDS
+
+      “There’s nothing worth the wear of living
+      Save laughter and the love of friends.”
+
+
+No one believed more in these words of his friend Hilaire Belloc than
+Chesterton himself. He delighted in thousands of steadfast friends and
+acquaintances, and they rejoiced in his inimitable wisdom and good
+fellowship.
+
+The novelist, Isabel C. Clark, first met him in 1929 when he and his
+wife lunched with her at Piazza Grazioli: “I cannot remember that he
+said anything at all amusing or arresting, resembling in this the late
+Lytton Strachey and Kenneth Graham so that I imagine few authors are as
+loquacious as myself. But then I am not a man of genius!
+
+“When I saw him he was fifty-five years of age but looked at least ten
+years more, probably on account of his enormous bulk about which he
+was fond of joking; indeed I believe he was proud of resembling Dr.
+Johnson in this respect.
+
+“I heard him lecture on Henry VIII here at the Convent of the Holy
+Child when he said that Henry had no intention of Protestantizing the
+Church in England but thought he could have a Catholic Church with
+himself at the head of it, and that he was astonished to discover how
+rapidly it disintegrated into many sects. I remember his saying on this
+occasion: ‘Many people are prejudiced against Henry VIII because he
+was a Large Fat Man,’ and then going off into a chuckle of laughter,
+swelling himself out to an enormous size as he spoke. His wife told me
+he always rather spoilt his own jokes by laughing at them before he
+uttered them.”
+
+Ralph Adams Cram met him first in London a good many years ago: “Father
+Wagget asked my wife and myself once when we were staying in London,
+whom we would like best to meet--‘anyone from the King downward.’ We
+chose Chesterton who was a very particular friend of Father Wagget. At
+that time we put on a dinner at the Buckingham Palace Hotel (in those
+days the haunt of all the County families) and in defiance of fate,
+had this dinner in the public dining room. We had as guests Father
+Wagget, G. K. C. and Mrs. Chesterton. The entrance into the dining room
+of the short processional created something of a sensation amongst
+the aforesaid County families there assembled. Father Wagget, thin,
+crop-headed monk in cassock and rope; G. K. C., vast and practically
+globular; little Mrs. Chesterton, very South Kensington in moss green
+velvet; my wife, and myself.
+
+“The dinner was a riot. I have the clearest recollection of G. K. C.
+seated ponderously at the table, drinking champagne by magnums,
+continually feeding his face with food which, as he was constantly
+employed in the most dazzling and epigrammatic conversation, was apt
+to fall from his fork and rebound from his corporosity, until the
+fragments disappeared under the table.
+
+“He and Father Wagget egged each other on to the most preposterous
+amusements. Each would write a triolet for the other to illustrate.
+They were both as clever with the pencil as with the pen, and they
+covered the backs of menus with most astonishing literary and artistic
+productions. I particularly remember G. K. C. suddenly looking out of
+the dining room window towards Buckingham Palace and announcing that
+he was now prepared ‘to write a disloyal triolet.’ This was during
+the reign of King Edward VII, and the result was convincing. I have
+somewhere the whole collection of these literary productions with their
+illustrations, but where they are, I do not know.”
+
+“Ten or fifteen years ago,” recollects Stephen Gwynn, whom we have
+already quoted, “Barrie had taken a big house for August, and there was
+a large party, including several schoolboys and the Chestertons. It
+was decided to play the game of clues, and in the evening a dozen or
+more of us were each given bits of paper containing some mystification
+in verse. At the end all the clues led us to a most amusing charcoal
+portrait of Lord Beaverbrook. Everybody went to bed, and I was settling
+down to a quiet chat with G. K. C. over whiskey and soda when three
+schoolboys filed past. ‘Thank you very much,’ they said to him, ‘for
+giving us an amusing evening.’
+
+“Next morning I said to the spokesman’s mother, ‘Your youngster said
+his piece very well.’ But she knew nothing about it. It had been the
+schoolboy’s own idea. Admittedly the Chestertons were the best guests
+in that gathering of a long and very mixed list.
+
+“I remember how Lord David Cecil when still a boy, sitting up there one
+night and expounding to us two elders the point of view of the younger
+generation. Not only the easiest man in the world to talk with, but
+also a very good listener.”
+
+Lucille Borden, the novelist, found G. K.’s personality was even more
+impressive than the things he put to paper: “I remember once on meeting
+him I asked him what he thought of a certain small English boy (who
+calls us Aunt-Uncle though we are no relation) who used to plot out
+London in sections, selecting the men of prominence in those sections,
+then call on them. This between the ages of nine and thirteen. He
+was very small and fragile, and by reason of this, all flunkies and
+secretaries let him pass. So he not only gained access to the great man
+but used to go and sit with him, looking for all the world like Tiny
+Tim.
+
+“‘Indeed I remember that boy--he was an extraordinary chap. He will
+go far but he needs a guiding hand.’ ... This after the boy had
+grown. The thing that was so remarkable was, that Terence had only
+his inquisitive personality to recommend him. He has gone far but
+without the guiding hand, and drifted into the set pseudo-literati,
+sponsored by the Sitwells. However, at the age of eighteen or nineteen
+he married--a very clever young woman over whom the London newspapers
+fought and whom the “Daily Mail” finally acquired--as one of their
+top-notch women. This gives Terry leisure to write terrible but correct
+poetry--and to carry on a most extraordinary and original literary
+career.
+
+“Back to ‘nos moutons’--we’ve seen Gilbert Chesterton start a
+broadcast-speech to a club on whose Board I am--for which he was
+allowed forty minutes: He rose from the speakers’ table--put his watch
+in front of him--began one of the most stirring prose poems to which we
+all ever listened--made his introduction--points in phrases as colorful
+as a rainbow--approached his conclusion--made his logical deductions
+and finished on the fortieth minute. It was such a tour de force as was
+rarely done in the earliest days of radio.”
+
+“When I was introduced to Chesterton,” writes Adolphe de Castro, “I
+was a bit abashed. He was so formidable and such a mighty eater. But
+his conversation and his wit were delightful. I have my doubts if any
+one ever had the temerity to ask Mr. Chesterton why he had embraced
+Catholicism. I asked him. Americans in those days were forgiven much,
+and a friend of the late Ambrose Bierce was a particularly privileged
+character. Chesterton twirled the end of his scraggly moustache for
+some time, then he said: ‘Because of its primitivity.’
+
+“‘Then you ought to have become a Jew,’ I said. ‘Judaism has greater
+primitivity.’
+
+“To which he rejoined: ‘It has too much primitivity and is not
+sufficiently elastic for adaptability.’
+
+“‘You hold with Heine that Judaism is not a religion but a misfortune?’
+I asked.
+
+“‘Heine was a great poet,’ returned Chesterton. ‘And do you recall what
+John Locke said, ‘A merchant lies for gain; a poet lies for pleasure.’
+Do you happen to write poetry?’
+
+“I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers, extracted
+one and gave it to him. He read it. ‘I like this,’ he said.
+
+“It was a quasi sonnet entitled ‘The Jewish Poet.’”
+
+“At one time I doubted the existence of G. K. C.,” declares Holbrook
+Jackson. “I listened to the stories of him as one listens to the yarns
+of men who have been in the ends of the earth. And even now, after
+I have looked upon him with my own eyes, I have to nudge myself to
+realize his probability. He has the reality of one of those dragons or
+fairies in which he has such invincible faith. I first beheld him on a
+Yorkshire moor far from his natural element, which is in London. He
+was in the locality on a holiday, and I had gone over to verify his
+existence just as one might go to the Arctic regions to verify the
+existence of the North Pole or the Northwest Passage.
+
+“He was staying at the house of a Bradford merchant adjoining the
+moor, and I was to meet him there. It was April and raining. I trudged
+through the damp furze and heather up to the house only to find
+that the object of my pilgrimage had disappeared without leaving a
+trace behind him. No alarm was felt, as that was one of his habits.
+Sometimes he would go down to the railway station, and taking a ticket
+to any place that had a name which appealed to him, vanish into the
+unknown, making his way home on foot or wheel as fancy or circumstances
+directed. On this occasion, however, nothing so serious had happened.
+Therefore I adjourned with the lady of the house and Mrs. Chesterton
+to an upper hall, where a noble latticed window commanded a wide vista
+of the moor. I peered into the wild, half hoping that I should first
+behold the great form of Gilbert Chesterton looming over the bare brow
+of the wold, silhouetted against the grey sky like the symbol of a
+large new faith.
+
+“His coming was not melodramatic; it was, on the contrary, quite
+simple, quite idyllic, and quite characteristic. In fact, he did
+not come at all, rather was it that our eyes, and later our herald,
+went to him. For quite close to the house we espied him, hatless and
+negligently clad in a Norfolk suit of homespun, leaning in the rain
+against a budding tree, absorbed in the pages of a little red book.
+
+“This was a most fitting vision. It suited admirably his unaffected,
+careless, and altogether childlike genius. He came into the house
+shortly afterwards and consumed tea and cake like any mortal and
+talked the talk of Olympus with the abandonment and irresistibility
+of a child. I found his largeness wonderfully proportionate, even, as
+is so rarely the case with massive men, to his head. This is amply in
+keeping with the rest of his person. He wears a tangled mass of light
+brown hair prematurely streaked with grey, and a slight moustache. His
+grey-blue eyes laugh happily as his full lips unload themselves of a
+constant flow of self-amused and piquant words. Like Dr. Johnson whom
+he resembles so much in form, he is a great talker. But while I looked
+at him I was not reminded of the lexicographer, but of Balzac. And as
+his monologue rolled on and we laughed and wondered, I found myself
+carried away to a studio in France, where the head of Chesterton
+became one with the head of Rodin’s conception of France’s greatest
+literary genius.
+
+“Since my first meeting I have seen G. K. C. many times. I have seen
+him standing upon platforms defending the people’s pleasures against
+the inroads of Puritanism. I have seen him addressing men from a
+pulpit, and on one memorable occasion at Clifford’s Inn Hall I saw him
+defending the probability of the liquefication of the blood of St.
+Januarius in the teeth of a pyrotechnic heckling from Bernard Shaw.
+Again I have seen his vast person dominating the staring throng in
+Fleet Street like a superman; and I have seen the traffic of Ludgate
+Circus held up for him, as he strolled by in cloak and sombrero like a
+brigand of Adelphi drama or a Spanish hidalgo by Velasquez, oblivious
+alike of critical bus-driver and wonder-struck multitude.
+
+“But best it is to see him in his favorite habitat of Bohemian Soho.
+There in certain obscure yet excellent French restaurants with Hilaire
+Belloc and other writers and talkers, he may be seen, sitting behind a
+tall tankard of lager or a flagon of Chianti, eternally unravelling the
+mysterious tangle of living ideas; now rising mountainously on his feet
+to overshadow the company with weighty argument, anon brandishing a
+wine bottle as he insists upon defending some controversial point until
+‘we break the furniture’; and always chuckling at his own wit and the
+sallies of others, as he fights the battle of ideas with indefatigable
+and unconquerable good-humour.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+ON THE ENGLISH PLATFORM
+
+
+In the course of his life, Chesterton accomplished much lecturing and
+public speaking as did most of the English writers of his generation
+such as Shaw, Wells, and to a lesser extent Galsworthy and Bennett.
+Like many Englishmen his success as a speaker was variable and
+subject to his health and feelings even more than most men. Yet no
+matter how indifferently Chesterton might have done in the formal
+part of his address, he always more than redeemed himself in the
+question-and-answer period that followed. The speed with which he
+would answer questions was simply incredible. As one listened to him
+answering one question after another usually of so unrelated a nature,
+one marvelled at ability and nimbleness so extraordinary.
+
+The distinguished author R. Ellis Roberts, heard a lecture at Oxford:
+
+“I do not, alas! remember what Mr. Chesterton lectured to us about.
+I remember the manner of his lecture. It seemed to be written on a
+hundred written pieces of variously shaped paper, written in ink and
+pencils (of all colors and in chalk). All the papers were in a splendid
+and startling disorder, and I remember being at first just a little
+disappointed. Then the papers were abandoned, and G. K. C. talked, and
+we got more and more interested and pleased. I remember a passage about
+cathedrals and railway stations which aroused opposition; and with
+opposition and question the real Chesterton broke loose. He will, I am
+sure, if he reads this in the next world, forgive me for saying that to
+myself I whispered ‘Elephant’. All day the image had been present with
+me of something vast and weighty, incredibly simple, incalculably wise,
+and unquestionably kindly. Foolishly I mourned a certain sluggishness.
+Then as I say, came opposition; and suddenly--trunk up, roaring,
+speeding, faster and faster--the wisest of us was pursuing his trifling
+opponents through quickset hedge and over ploughed fields of argument.
+How he raced! I know, because of all the opposition none ran faster
+than I!”
+
+“My own acquaintance with Chesterton,” Father Francis J. Yealy, S. J.,
+writes “has been gained from his books and from one of his lectures
+delivered in Cambridge, England, in 1925. Just outside the town of
+Cambridge is a village called Chesterton, the Anglican vicar of which
+sat on the stage during the lecture. Afterwards he made a short speech,
+inviting G. K. to visit the village and, I believe, suggesting that
+it might have been named after his ancestors. At any rate Chesterton
+responded gracefully and played most amusingly with this identity of
+names. It was possible, he said, that the place had been named after
+one of his ancestors, but it seemed more likely that the family had
+taken their name from it. Perhaps they had lived there in the remote
+past under a different name, and one of them, who would no doubt have
+been a worthless fellow, had eventually been run out of town. The
+natural place to go was of course Cambridge; and the people there with
+their great kindliness allowed him to loiter about. In time he became
+a familiar figure in Cambridge; but, as no one knew his name, they
+began to refer to him as the fellow from Chesterton and later simply as
+Chesterton. This he thought was very reasonable theory of the origin of
+his name.”
+
+“One day in February, 1902,” records Mr. Karl H. Harklander, “I
+happened to notice on the announcing board of the Leeds University that
+a G. K. Chesterton would lecture about ‘Man, Great Man, Super-man.’ I
+was a young textile manufacturer on a business journey and hungered
+for more than ‘bread alone!’ That night I heard the best and also the
+shortest lecture of my life; in less than twenty minutes our assembly
+was quite clear about ‘Man, Great man, Super-man.’ I marked my young
+‘man’ who might become super-man,’ but who chose to be ‘great man’ in
+accordance with the exposition of the 1902 lecture.”
+
+A charming reminiscence comes from Edward Brown:
+
+“In 1927 the great man accepted the Honorary Presidency of the
+University College of Wales (Aberystwyth) Debates Union. The
+undergraduates resolved that he should be conveyed from the station
+to the Queen’s Hotel in a manner worthy of his greatness and of our
+reputation for hospitality. An old fashioned vehicle of the ‘growler’
+variety was dug out from the lumber yard of an inn and some of the dust
+and signs of neglect were removed therefrom.
+
+“As Secretary of Debates Union I demanded and won, the privilege
+of driving this state coach. Our Officers Training Corps received
+permission to act as escort but were refused the privilege of carrying
+arms. They accordingly armed themselves with hoes, rakes, spades, axes,
+etcetera.
+
+“It had been arranged that the President of the Union should sit with
+Chesterton (‘back to the engine’) and the President of Ladies’ Hostel
+... fortunately a very small lady ... with Mrs. Chesterton. But as soon
+as the two guests had taken their seats, the O. T. C. rushed the coach
+and some half dozen of them secured a seat or footing of some sort. A
+burly sergeant with battle axe (borrowed from the Art Department) sat
+beside Mrs. Chesterton facing G. K. C. My stolid steeds were replaced
+by forty undergraduates, and we tore through the narrow streets at a
+most reckless pace.”
+
+In reply to the demand for a speech, G. K. C. stood at the top of
+Queen’s Hotel steps and said,
+
+“You need never be ashamed of the athletic prowess of this College. The
+Pyramids, we are told, were built by slave labor. But the slaves were
+not expected to haul the pyramids in one piece!”
+
+In his address that evening he commented on the ancient custom
+of sending a condemned man to his death in the same coach as the
+executioner; and described his feelings as he faced the great axe in
+the coach. Later he presented the “executioner” with an exquisite
+caricature of them both with the axe between them. The caricature now
+hangs in the Men’s Union.
+
+An Honorary President of the Debate Union at Aberystwyth is always
+elected by the D. U. Committee (all students, save for one Lecturer).
+The name is submitted to the Senate for its approval. The Debate
+Union was formed from an amalgamation of the Literary and Debating
+Society and the Political Union in 1925 about a year before G. K. C.’s
+Presidency. Chesterton was succeeded by John Drinkwater, John van
+Druten, and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
+
+G. K. C.’s speech was on “Liberty: the Last Phase,” by which he
+explained he meant the =latest= phase. Just as barons had fought
+against the tyranny of would-be despots, just as yeoman had fought
+those same barons for freedom of property and action, just as ... etc.
+factory-hands; electors ... so ought men today to band in a great
+crusade to defend the common man’s freedom of the highway, a freedom
+which was being denied him by the motorist. The cause was obscured
+by the common man’s desire to join the enemy as soon as his means
+permitted him to do so. Envy of our enemy inspired a desire to emulate
+him. His chariots were objects of admiration, instead of loathing
+and furious hostility ... But the fact remained that our roads, our
+ancient highways were being wrested from us. “The price of liberty is
+eternal vigilance.”
+
+The Senior History Lecturer and some others were of the opinion that
+the whole thesis of the address was a gigantic leg-pull!
+
+The students that evening were a songful crowd, and they had evolved
+in G. K. C.’s honour a parody of a well-known Salvation Army hymn that
+went, “I’m H-A-P-P-PY, I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m H-A-P-P-Y!”
+
+They had already several parodies on that spelling motif, such as “I’m
+D-R-U-N-K!”
+
+That evening as G. K. C. entered, they all burst into, “I’m G. K.
+Chester--TON,” with terrific and increasing emphasis on the TON, later
+varying it “G. K.... Just-a TON.” The great man was delighted and
+bowed, smiled, and clapped his hands.
+
+Of Chesterton in Liverpool Mr. Clarence Fry recalls, “I was living in
+Liverpool at the time Mr. Chesterton joined the Roman Catholic Church.
+Having been charmed with his writings, I went to see and hear him
+lecture. I remember how disappointed I was with his address (perhaps
+owing to Protestant prejudices). But I had reckoned without my host.
+The Chairman said all questions asked on paper would be answered
+by the Speaker. And then Mr. Chesterton rose and reading out each
+question, replied in a few pregnant words; immediately sitting down and
+beaming most angelically all round the hall on the audience, as much as
+to say, ‘How’s that! Beat that, if you can!’ And in =no= one case could
+any answer be ventured. I was delighted and overwhelmed with the sense
+of his masterly dealing with the issues laid before him. The replies
+were electric in their concise power. Also, as you may believe, I was
+charmed with his whole personality.”
+
+The chairman was the late Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool,
+Dr. Keating, supported by the Catholic Bishop of Birmingham and
+other dignitaries. The occasion aroused great interest, as not long
+before G. K. C. had joined the Catholic Church. The meeting was
+arranged so that this new “Defender of the Faith” might help the cause
+of Catholicism in the city. The speech was largely devoted to an
+exposition of his newly-found faith.
+
+“Chesterton seldom came to Glasgow,” records George Mortimer, “and the
+only time I heard him was on his first visit to the city one Sunday
+evening fully thirty years ago when he lectured in the Berkeley Hall
+which seats about six hundred people. His subject was ‘Some New
+Dangers of Oligarchies.’ In those days Sunday evening lectures were not
+popular in Scotland, and neither are they now. The churches are in most
+cases meagrely attended in the evening, the majority of people either
+going for a walk, visiting their friends or remaining at home and
+listening to the wireless.
+
+“Evidently G. K. Chesterton, whom I had first seen referred to years
+previously as a new Carlyle, proved a powerful magnet, for instead of
+going to church I traveled from Paisley to Glasgow--seven miles by
+tramcar. All I remember about the meeting is that the hall was well
+filled; that a Scottish author, David Lowe, at present contributing
+reminiscences which he calls ‘Lowe Life’ to a Glasgow paper, was
+chairman; that Chesterton, then thirty years of age, was a large and
+fleshy man with a fine head of luxuriant brown hair; and that he made
+reference to the Boer War, to Lord Rosebery, and to Mr. Parks, a
+prominent lawyer, business man, Methodist and Liberal M. P., I have a
+general impression that he showed himself a democrat.”
+
+“Chesterton was a past master of the art known popularly as ‘pulling
+your leg,’” according to Mr. William Platt. “With him, this was not
+merely a manifestation of his exuberant temperament; it was also a
+matter of principle, a determination to make the other man see that
+there are two sides to every question.
+
+“I remember well his address to the British Humanitarian League. This
+body was of excellent principles, and supported by many and able and
+eminent persons; but it also contained many who had become rabid and
+fanatical, and so provided targets, for G. K. C.
+
+“‘If’ he said ‘you ask me to extend my sympathy to the poor fox,
+pursued by savage sportsmen, shall I not also extend it to the poor
+sportsman, pursued by savage humanitarians?’
+
+“And he proceeded to draw a contrast between the typical elderly
+colonel, who ought by profession to be a man of blood, but who in
+point of fact was the kindest and mildest of men, and the typical
+humanitarian, who ought to be brimming over with human kindness, but
+who on the contrary was furiously ready to assail any unfortunate who
+happened in his or her opinion to transgress the code.
+
+“Bernard Shaw was present, and during the debate received a delicious
+setback from a witty Irishman called Connel. ‘Shaw is out to persuade
+us to be vegetarians,’ he said; ‘but if we all adopt that creed, what
+would happen? Rabbits would obey the Scriptural command to increase
+and multiply until they overran the whole country-side and ate up every
+vegetable; and where then would Mr. Bernard Shaw get his daily bunch of
+carrots?’
+
+“Despite Chesterton’s ability to state the other side, and to state it
+wittily and well, he was no mere arguer for argument’s sake. He would
+not put forward any viewpoint unless he was convinced that there was
+ground for his support. He hated that type of politician or publicist
+who from sheer intellectual dexterity could argue in favor of any cause
+that it paid him to support, probably with his tongue in his cheek.
+This is very clearly seen in his brilliant retort to Lord Birkenhead,
+ending with that overwhelming:--‘Chuck it, Smith!’
+
+“Probably the finest instance of the effective use of slang by a great
+literary stylist!
+
+“When he spoke to me about my work he used to say:--
+
+“‘What I admire about your idealism, as shown in your writings, is
+the fact that I know it to be genuine. For writers who merely pay
+lip-service to ideals, because they think it safest to do so, I have no
+use whatever. But I know that what you say, you mean.’
+
+“Chesterton, like most artistic persons, had a dislike for officialdom
+and bureaucracy. It seems so often to lead to a dull and spurious
+uniformity and standardization. The natural love of the artist is for
+variety, reaching out to a fullness of life and experience.
+
+“I remember hearing G. K. C. make a very amusing point at a meeting of
+educationists where he was the chief speaker. He pictured a state of
+things where the official director of education might be a man with
+chronic catarrh. Far from realizing this as a deficiency, the official,
+he supposed, would attempt to impose it on others; to require that all
+pupils should be told to pronounce English as the director pronounced
+it. Or, as Chesterton amusingly put it:--
+
+“‘He wadted theb do brodoudce Idglish as he hibself brodoudced it, this
+bad with the groddig gattarrh. Ibadgidge it for yourselves.’
+
+“To those who never heard G. K. C. speak in public I would say that he
+stood on the platform as the very essence of good humour. He beamed
+on all and sundry. He radiated kindliness. He smiled, he laughed, he
+bubbled over. He was out to enjoy himself and to make every one present
+enjoy himself. A personification of mirth, good temper and happy
+humanity.”
+
+“Prof. A. J. Armstrong, head of the English Department of Baylor
+University, Waco, Texas, heard G. K. C. in England,
+
+“He talked to the members of my group for more than an hour on
+Browning. He referred to his own life of Browning as an immature work,
+although he said it was necessary for him to do a great deal of hack
+work when he was young, about the time of this publication.
+
+“When one of the ladies present interrupted and said,
+
+“‘Mr. Chesterton, the Browning work has some wonderful things in it,’
+he only laughed and went on. In his thoughts he stayed close to the
+things that he had said in his book. His general conversation, of
+course, was delightful and was filled with the paradoxes for which he
+was so famous.
+
+“He took dinner with us at the Hotel Victoria, off Trafalgar Square,
+and Mrs. Chesterton was with him. I sat next Mrs. Chesterton the whole
+evening and she was a lovely woman, quiet, refined, a poetess, with a
+great many experiences which she told delightfully.
+
+“Mr. Chesterton had a delightful wit, was a vigorous speaker, and was
+a man of great power,--although--and I believe that this is not given
+with what one usually knows of him--he had a shy way of looking under
+his glasses that was charming.
+
+“A little later we had our symposium in London where Mr. Chesterton
+addressed a group of friends. I do not know whether you ever heard
+of Mrs. French-Sheldon or not. Before her death all the “Who’s Who”
+carried her. She was an American who learned her ‘A B C’s’ from
+Washington Irving, and from that time until her death her life was
+one long spectacle. She told me that at one time she was the guest of
+George Sand, and that Chopin came in, and Victor Hugo later joined
+them. Just imagine such a coterie!
+
+“Mrs. French-Sheldon was one who did a great deal of exploring in
+Africa, and was the first white woman to enter one side of the African
+Continent and come out on the other. Later under the direction of J. B.
+Pond, she made twenty-three addresses in America and received $23,000
+in cash for them, that is, one thousand dollars a night.
+
+“When I was interested in getting Mr. Chesterton to speak in Waco his
+fee was one thousand dollars. So in London when I introduced Mrs.
+French-Sheldon in the charming coterie, I said to Mr. Chesterton:
+‘Probably when you were a little boy in short trousers this lady was
+touring American cities at one thousand dollars a night, so you can
+see that you are not the only one that gets that price, and she got it
+twenty years before you did.’ Mr. Chesterton answered with a smile.
+But he seemed tremendously impressed, for in the social hour that
+followed the symposium, he showed Mrs. French-Sheldon a number of
+courtesies.”
+
+Mrs. Lillian Curt heard a lecture in London,
+
+“His large body was rather picturesque, but one received a shock when
+a tiny, high pitched voice emanated from it. I well remember on one
+occasion before the War that G. K. C. was asked to speak in the large
+Town Hall of Battersea. The occasion was the Annual Soiree of the West
+Lambeth Association of Teachers--a large and important local gathering
+of learned folk and their friends. G. K. C. then in his prime, was
+the lion of the evening and the lion was expected to roar when his
+turn came. But no, G. K. C. stood, like a huge cherub, emitting little
+squeaky phrases. The teachers huddled closer together and craned their
+necks forward. G. K. C. went on unconcernedly and those who could
+hear, heard gems of the first (literally) water pour from those curved
+lips. Not that one sentence had much to do with the last, but each was
+a superb thought complete in itself and miraculously moulded. I was
+there, so I know--and enjoyed a delightful tete-a-tete with him and his
+charming wife afterwards. He was in strange contrast with his brother
+Cecil--a little man, wee-proportioned, with a charming literary style
+and good lecture-voice, who fell in the Great European war.”
+
+In 1928 Chesterton spoke before the Summer Course at the Victoria and
+Albert Museum. Mr. Charles A. Eva recalls that it was a sweltering hot
+July day, and when Chesterton turned up late owing to a train delay, he
+began his discourse by remarking,
+
+“This is no sort of weather for lecturing or listening, as the lecturer
+on this occasion can rely on the weather, and not on himself, to send
+the audience to sleep.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+ON THE AMERICAN PLATFORM
+
+
+Chesterton made two extended visits to the United States, in 1920–1,
+and in 1930–1. Both times he traversed the length and breadth of the
+country, delivering innumerable lectures, making many addresses,
+and participating in not a few debates. No matter what the occasion
+he never forgot his sense of humor. At the Soldiers’ Memorial Hall,
+Pittsburgh, he was introduced to a large audience by Bishop Hugh C.
+Boyle. When G. K. stood up there arose a collective audible gasp at the
+enormous size of the man making his way to the amplifier. His opening
+words were,
+
+“At the outset I want to reassure you I am not this size, really; dear
+no, I’m being amplified by the thing.”
+
+He debated with Cosmo Hamilton at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on
+November 26th, 1930. The subject of debate was presumably unknown to
+the two authors, and was announced by the Chairman William C. Redfield,
+Secretary of Commerce under Wilson, “Is Immorality in the Novel
+Justified.” The audience was composed chiefly of educators, priests,
+college instructors, and grade teachers; all seemed properly pleased
+by the title of the evening’s discourse, and settled back to enjoy the
+action ... Chesterton annihilating his gracious and graceful opponent.
+They were not denied. Chesterton scored decidedly when he showed that
+what is moral is justified, and that the contrary, of course, could
+never be justified.
+
+This Chesterton explained in his introductory remarks, which he took
+from written notes, as Hamilton also did when he arose. Apparently
+they were formulated, and used in more than one debate in their tour.
+Chesterton charmingly denied he was there to make a football of
+Hamilton, who had protested such, but that he was rather a football in
+appearance, even if on the side of the angels, and Hamilton more the
+lithe athlete. After these amenities, Chesterton divided his argument
+into three sections: immorality in the novel violates ... first, good
+morals; second, good manners; third, good taste.
+
+“You can’t discuss inflaming the passions without doing it,” Chesterton
+pointed out. In reply to a query from Hamilton, “On the contrary, I
+like and admire very much the works of Aldous Huxley, but, (here he
+showed genuine anger) as for that weak, sniveling, dirty, pacifistic
+Enrique Maria Remarque, I have nothing but contempt.”
+
+Chesterton made many notes, chuckling to himself as he scribbled
+something soon to come forth as a sally, pausing now and then to survey
+the audience or his opponent, and again interrupting his writing to
+place his pencil between his teeth to applaud some remark of Hamilton’s.
+
+“Chesterton’s voice was a fairly high tenor,” recalls Mr. Daniel
+Kern who was present, “not at all surprising. I have observed that
+many Englishmen despite bulk and great size, possess the same type
+voice. For example, H. G. Wells’ ... so high and snuffled that it was
+execrable coming over the radio. The loud-speaker system made it easy
+to hear both men. Both speakers were making use of a word which sounded
+like ‘eppitet’ or ‘epithet,’ which in the context could have had no
+meaning. The people about us were confused. As we became used to their
+voices, it developed that the word was ‘appetite.’ You can estimate the
+frequency of the occurrence of this word in an ethical discussion when
+it is coupled with the modifiers ‘innate’ and ‘acquired’.”
+
+G. K. C.’s pink face, framed by a white mane of hair, isolated by a
+rumpled dinner jacket, shining beautifully at the audience, caused
+Kern’s companion, a singular personality, to remark wistfully,
+“Chesterton’s just a saint, just a saint.”
+
+The warm, human, simple childlike nature, and the beaming benevolence
+of Chesterton’s smile was so utterly charming that Mr. W. D. Hennessy
+also present, was immediately reminded of two quite disparate
+characters his “favorite uncle, now deceased and Santa Claus. As I
+thought more about it, I realized that my first instinctive impression
+in its childlike simplicity, was founded upon a correct perception. My
+uncle was loved by every man, woman, child, and dog in his town and he
+was the most natural democrat I ever knew. I am just as certain that
+Chesterton was a beloved figure to his neighbors and that he was a true
+democrat in the best sense of that much abused term.
+
+“Mr. Hamilton several times referred to Chesterton as a cherub and
+a teacher. G. K. C. expressed difficulty in reconciling the picture
+of a cherub and a teacher, but I think Cosmo Hamilton’s appellations
+were apt, for was not Chesterton an angelic teacher? And when a casual
+remark about the New York subway was made by Hamilton, I was delighted
+at the way G. K. C. pounced upon it as a perfect allegory, comparing
+the modern world looking for its way with the stranger lost in the
+labyrinths of the subway.”
+
+Mr. Joseph J. Reilly attended a debate at Mecca Temple in New York
+City, between Chesterton and Clarence Darrow, which dealt with the
+story of creation as presented in Genesis. It was a Sunday afternoon
+and the Temple was packed. At the conclusion of the debate everybody
+was asked to express his opinion as to the victor and slips of paper
+were passed around for that purpose. The award went directly to
+Chesterton. Darrow in comparison, seemed heavy, uninspired, slow of
+mind, while G. K. C. was joyous, sparkling and witty ... quite the
+Chesterton one had come to expect from his books. The affair was like a
+race between a lumbering sailing vessel and a modern steamer.
+
+Mrs. Frances Taylor Patterson also heard the Chesterton-Darrow debate,
+but went to the meeting with some misgivings because she was a trifle
+afraid that Chesterton’s “gifts might seem somewhat literary in
+comparison with the trained scientific mind and rapier tongue of the
+famous trial lawyer. Instead, the trained scientific mind, the clear
+thinking, the lightning quickness in getting a point and hurling back
+an answer, turned out to belong to Chesterton. I have never heard
+Mr. Darrow alone, but taken relatively, when that relativity is to
+Chesterton, he appears positively muddle-headed.”
+
+Although the terms of the debate were determined at the outset, Darrow
+either could not or would not stick to the definitions, but kept
+going off at illogical tangents and becoming choleric over points
+that were not in dispute. He seemed to have an idea that all religion
+was a matter of accepting Jonah’s whale as a sort of luxury-liner. As
+Chesterton summed it up, he felt as if Darrow had been arguing all
+afternoon with his fundamentalist aunt, and the latter kept sparring
+with a dummy of his own mental making. When something went wrong with
+the microphone, Darrow sat back until it could be fixed. Whereupon
+G. K. C. jumped up and carried on in his natural voice, “Science you
+see is not infallible!” Whatever brilliance Darrow had in his own
+right, it was completely eclipsed. For all the luster that he shed,
+he might have been a remote star at high noon drowned by the bright
+incandescent arc light of the sun. Chesterton had the audience with
+him from the start, and when it was over, everyone just sat there, not
+wishing to leave. They were loath to let the light die!
+
+Clarence Darrow wrote the author shortly before his death,
+
+“I was favorably impressed by, warmly attached to, G. K. Chesterton.
+I enjoyed my debates with him, and found him a man of culture and
+fine sensibilities. If he and I had lived where we could have become
+better acquainted, eventually we would have ceased to debate, I firmly
+believe.”
+
+Bishop George Craig Stewart of Chicago, presided at Orchestra Hall
+when Chesterton debated in that city with Dr. Horace J. Bridges of the
+Ethical Cultural Society on the subject, “Is Psychology a Curse?” In
+his closing remarks Chesterton devastatingly sideswiped his opponent
+and wound up the occasion in a storm of laughter and applause,
+
+“It is clear that I have won the debate, and we are all prepared
+to acknowledge that psychology is a curse. Let us, however, be
+magnanimous. Let us allow at least one person in this unhappy world
+to practice this cursed psychology, and I should like to nominate Dr.
+Bridges.”
+
+During Dr. Bridges’ share of the debate Chesterton was drawing funny
+pictures on the back of a torn envelope which he produced out of his
+capacious inner pocket. At the close of the debate, Bishop Stewart
+begged the torn envelope with the funny pictures, which the artist
+initialed “From G. K. C. to G. C. S.” It now hangs framed with one of
+G. K.’s photographs in the episcopal drawingroom.
+
+At luncheon Bishop Stewart remarked, “Mr. Chesterton, =securus judicat
+orbis terrarum=. You have become a Roman Catholic, and I do not doubt
+that you have gained the whole world, but may I suggest that one may
+gain the whole world and lose one’s soul, and I think you have lost
+the soul of Chestertonianism, for after all, when you were an Anglican
+you were both a Protestant and a Catholic, and that was a delightfully
+Chestertonian position. Now you have become a Romanist, you have ceased
+to be a Chestertonian.”
+
+Chesterton’s only response to this Anglican leg pulling was a beaming
+and chuckling acknowledgment of the charge.
+
+At the luncheon Chesterton talked just as he wrote, on any subject that
+came up, in a free, flowing, brilliant manner, and everything he said
+might have been taken down and published as a part of his weekly letter
+to the “Illustrated London News.”
+
+In introducing Chesterton for the debate, Bishop Stewart had quoted
+Oliver Hereford’s delightful verse,
+
+      “When plain folks such as you and I
+      See the sun sinking in the sky,
+      We think it is the setting sun:
+      But Mr. Gilbert Chesterton
+      Is not so easily misled;
+      He calmly stands upon his head,
+      And upside down obtains a new
+      And Chestertonian point of view ...
+      Observing thus how from his nose
+      The sun creeps closer to his toes
+      He cries in wonder and delight,
+      How fine the sunrise is tonight!”
+
+When the lecture was over, Chesterton strode down the aisle towards
+the main entrance where Mr. Edward Cassidy was standing with his wife
+who wished to get his autograph on a book. Suddenly a very important
+looking lorgnetted dowager accompanied by her daughter confronted the
+massive man.
+
+“Mr. Chesterton,” she demanded, “might I ask when did you become
+famous?”
+
+“I became famous, if you can call it that,” the great author chuckled,
+“at a time when there were no famous men in England.”
+
+He went on to explain that there had been no very great writers or
+journalists in England during the Boer War. His bitter opposition to
+the war ran so counter to the English press of the period that he
+became famous for his disloyalty, and for refusing to run with the
+crowd.
+
+Chesterton impressed the late Reverend Frederic Seidenberg, S. J., who
+was also present in Orchestra Hall, as a man one could never forget,
+“not only his huge size, but his striking personality and ever present
+smile are things that one would carry through life. We had a full
+house, but his voice was so thin that I immediately had the speaker’s
+desk placed at the edge of the footlights. When he began again to
+speak several in the balcony called out, ‘Louder!’ After a moment’s
+hesitation, Chesterton looked up and said, ‘Good brother, don’t worry,
+you’re not missing a thing.’ The audience roared.”
+
+Dr. Horace J. Bridges has kindly given his impressions,
+
+“I had two public debates with Chesterton, one in Chicago and one in
+Milwaukee. He struck me as a curious mixture of great personal charm,
+wide reading, exquisite critical faculty (manifested particularly in
+his interpretations of Browning and of Dickens), delightful humor, and
+a certain intellectual recklessness that made him indifferent to truth
+and reality. I cannot but feel that fundamentally--perhaps I should
+say subconsciously--he was a thorough-going skeptic and acted upon
+the principle that, since we cannot really be positive about anything,
+we had better believe what it pleases us to believe. I think he never
+did justice to the real arguments for a case he opposed; and he had a
+slap-dash way of assuming that the weaknesses in an opponent’s case
+proved not only the falsity of that case, but--which is obviously a
+very different matter--the truth of his own case.
+
+“One may think my criticism of him unfair. I certainly do not mean it
+to be so, nor do I fail to recognize that men much more earnest in
+their truth-seeking than he was have sincerely believed the things he
+said he believed. My comment is on his mental processes, in distinction
+from the question of his particular beliefs.”
+
+Chesterton spoke in St. Louis at the Odeon Theatre. On the stage his
+entire appearance was distinctive: shaggy, tousled dark-light hair
+topped a massive head and full, ruddy face; eyes which seemed always
+half-closed were protected by thick-lensed glasses; heavy shoulders and
+ponderous girth bulked above long, slender legs. Over evening dress
+he wore a black cape; when he doffed it and stood ready to speak, his
+stiff, white shirt-front became awry and crept several degrees out of
+proper position.
+
+“A gentle giant Chesterton seemed,” recalls Mr. James O’Neill, “as
+he commenced to address his audience. His high-pitched voice sounded
+somewhat of a plaintive and apologetic note.”
+
+Lamenting the pseudo-sophistication of the day and the loss of
+appreciation for the simple pleasures of yore, Chesterton complained
+that the modern man and woman were seeking to escape ennui by finding
+new thrills, which tendency was expressed in our entertainments and
+even in our foods. Whereas we had once been satisfied with the taste
+of one palatable comestible at a time, we now demanded a combination
+of several in such an assembly as the modern three-deck sandwich. He
+regretfully observed that whereas our esthetic sense had once been
+pleased by such a dainty little figurine as the china shepherdess, we
+were now regaled by only such heroic figures as the billboard likeness
+of the lady who keeps her schoolgirl complexion by using a certain kind
+of soap and proclaims her secret to all who read. He was saddened by
+these thoughts and yearned for a return of the more simple but much
+more wholesome aesthetic attitudes currents in the days of his early
+manhood.
+
+Mrs. Katharine Darst says that when there was a call for questions,
+they were slow coming, and dull when finally blurted out. Then there
+was a long, embarrassing pause. And finally, “Well, we’ve heard from
+the educated. Now, have the ignorant anything to ask?” ... this from
+the Chairman. Chesterton had such a vicious way of tearing poseurs
+apart with his sharp shafts that the reluctance of the audience to
+place itself at his mercy was natural. But here was too good a chance
+to miss. A number who had hesitated to make inquiries were on their
+feet at once. If they asked as the ignorant, they felt that they were
+armed against Chesterton’s barbs!
+
+A group of St. Louis women also heard Chesterton deliver a lecture
+paradoxically entitled,
+
+“The New Enslavement of Women.”
+
+This gave a compelling portrayal of how women exchanged the freedom of
+home for the slavery of office,
+
+“Twenty million young women rose to their feet with the cry, ‘WE
+WILL NOT BE DICTATED TO!’ And immediately proceeded to become
+stenographers!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF G. K. C.
+
+
+Mr. Bernard Shaw told the author that he was so much struck by a
+review of Scott’s “Ivanhoe” which appeared in the “Daily News” while
+Chesterton was holding his earliest notable job as feuilletonist to the
+paper that he wrote to him, “asking him who he was and where he came
+from, as he was evidently a new star in literature. He was either too
+shy or too lazy to answer. The next thing I remember is his lunching
+with us on quite intimate terms, accompanied by Belloc.
+
+“Our actual physical contacts, however, were few, as he never belonged
+to the Fabian Society nor came to its meetings (this being my set)
+whilst his Fleet Street Bohemianism lay outside my vegetarian,
+teetotal, non-smoking tastes. Besides, he apparently liked literary
+society; and it had the grace to like him. I avoided it and it loathed
+me.
+
+“But, of course, we were very conscious of one another. I enjoyed him
+and admired him keenly; and nothing could have been more generous than
+his treatment of me. Our controversies were exhibition spars, in which
+nothing could have induced either of us to hurt the other.”
+
+In July, 1933, the Canadian Authors’ Association paying its first
+official visit to England, was entertained at Claridge’s by the Royal
+Society of Literature. Miss Paty Carter recalls that at the end of the
+luncheon the toast was proposed by Rudyard Kipling and ably seconded by
+Chesterton. The contrast in appearance between the mover and seconder
+of the toast, caused a ripple of amusement: a contrast that might be
+likened to the Giant and Jack in the fairy story. Though Kipling,
+in reality, was only slightly below average size, and if a giant,
+Chesterton at least conveyed the impression of an amiable, gentle,
+likable giant.
+
+“You will be much puzzled at my occupying any space--so much space--in
+this august assembly,” he began, “and why any word of mine could
+possibly add to what this great literary genius, Mr. Kipling, has said.
+I cannot pose as a newspaper man; one reads of newspaper men slipping
+in through half-closed doors.
+
+“Now, no one could possibly think of me as slipping through a
+half-closed door! (Laughter).
+
+“I do not know Canada as Mr. Kipling knows it. I have traveled here
+and there in the miserable capacity of one giving lectures. I might
+call myself a lecturer; but then again I fear some of you may have
+attended my lectures. The reason for my presence here today is to
+return hospitality. I have been twice to Canada. My first visit was
+made twelve years ago when I crossed to the Dominion from America--that
+was in the early days of Prohibition. The second time I went up the
+St. Lawrence. Then I knew that Canada had the foundations of all
+literature, because she had indeed a country. There was that vast
+natural background necessary to the growth of literary culture, and
+there was also what is necessary for all literature--legend. On the
+Plains of Abraham I was uplifted in the sense in which poetry or great
+music or even a great monument uplifts one.
+
+“The magnificent cordiality and courtesy of the Canadian people was,
+to me, amazing. The hospitality of the Canadian Authors’ Association
+was overwhelming. The Canadian Literature Society rushed out to welcome
+any stray traveler, and in the confusion I was mistaken for a literary
+man. (Laughter). I tried to explain I was merely a lecturer, and one of
+the first things for a lecturer to do is talk about things he does not
+understand, such as Canada.”
+
+“Are you coming with us to Downing Street, Mr. Chesterton?” asked Miss
+Carter as the authors all left the hotel.
+
+“No--o,” he drawled, with a delicious sort of chant. “Unfortunately,
+I have to attend a wretched meeting with three other men; all madmen,
+like myself!”
+
+Mr. James Truslow Adams happened to have been one of the four or five
+Americans elected to the Royal Society of Literature, and so he found
+himself in the rather odd situation of an American who was entertaining
+Canadians at an empire meeting.
+
+“Chesterton,” recalls Mr. Adams, “was very witty, and although he took
+a number of sharp cracks at American journalism, I being the only
+person in the room who was not of the British Empire, there was nothing
+untrue or unkind. I have an extremely vivid impression of the man, not
+only of his enormous physical bulk and of his constant mopping of his
+forehead with his handkerchief, but also of his intellectual vitality.”
+
+The President of the Canadian Authors’ Association, the late Charles W.
+Gordon (Ralph Connor) was “struck with the freshness of Chesterton’s
+thought, the brilliancy of his imagination, and his warm human
+sympathy. I had heard him spoken of as cold, but I could not say that
+of his speech or of his personality that day.”
+
+Mr. Rodolphe L. Megroz made a pilgrimage in 1922, to Chesterton’s home.
+
+“Oh, yes, certainly, sir,” said the railway porter at Beaconsfield when
+asked where Chesterton lived. “Turn to your left at the bridge and
+along the road to the old town. When you come to the film studios, go
+across into the side road and it’s surrounded by a field. His house is
+called ‘Top Meadow’.”
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Chesterton received the visitor in a little room with
+white-washed walls and book-cases, and a long desk below a window that
+ran the length of the room. Megroz was anxious to compare Chesterton’s
+ideas with those of H. G. Wells whom he had seen shortly before, and
+particularly wished to question the former’s opinions on patriotism
+and nationalism. Although such books as the jolly “Napoleon of Notting
+Hill” belonged to the pre-war period, G. K. C.’s own journalistic
+writings had shown no change in his dislike of internationalism and the
+kind of social organization favored by Wells.
+
+“The trouble is,” he said, “that terms like patriotism and nationalism
+are very often used by people who mean something quite different from
+what I mean. My idea in ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill’ was that men
+have a natural loyalty for their own home and their own land, I do
+not see why, instead of progress lying in the direction of bigger and
+bigger everything, it should not be found in the opposite direction, in
+local patriotism. I say let a man go on loving his own home, he will
+all the better recognize the other fellow’s right to do so.”
+
+“H. G. Wells,” continued Chesterton, “talks about abstractions like the
+World State, which has no root. The League of Nations lost its grip on
+realities by ignoring local patriotism.”
+
+When Megroz repeated Chesterton to H. G. Wells the latter remarked,
+
+“Possibly the World State is an abstraction at present, but what are
+not abstractions are the flying machines and poison gas; electricity
+and wireless; the fact that the food grown in India may be eaten in
+England, and the food grown in Australia may be eaten at the Cape.
+These are hard facts, and they demand sane treatment as hard facts,
+and the only possible sane treatment is to bring them under one
+comprehensive control.”
+
+Megroz got the impression that Chesterton was “certainly a romanticist,
+often escaping from reality. By fantasies, among which may be included
+his medievalism; but always one comes back to his great sanity, his
+poetic insight, his sweetness which redeemed all his propaganda,
+illuminated his poetry, and could fill even the detective story with a
+wisdom akin to mysticism.”
+
+What Chesterton wrote his friend Mr. W. R. Titterton about Wells is
+pertinent, and is here published for the first time, and with Mr.
+Wells’ leave,
+
+    My dear Titterton:
+
+    I think we might drop the formal address on both sides; especially
+    as I want to write to you about a personal feeling which I don’t
+    want you to take too officially, or in that sense too seriously.
+    I ought to have written direct to Pugh to thank him for his great
+    generosity in giving us his most interesting sketch about Wells,
+    which you were good enough to arrange for us. My task is made
+    a little more delicate now, because there is something I feel
+    about it, which I do hope neither he nor you would exaggerate or
+    misunderstand. I was the more glad of his kind offer, when he
+    made it, because I thought nobody could more ably and sincerely
+    appreciate Wells; and I was rather pleased that Wells should be
+    appreciated in a paper where he had been so often criticized. I do
+    hope this work will not turn into anything that looks like a mere
+    attack on Wells; especially in the rather realistic and personal
+    modern manner, which I am perhaps too Victorian myself to care
+    very much about. I do not merely feel this because I have managed
+    to keep Wells as a friend on the whole. I feel it much more (and
+    I know you are a man to understand such sentiments) because I
+    have a sort of sense of honor about him as an enemy, or at least
+    a potential enemy. We are so certain to collide in controversial
+    warfare, that I have a horror of his thinking I would attack him
+    with anything but fair controversial weapons. My feeling is so
+    entirely consistent with a faith in Pugh’s motives, as well as an
+    admiration of his talents, that I honestly believe I could explain
+    this to him without offense; and I will if necessary write to him
+    to do so; but I thought I would write to you first; as you know him
+    and may possibly know his aims and attitude as I do not.
+
+    I am honestly in a very difficult position on the “New Witness,”
+    because it is physically impossible for me really to edit it, and
+    also do enough outside work to be able to edit it unpaid, as well
+    as having a little over to give to it from time to time. What we
+    should have done without the loyalty and capacity of you and a few
+    others I can’t imagine. I cannot oversee everything that goes into
+    the paper and it would certainly be most uncomfortable for either
+    of us to exercise our rights of “cutting” stuff given to us under
+    such circumstances as Pugh’s: but I think I should exercise it if
+    Pugh went very far in the realistic manner about some of the weak
+    points in Wells’ career. There were one or two phrases about old
+    quarrels in the last number which strike a note I should really
+    regret touching more serious things; and I should like to consult
+    with you about such possibilities before they appear in the paper.
+    I cannot do it with most things in the paper, as I say; and nobody
+    could possibly do it better than you. On the other hand, I cannot
+    resign, without dropping, as you truly say, the work of a great
+    man who is gone; and who, I feel, would wish me to continue it. It
+    is like what Stevenson said about Marriage and its duties: “There
+    is no refuge for you; not even suicide.” But I should have to
+    consider even resignation, if I felt that the acceptance of Pugh’s
+    generosity really gave him the right to print something that I
+    really felt bound to disapprove. It may be that I am needlessly
+    alarmed over a slip or two of the pen, in vivid descriptions of a
+    very odd character; and that Pugh really admires his Big Little
+    H. G. as I thought he did at the beginning of the business. I only
+    write this to confide to you what is in my mind, which is far from
+    an easy task; but I think you are one to understand. If the general
+    impression on the reader’s mind is of the Big Wells and not the
+    little Wells, I think the doubt I mean would really be met.
+
+                                               Yours always sincerely,
+                                                       G. K. Chesterton.
+
+Mr. Titterton wrote in a letter a few years ago:
+
+“Edward Macdonald assists G. K. C. in editing the ‘Rag.’ In fact he
+does all the technical editing, though G. K. C. controls the strategy.
+He is a splendid fellow, very simple and humble, very loyal, very
+wise. His editing of “G. K.’s Weekly” is a labor of love. What I know
+of G. K. you know already. You must be with him day by day to see
+the infinite simplicity--innocence--and friendliness of the man. We
+are fortunate to be led by a little child. When we were starting the
+Distributist League, I suggested that it should be called ‘The League
+of the Little Man.’ And G. K. C. said that, though he liked the title,
+he thought that, with him as President, it would be regarded as a great
+joke. Probably it would have been. Yet, in fact, he IS the little Man.”
+
+Mr. Hugo C. Riviere has pleasant recollections of having painted
+Chesterton’s portrait:
+
+“What excellent talk I heard when he was sitting to me. It was, as I so
+often saw him, in his big Inverness cape with that massive head at that
+time covered with a big mane of brown hair, his hat on the grass and a
+favorite sword stick brandished against the sky. It was just after his
+‘Napoleon of Notting Hill’ was written. A little later I was to be made
+a very proud man by receiving a copy of ‘The Flying Inn’ and finding
+it was dedicated to me. You know, of course, what a fine large style
+G. K. C. had himself as a draughtsman with a great and free grasp of
+form and character. How often when dining with us I have seen him take
+out an old envelope and rapidly cover it with extraordinary sketches.
+I have one carefully treasured in my ‘Napoleon of Notting Hill’ an old
+envelope covered with every sort and type of hand and figure, some in
+medieval dress, and some modern, two or three clever heads of G. B.
+Shaw and other clerical and political and imaginary. How delightful
+were the illustrations he made for ‘The Biography of Beginners’ that
+he and E. C. Bentley did together. I also remember G. K. C., after
+writing an article, over his last glass of wine when all of us, and he
+too, were talking after dinner, and the boy sent by whatever magazine
+it was destined for, waiting in the hall. His favorite, and I think,
+characteristic, taste in wine was red Burgundy, but he did not notice
+his food much, as he was far too busy thinking and talking.”
+
+Mr. Hermon Ould, the Secretary-General of the P. E. N. Club, met
+Chesterton many times. When H. G. Wells found the presidency too
+onerous and was threatening to resign, Mr. Ould offered the office to
+Chesterton who replied in a characteristic letter, dated August 2, 1935:
+
+    Dear Mr. Ould:
+
+    You might imagine how miserable I feel in having again delayed a
+    reply to your kind letters; and being again, after a struggle,
+    forced back on the same dismal reply. The truth is that I did very
+    much wish to accept this great distinction you have offered me;
+    and have been trying to think of various ways in which it might
+    be managed; but have come back to the conclusion that it really
+    cannot be managed. The delay was partly due to your own persuasive
+    powers; for I must admit that I was a good deal shaken by what you
+    said about the possibilities of using the position for many things
+    in which I believe. If I may say so, you must be a very good
+    secretary; and a good secretary is much more important than a good
+    president. But I am practically certain that I should not be a good
+    president. I am honestly thinking in the interests of the Club;
+    and I feel it would be better for me to decline the candidature
+    than for me to resign rather abruptly soon afterwards, because I
+    found the responsibilities you describe too incompatible with the
+    responsibilities I have already. As you truly say, it would be
+    unworthy to accept what is merely a sinecure; and I really cannot
+    manage this additional cure of souls....
+
+                                                   Yours faithfully,
+                                                       G. K. Chesterton.
+
+Father Vincent C. Donovan spent a good part of an afternoon with
+Chesterton and his wife at Boston’s Chatham Hotel. Many things
+were discussed, but Father Donovan recalls that the visitors were
+particularly interested in their impressions of America. They found
+Boston very English in appearance and atmosphere. Among other things
+Chesterton said,
+
+“All the Jews have been hounding me as a result of my ‘New Jerusalem.’
+I am not a little hurt and puzzled about their unreasonable attitude
+because in that work I have honestly tried to be objective, fair, and
+understanding, but they won’t see that.”
+
+Mr. Vincent de Paul Fitzpatrick first met Chesterton at the Belvedere
+Hotel, Baltimore, in February, 1921, and recalls that he praised the
+persistency of the Irish in struggling for their rights:
+
+“When you hear of an organization in England fighting for liberty, you
+must find whether or not that organization contains much Irish blood.
+It means all the difference in the world. If you hear in this country
+of a strike in the Cycle Valley, it is nothing to get worried over. But
+if you hear of a strike in Glasgow, you may expect something exclusive
+and exciting. The reason is that a mass of the Irish poor is found in
+that city, and the Irish will not submit meekly when any person or any
+group tries to trample upon them.
+
+“We see the English people grumbling at the perpetual interference
+with their rights and at the various restrictions to which they are
+subjected, but they are not organized. There are plenty of old radicals
+in England, who, as individuals, are sincere defenders of liberty,
+but they are isolated. Take, for example, old Dr. Johnson. With the
+Irish Catholics things are different. Their love for liberty seems
+to have been created by the Catholic Church--their only corporate
+defender of liberty today--is the Catholic Church. Liberty means much
+to her--something to be protected. She defends it with her powerful
+organization. When we speak of the English Labor party in England
+fighting for its rights, we do not mean the English labor party, at
+all, we mean the Scotch-Irish Labor party.”
+
+On December 7, 1930, Mr. Fitzpatrick had a long talk with Chesterton
+at the St. Moritz, New York City. It was the eve of the feast of the
+Immaculate Conception, and Chesterton was thinking of his newly found
+Faith,
+
+“It stands to reason that Christmas means more to me now that I am a
+Catholic than it did before I was converted to the Faith. But Christmas
+has meant much to me ever since my boyhood. I believed in Christmas
+before I believed in Christ. In the years immediately before my
+conversion I naturally thought much more seriously about Christmas, my
+thoughts became more consoling and Christmas was more beautiful as the
+passing days drew me nearer to the Church.
+
+“I believed in the spirit of Christmas and I liked Christmas, even when
+I was a boy filled with radicalistic tendencies when I really thought
+I was atheistic. In those days I wrote a poem to the Blessed Virgin.
+I was quite young and the poem, God help me, must have been a rather
+wretched thing, though I imitated Swinburne, or at least, tried to
+imitate him when I wrote it.
+
+“From my early years I had an affection for the Blessed Virgin and
+for the Holy Family. The story of Bethlehem and the story of Nazareth
+appealed to me deeply when I was a boy. Long before I joined the
+Catholic Church the Immaculate Conception had my allegiance. That
+allegiance has been intensified steadily.
+
+“Aside from the teaching of the Church on the subject, a doctrine which
+we as Catholics accept, the thought that there was in all the ages
+one creature, and that creature a woman, who was preserved from the
+slightest taint of sin, won my heart.”
+
+Mother Mary St. Luke recalls that during Chesterton’s visit to Rome
+in the late Autumn of 1929, he went several times to the Convent of
+the Holy Child, where he lectured one day before a crowded audience
+on “Thomas More and Humanism.” At the conclusion, a Father Cuthbert
+thanked the speaker and expressed the appreciation of the audience,
+remarking on the mental resemblance of More and Chesterton, saying that
+he could quite well imagine them sitting together making jokes, some
+of them VERY good, and some of them VERY bad.
+
+The Chestertons were also present in the Vatican at the reading of
+the Degree for the Beatification of the English Martyrs. At the
+conclusion of the ceremony there was the usual rush and confusion
+in the neighborhood of the cloak-room next to the sala Clementina.
+A group of Holy Child pupils having gathered around Chesterton, and
+learned of his dismay at not being able to retrieve his famous cloak
+from the “Bussolanti” on account of the milling crowd, plunged into
+the melee and brought it back to him in triumph. They also secured a
+taxi for them in the Piazza di San Pietro--no small feat on such an
+occasion! G. K. expressed his appreciation of their efforts in his own
+beautiful “architectural” handwriting, which constitutes one of the
+most treasured possessions of the school,
+
+                      “For the Young Ladies Suffering
+                      Education at the Convent of the
+                                Holy Child.
+
+      “To be a Real Prophet once
+      For you alone did I desire,
+      Who dragged the Prophet’s Mantle down
+      And brought the Chariot of Fire.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+CHESTERTON AT NEW HAVEN
+
+
+Thomas Caldecot Chubb met Chesterton at the Elizabethan Club in New
+Haven almost twenty years ago, and his initial impression still
+persists that he was a large man in every way, “Physically, of course,
+he was the size of Falstaff, but that is not all I am talking about.
+Perhaps the best way of saying what I mean, is to point out that he
+had this further in common with the huge knight who is, in a sense,
+truly Shakespeare’s most tragic figure: that beneath surface-wit and
+brilliance there was something one must label deep and profound.”
+
+Chesterton had been lecturing to a typical Yale audience of the early
+’20’s--four or five consciously literary undergraduates who made a
+grim duty of never missing such a talk, and about ninety percent of
+the membership of the local women’s clubs. The Speaker spilled over,
+like a wine keg broached, into the Middle Ages. Among other things, he
+spoke, naturally, of their individual craftsmanship. He related how it
+appeared even in such matters as meat and drink. He regretted with a
+nostalgic gusto those gone days when, as he put it, every monastery,
+almost every home had its own brand of liqueur or wine. Then he was
+transported from the crowded hall with its murmurs of polite, not
+too comprehending, applause, and made to stand in the dark living
+room of the white building across the street, with its comfortable
+shabby leather chairs, and its stiff painting of an acidulous and
+very white-faced Virgin Queen; and as he stood there--wearing a grey
+suit (so the picture, though perhaps inaccurately after so long a
+time, comes back to Chubb) and holding a cup of tea in one hand, his
+eyeglasses in the other--Chubb was introduced to him.
+
+“Mr. Chesterton,” Chubb said, “you have your wish.”
+
+Obviously, he wanted to know what wish and how he had it.
+
+“Thanks to Prohibition, every house is making, if not its own liqueur,
+at least its own likker.”
+
+It cannot truthfully be related that he was hugely diverted by Chubb’s
+attempt at being facetious. Bathtub gin was, it may be supposed, hardly
+just the evocation he would have wished of the spirit of the age of
+Abelard and Aquinas. And furthermore, Prohibition was a serious matter,
+not a jesting one. So Chubb was properly covered with an appropriate
+undergraduate confusion which he tried to hide by holding out a copy
+of “The Ballad of the White Horse.” This haltingly--after his previous
+boldness--he asked him to autograph and to write a verse from it upon
+the fly-leaf.
+
+“There is no need to go into details about his courteous compliance
+other than to indicate the thrill it gave me,” recollects Chubb, “by
+saying that in that varnished period the ‘Ballad’ seemed to me a high
+point in English poetry. It seemed almost incredible I was actually
+talking to and facing the man who wrote it. But a confession must be
+added to this statement. It was virtually all of Chesterton I knew by
+having read. That and ‘Lepanto’ were the only Chestertonian works I had
+deigned to cast my eyes upon. Of course, I knew the names of others.
+But that anyone who could write this immortal stuff should waste his
+time turning out such poor trash as a series of fluent novels, certain
+aggravating essays, a contradicting sort of history of England,
+and--horror of horrors--the Father Brown ‘detective’ stories, was, in a
+ghastly way, incredible. It was pot-boiling. It was prostituting one’s
+genius. It was selling out to Mammon and the Philistines. And that
+was, of course, the sin against the Holy Ghost.
+
+“It is now necessary to reverse that stand--though here perhaps
+youth’s headlong egotism has merely been replaced by incipient middle
+age’s complacent one. For somehow the swinging lines which relate
+Alfred’s adventures seem a little bouncy now. They are dated, just
+as a brass radiator and acetylene lamps would date even a T-model
+Ford. Even the young don’t turn to them, being engaged in writing not
+quite grammatical verses to Communism and proletarian poetry which no
+member of the proletariat can make head or tail of. And ‘Lepanto,’
+which--with ‘Ivry’ and what Tennyson has to say about the Revenge--is
+among the most stirring short narrative poetry of the language, does
+not set the pulses beating quite as rapidly in 1939 as it did in
+1922. But the entertainment and wisdom of ‘The Flying Inn,’ ‘The Man
+Who Was Thursday,’ and ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill,’ and the cool,
+paradoxical truths--well, anyway, from time to time they are true--of
+the essays, of the history, of the writing on Browning, Thackeray
+and Dickens, of the controversies with that irritating but likeable
+friend-adversary G. B. S., still have their power to stimulate. And
+personally I now believe that the best of Chesterton can be found, if
+you delve for it, in the Father Brown stories; that out of them can be
+mined by an attentive prospector the purest Chestertonian gold.
+
+“All of which, if true, places the man for us. A stimulating writer, a
+delightful writer, on certain occasions even an important writer, but
+was he quite a great one? With Kipling, Wells, Shaw, Arnold Bennett
+and perhaps half a dozen others with whom I will not rashly provoke
+controversy by naming, he will be compulsory reading for every student
+of the era. It is less certain that the general public will turn to him
+after a hundred or even after fifty years.
+
+“Yet he has given a lot, and in no way more than by his provocative way
+of seeing and saying things. He loves Meredith and he hates Hardy, yet
+he nails truth to the wall by saying that the man of the two who had
+a healthy point of view had the perverse and crabbed style, whereas
+the one with the perverse and crabbed point of view had the healthy
+and manly style. He stated pungently and accurately--writing of ‘The
+Book of Snobs’--that ‘aristocracy does not have snobs any more than
+democracy does.’ Thackeray might have learned something from this.
+He had the insight to realize that Browning was among the finest
+love poets of the world though quite to the contrary runs the general
+opinion. (A similar, though not the same, revolutionary statement
+might be made of our own E. A. Robinson, substituting perhaps emotion
+for love.) He considered--a half truth--that the whole of present day
+England was the remains of Rome; and--a whole truth--that Henry VIII
+was as unlucky in his wives as they were in him. Which statements,
+plucked very haphazardly from out of his writings, ought to indicate
+what I mean.”
+
+Another who heard him at Yale was Mr. Harold Chapman Bailey:
+
+“Chesterton’s lecture, as I recall it, was given in the Sprague
+Memorial Hall, which is part of the Yale Music School. The entire
+subject matter of the Chesterton address has escaped me, but in the
+question period afterward the first two or three questions were so
+puerile that despite my youth I was emboldened to rise with this query:
+‘Will you not tell me something about William Cobbett?’
+
+“I recall that at first Mr. Chesterton did not understand my question,
+but when I repeated it, he seemed greatly pleased to find that in
+far away America there was some interest in Cobbett. Accordingly he
+spent at least five minutes explaining to us who William Cobbett was,
+what he stood for, and how in a measure Cobbett was his own spiritual
+ancestor. He concluded by remarking that the Yale University Press
+would do well to get out a new edition of Cobbett’s works. I have often
+wondered whether this query of mine played any part in stimulating him
+later on to write a volume on Cobbett.”
+
+Major James B. Pond also met G. K. C. at New Haven, and had the
+privilege of being present when Chesterton and ‘A. E.’ (George Russell)
+met at the William Lyon Phelps’ house in New Haven. It was the first
+time these two men ever met. Russell hardly ever went out of Ireland
+and these two famous men had to come to New Haven to get personally
+acquainted. It happened they were both lecturing the same day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+AT NOTRE DAME.
+
+
+Chesterton was guest lecturer at Notre Dame University for the first
+semester of the 1930–1 school year, delivering eighteen lectures on
+English history, and the same number on the Victorian age of English
+literature.
+
+Visiting Beaconsfield a few years ago, Father John F. O’Hara, President
+of the University, told Chesterton that he had received “numerous
+letters from former students who were just beginning to appreciate the
+lectures he had given them. Chesterton was that way. One was forced
+to remember his striking sentences, and the underlying truth forced
+itself on the mind of the undergraduate when greater experience made
+understanding possible.”
+
+As Chesterton walked out on the stage and faced his first Notre Dame
+audience, he leaned upon the lectern and said, “Until quite recently, I
+was not at all certain that I would be able to be here tonight. Had I
+not come, you would now be gazing upon a great yawning void instead of
+myself.”
+
+This bit of humor and the manner in which it was expressed gave
+Father Charles Morton the feeling that here was a man of rare
+humility and of the simplicity which always accompanies genuine
+culture. As the lecture series progressed, two other qualities became
+prominent,--brilliance of mind and a profound Catholic faith. No matter
+what the subject of his lecture was, whether in the field of literature
+or of history, he invariably found a way at the end to relate all he
+had said to some profound religious truth. That people should praise
+him as a learned man was a source of genuine embarrassment to him. It
+amused him to be addressed as “professor,” and he invariably referred
+to himself as a “mere journalist.”
+
+Father Patrick J. Carroll looked upon Chesterton, master of antithesis
+“as himself the antithesis. A large lumbering hulk of a man, you would
+expect from him a deep, thundering speech. You are mistaken: his
+language is swift, sudden, arresting. Epigram follows epigram, until
+you get tired of brilliance, and begin to wonder if this big man is
+not more concerned with his sword play than with the serious business
+of defending truth against truth’s enemies. That is how you sometimes
+think: but, of course, your thinking is wrong.”
+
+Prof. Norbert Engels of the College of Arts and Sciences recalls that
+“at every lecture knowledge poured forth. He never used a paper,
+a note, or a reference of any kind. He would quote extremely long
+passages of poetry or prose with utmost ease. I did not tire of his use
+of paradox as he used it with such consummate art. Those are inadequate
+judges of his genius who pronounce upon him from his writings only. To
+know Chesterton fully, besides his works, one should have heard him
+lecture, in order to catch the spirit of the man.”
+
+All the breath and flavor of ages of Christian culture came with
+Chesterton in the opinion of Father Charles M. Carey, “he entered
+our campus like some great Catholic warrior stepping down from the
+centuries that date back to a time when England was really ‘Merrie
+England.’ Huge in girth and mind and heart, he was the embodiment of
+all that was good in that splendid Catholic heritage.
+
+“As his vast physical bulk lumbered from the wings to the rostrum,
+then slouched down in his chair, he threw a ruddy scowl across the
+rows of young University men before him, and a great feeling of awe
+swallowed up the idle chatter. There was not a single heart in that
+young Catholic audience that did not somehow experience the presence
+of greatness in our midst. To the man who knew little of the great
+apologist, it may have been a moment of confused terror and curiosity.
+To anyone who had read but a paragraph from his pen, it was the moment
+which finds one helplessly silent in the presence of a superior being.
+
+“‘So,’ I thought to myself, as Chesterton thundered and swayed slightly
+to his place, his bushy hair in its own convenient parting and his
+wrinkled and baggy clothing left to look after itself with a pronounced
+abandon, ‘can this be the man that is so mentally nimble, so sure
+footed in thought, so precise in diction, so accurate in his thrusts,
+so merciless in heaping wrath on adversaries, and so loud in his
+frequent laughter at the absurdity of those who oppose his Christian
+fighting?’”
+
+Once he began to speak, Chesterton’s eyes lit up with a joy born of
+that common bond that is the Catholic faith, thus destroying all
+barriers of racial differences because, as he said, “Under the portals
+of our Lady’s Shrine, all men are at home.” That was the spirit that
+characterized his stay at Notre Dame. To his young listeners he was
+an inspiration. Every word that he uttered had a clear, certain and
+convincing ring in it that made for conviction. He was thoroughly
+Catholic. For him life was full of faith and beauty and romance. Every
+word that he uttered had a freshness and wonder about it. His adroit
+phraseology, his accent and his inexhaustible flow of genuine humor
+quickened his youthful audience to frequent bursts of applause and
+measured gaiety.
+
+Chesterton had the honorary degree of Doctor of Law conferred upon
+him Wednesday afternoon, November 5, 1930, in Washington Hall. Many
+honorary degrees had been conferred by Notre Dame, but this was the
+first time in the history of the University that a special convocation
+of the Faculty had been called to participate in the conferring of a
+degree.
+
+At four-thirty the academic procession left the University parlors and
+made its way to Washington Hall where members of the Senior Class and
+the guests were assembled. After an introductory musical program had
+been given by the student orchestra and Glee Club, Father J. Leonard
+Carrice, Director of Studies, announced the conferring of the degree,
+
+“The University of Notre Dame, in this special convocation of the
+Faculty, confers the degree of Doctor of Law, =honoris causa=, on a
+man of letters recognized as the ablest and most influential in the
+English-speaking world of today, a defender of the Christian tradition,
+whose keen mind, right heart, and versatile literary genius have been
+valiantly devoted to eternal truth, goodness and beauty, in literature,
+and in life--Gilbert Keith Chesterton, of London, England.”
+
+After receiving the Degree from Notre Dame’s President, the Rev.
+Charles L. O’Donnell, Doctor Chesterton replied,
+
+“I only wish it were possible for me to say, as you have suggested,
+something of what is in my heart in the way of gratitude. Gratitude is
+what I feel most deeply at present, and it is the irony of human fate
+that it is perhaps the only thing that cannot be expressed. If I said
+all the things which are usually said on these occasions, I should only
+be expressing my feelings, for in my case, they happen to be perfectly
+true. It is usual to say that one is not worthy of such an honor, and
+the vividness of my own unworthiness is so acute in my own mind that
+I find it almost impossible to express it and to thank you for the
+far too generous things which have been said. I have given a series
+of lectures on a subject on which a number of you are much better
+acquainted than I. If I happen to say something about the history of
+the Victorian age, the history which I am supposed to talk about, or
+if I happen to say something about the Victorian age in literature,
+I am all too painfully reminded that you have learned history and
+have studied literature. If I mention the Province of Canada, I am
+reminded that you have studied geography. Therefore I am afraid that I
+am not only unworthy but almost in a false position before you. I am
+a journalist, and the one thing I can claim is that I have endeavored
+to show that it is possible to be an honest journalist. Therefore, a
+great academic distinction of this kind gives me a very strong sense of
+gratitude. I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart, not only
+for this favor extended to me, but also for the very great patience
+with which you have listened to my lectures.
+
+“There is always a bond between us that would make you tolerant of me,
+I know. I have only once before gone through a ceremony of this kind
+and that was at the highly Protestant University of Edinburgh, where I
+found that part of the ceremony consisted of being lightly touched on
+the head with the cap of John Knox. I was very much relieved to find
+that it was not part of the ceremony on the present occasion that I
+should, let us say, wear the hat of Senator Heflin! I remember that,
+when I came to America before, about nine years ago, when I was not a
+catholic, and when I had hardly realized that there were Catholics in
+America, my first sensation in this country was one of terror. I recall
+the first landing and that great hotel in New York, the Biltmore, the
+name of which held for me such terrifying possibilities. (Surely there
+would not be =more= of it!) It all seemed alien, although I quickly
+discovered what kind and generous people the Americans are. I did not
+feel at all like that when I came to America for the second time.
+If you want to know why I felt different, the reason is in the name
+of your University. That name was quite sufficient as far as I was
+concerned. It would not have mattered if it had been in the mountains
+of the moon. Wherever She has erected Her pillars, all men are at home,
+and I knew that I should not find strangers. And, if any of you who are
+young should go to other countries, you will find that what I have said
+is true.”
+
+Prof. Daniel O’Grady was invited to a social evening with Chesterton
+at Notre Dame’s Sorin Hall ... among those present were the host
+Charles Philips, Paul Fenlon, Pat Manion, John Frederick, Lee Flateley,
+John Connolly, Steve Roney, Rufus Rauch ... all either professors or
+students. The affair started at nine in the evening and lasted until
+almost three in the morning.
+
+When Manion asked whether liquor in England produced immorality,
+G. K. C. replied,
+
+“Undoubtedly it does in certain London districts. When I stayed at the
+Royal York in Toronto on my way down to Notre Dame I noticed something
+oligarchical about the Ontario system inasmuch as there was a dance on
+and those who could afford a room left the ballroom on occasion and
+went upstairs for a nip displaying visible evidences thereof as one met
+them in the hall. Moreover in Ontario a permit was necessary whereas in
+Catholic Quebec this Protestant condition did not prevail.
+
+“I live near Oxford, and I often visit friends there. In Cambridge too
+I know and admire many men, such as the poet A. E. Housman, and the
+historians George M. Trevelyan and Holland Rose, the great Napoleonic
+authority. Speaking of the latter place you know the old yarn about the
+Italian doctor on his way to Cambridge to debate some don there. On
+stopping to inquire directions of some pedestrians he was answered in
+Greek verse by Cambridge students disguised as workmen, whereupon he
+ordered the coachman to turn around and go back because said he, if the
+laborers are so learned, what must the dons be?...”
+
+When O’Grady said he had heard that the difference between the two
+schools was that an Oxford man went around as though he owned the
+place, while a Cambridge man acted as though he didn’t give a damn who
+did, Chesterton retorted,
+
+“And both about equally obnoxious!”
+
+When the discussion turned to some well known Englishmen, Chesterton
+said,
+
+“If my description of Lord Beaverbrook was based on his journalistic
+methods I would have to call him a guttersnipe. I feel that Bertrand
+Russell is a disgrace to English literature, not only on account of his
+writings, but also because of his way of life.”
+
+“Masefield’s a fine fellow and a good writer,” said Chesterton in reply
+to another question, “but Ramsay MacDonald had to choose Masefield
+as Poet Laureate, there being no other poet so sympathetic to Labor.
+However, Yeats was by far our best poet. Yet hardly ever has the best
+poet been made laureate. There is too much politics in the appointment,
+just as is the case with the appointment of the Anglican bishops. One
+need only consider Barnes of Birmingham. The idea of calling York’s
+archbishop ‘by divine permission’ and Canterbury’s ‘by divine consent,’
+has always seemed to me rather far-fetched.”
+
+When reference was made to Rebecca West’s resigning from the “Bookman”
+because the editorial policy favored the New Humanists, Chesterton
+remarked,
+
+“How extremely foolish that is--as though that affected your
+contributions!”
+
+Asked about Lord Beaverbrook who had but recently died, Chesterton
+reflected,
+
+“Birkenhead has always been a puzzle to me because he was cynical and
+worldly ambitious, and yet, it must be confessed, overfond of his
+liquor. One expects such a weakness only from a poet or one who has the
+poetical imagination.”
+
+A comparison being made between certain types of Russian and English
+characters, Chesterton went on to say,
+
+“The Russians in their writings are always brooding over fate or some
+silly thing. For the most part the English gentry are fine, sensible
+fellows, although, of course, there are some bounders amongst them. You
+will now find not a few Catholics among them, although for many years
+the only Catholics were either English aristocrats or Irish paupers.”
+
+Asked if he found the Americans all very mad in the pursuit of money,
+he shook his head with a smile,
+
+“Quite the contrary, I find the Americans less worshipful of money
+than my fellow English. However, I do prefer even our English
+gentry although mad about money, to some of your vulgar and blatant
+millionaires.”
+
+During a discussion of the Church and State, Chesterton remarked,
+
+“I read the other day of a western magistrate who sentenced a woman to
+go to Church for the next fifty Sundays. I wondered at the time whether
+that was consistent with the American doctrine of the separation of
+Church and State. Even though we have a state church in England, I do
+not think that an English judge would have given such a sentence.”
+
+In autographing a book just before the party broke up, Chesterton threw
+a lot of ink on the floor, but merely remarked,
+
+“I’m always cluttering up people’s carpets.”
+
+His hostess rather prim and proper, kept shoving ash-trays at him which
+he completely ignored and continued dropping ashes from his cigarettes
+all over the floor. But no one minded this little thoughtlessness of
+genius.
+
+As he put on his Inverness cape and black sombrero-like hat he shouted
+out in merry tones,
+
+“If anyone ever tries to tell me Catholicism is inconsistent with fun
+and play, I’ll say did you ever hear of the University of Notre Dame?”
+
+Before Chesterton left the University, Mr. William L. Piedmont had a
+pleasant chat with him. Asked what he thought of our great American
+sports, G. K. C. answered,
+
+“I witnessed the Notre Dame-Navy game, and was much impressed by the
+popularity that your game of football enjoys. In my youth I played
+English football and even rounders which might be described as an
+English equivalent of baseball.”
+
+“I very gravely doubt if the nations are becoming closer and closer
+together,” declared Chesterton when the conversation touched the
+League of Nations. “Quite the contrary, I feel the various countries
+are becoming more national. An example would be in the literary fact
+that in my youth Thoreau, Hawthorne, Mark Twain and the rest were as
+widely known and read in Europe as in America, while today the strange
+and awful stuff of American writers is unknown abroad with very few
+exceptions. I attribute this to the fact that America has become so
+different and in Europe the news hasn’t gotten through yet as to what
+it’s all about in America.”
+
+On being asked if he thought the world (and especially, the United
+States) possessed any great thinkers, he replied humorously,
+
+“If there are any people in the world today who do think, witness my
+‘Age of Unreason,’ I feel America can certainly claim some of them.”
+
+After confessing that he read very few novels, but mentioning the works
+of Sheila Kaye-Smith with approbation, he went on to say,
+
+“But I consider Rebecca West the most interesting woman writer, if
+for no other reason than because she is gradually becoming more
+respectable. I suppose (with a characteristic chuckle) that her
+marrying a banker is not really the cause of respectability, even
+though marrying a banker may be a sort of worldly parallel to being
+confirmed in grace!”
+
+Of the winner of the Nobel prize for literature, he said,
+
+“On the whole, I think Sinclair Lewis is the scourge of God--a calamity
+in some respects like the Great Fire of London. I do not believe that
+Mr. Lewis has enough sympathy with the Middle West people of whom he
+writes, nor has he the right slant on the people of Main Street--as I
+have observed them during my sojourn in America. I think it about time
+somebody made fun of the greasy optimism prevalent in recent novels.
+Lewis has a good deal of righteous indignation, but what he lacks is
+the positive moral idea which should be found in the representative
+literature of every nation. I like Lewis when he is simply humorous
+like in “The Man Who Knew Coolidge,” but in general the bestowal of the
+prize is like giving a medal to a great scavenger.”
+
+When he arrived in Washington, D. C. to lecture at Trinity College,
+Chesterton gave Miss Syd Walsh an interesting and picturesque
+description of Notre Dame,
+
+“I think the faculty and students awfully jolly people and the campus
+itself a bit of medievalism with its constant stream of youths in
+bright colors pouring in and out of old stone buildings with gilded
+domes. As long as I live I will never forget their way of letting off
+fireworks before a big game and generally playing the goat in a cheery
+way.”
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE WRITING
+
+of
+
+MR. AND MRS. G. K. CHESTERTON]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+CHESTERTON AND AMERICAN AUTHORS.
+
+
+Recently there appeared a statement to the effect that although
+Chesterton had considerable popularity with the average American
+reader, our authors cared but little for the man and his work. Doubting
+such a sweeping statement, I wrote to various men of letters who would
+serve as a good cross-section of American literature, and their replies
+proved unusually illuminating.
+
+“Of course you may put me down as an admirer of Chesterton,” declares
+Channing Pollock, “though I recall surprisingly little of his work.
+I have read so much that, after fifty-six years, I begin to find
+recollections blurred. My admiration of Chesterton is founded on my
+impression of the man--of what he was and stood for; of his sincerity,
+courage, forthrightness and general altruism.”
+
+“As a boy of ten,” records Thomas O. Mabbott, “I read regularly copies
+of the ‘London Illustrated News’ to which G. K. C. was a regular
+contributor. I am one of those people who, while not exactly a
+prodigy, developed very early and think very much more as I did when
+sixteen than most people seem to do. I often boast how little most
+writers influence my own thought but Chesterton is one of the few who
+did! I read much of his work as a very young man, and believe he is one
+of the very few authors who impressed me =profoundly=. I saw ‘Magic’
+when it was given in New York during the war--a mark of devotion,
+surely, since I rarely went to a serious play. Incidentally I thought
+it =very= effective as an acted play.”
+
+Clement Wood first read “Heretics” and then “Orthodoxy,” and
+immediately obtained the impression that the author was “one of the
+world’s most alert and persuasively brilliant minds. He made the
+persons treated of real and significant to me for the first time.
+Thereafter I read most of his work. His novels are absolutely unique,
+I wouldn’t be without one, and of all, the ‘Napoleon of Notting Hill’
+is the most precious--the glorious effort to revive medievalism
+today (which I am 100% against intellectually) won me forever. His
+Father Brown stories, in spite of the ever-present propaganda for
+Catholicism--which again I am against, but I believe that if religion
+persists, it will either be Roman Catholic or the Quaker non-Christian
+(Religious Society of Friends) non-evangelical faith--I regard as by
+all odds the greatest detective stories ever written. Poe and Doyle are
+forerunners, and then G. K. C. whose every word is a work of art. I
+have memorized the plots of nearly all and the wording of many of his
+memorable openings. His ‘Peacock Trees,’ ‘Club of Queen Trades,’ rank
+as highly.
+
+“The play ‘Magic’ is immortal and weighs more to me than all Shaw!”
+
+“You may certainly enroll me as one of his admirers,” affirms Donald
+Ogden Stewart. “Although I do not recall the name of the first book of
+his which I read, I do remember, however, that it was while I was in
+my senior year at Yale, and that it had such an influence on me that I
+immediately proceeded to read every one of his books that I could lay
+my hands on.”
+
+Henry Hazlitt first encountered Chesterton’s writings in 1916 and “was
+quickly carried away by his stylistic brilliance. My admiration, I must
+confess, was not sustained at its original level, but it most certainly
+never deserted me. I never met him personally, but I heard him debate
+with Clarence Darrow, and was impressed by his immense superiority
+over his antagonist, and by his charm as a man.”
+
+William Thomas Walsh first heard about G. K. C. when he was a student
+at Yale in 1909: “I think it was Professor Chauncey B. Tinker who
+recommended him in class that year, and I seem to remember that William
+Lyon Phelps was also a Chesterton enthusiast at that early period. The
+book that helped and influenced me most was ‘The Everlasting Man.’ I
+liked it so well that I bought three copies, intending to lend them
+to as many people as possible, for I thought the whole world should
+drink at that fountain of wisdom. I soon discovered, however, that
+some people loved the book and others hated it just as fervently. This
+was to be expected, perhaps, about anything so profoundly Christian in
+its perceptions. In fact, I began to entertain an almost superstitious
+notion that the book had a practical value apart from literary
+considerations, in what St. Ignatius, following St. John, called the
+Discernment of Spirits. The various agnostics and pagans to whom I lent
+the book usually kept it a long while, and finally returned it saying
+apologetically that they had never found time to read it, though I knew
+that every one of them had read several other books in the interim.
+Finally the three volumes disappeared completely from my life. It
+was partly my fault, for I have a bad habit of lending books, and
+forgetting to whom: and as the number of people who have to be reminded
+to return books is apparently very large, I have lost the best part
+of my library in consequence: for it is usually the book that one is
+enthusiastic about that one lends. But I can’t help thinking the Devil
+must have had a particular grudge against so true and so powerful a
+book, and has continued to hide all three of my volumes on the most
+obscure shelves of as many sons of Belial. Still, as good comes out
+of evil in the long run, it may be that the sons of these benighted
+individuals may inadvertently come upon them on rainy days, and in
+their innocence read and be enlightened.
+
+“In my biography of Philip the Second, I have had to differ with
+Chesterton’s interpretations of that most misunderstood gentleman. But
+when G. K. wrote his glorious ‘Lepanto,’ he was still partly deceived
+by the tradition that had so long dominated English letters, so far as
+Spain was concerned. It is the only mistake of importance I have ever
+noted in the work of that phenomenal man.”
+
+Hamlin Garland met him at the Savage Club in London, and several times
+in America: “As a matter of fact, I introduced him when he made his
+first address in New York City. I enjoyed his mystery stories much
+better than some of his more pretentious work. From my point of view he
+worked the paradoxes altogether too hard. He was a very singular and
+interesting character.”
+
+Waldo Frank remembers that when he was “in college and out of it,
+the essays of G. K. C. stimulated me, indeed. His critique of modern
+society, his destruction of its complacencies, his suggestive
+references to other values now absent, meant a good deal to me.”
+
+Myles Connolly feels that Chesterton “will not, try as I will, come
+under the head of remembrance. He seems vividly contemporary, vitally
+alive. It’s a worn-out form of tribute, I know, but there’s none
+greater and I will say it: he lives. The stuff of immortality was so
+strong in him that beside his memory as the world calls it, it is we
+who are dead.
+
+“Napoleon said that no man became a writer unless he were a defeatist.
+When life was too tall and strong for a man, he quit, and in his pen
+he found corroboration and consolation. That is not, we are aware,
+altogether so. Although it is true most men who write are running away.
+But with Chesterton writing was not running away; it was running
+to--running to reality, to truth. Writing was life with him: it was
+his breathing, his talk, his laughter, his self. It might be said that
+those who don’t like Chesterton don’t like the truth. It might ever
+more accurately be said that those who don’t like Chesterton, don’t
+like life. That superabundance of his, that hugeness of his, is too
+much for them. They crawl; he dances (albeit like the mountains of
+Scripture). They pick-peck; he waves that tremendous sword. They count
+those corroded little pennies; he empties that fabulous purse of his
+on the world. He was an extravagant man; extravagant of his riches,
+his light, his life. It is this shining extravagance that blinds the
+crawlers and pick-peckers and misers. It is a glory too much for them.
+A few words of ‘Thoreau’ are, I think, to the point. ‘I fear,’ writes
+the Concord ascetic, ‘lest my expression may not be =extra-vagrant=
+enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily
+experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been
+convinced ... I desire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a man
+in a waking moment to men in their waking moments; for I am convinced
+I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true
+expression. Who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest he
+should speak extravagantly any more forever?’
+
+“To Chesterton such words as ‘tremendous’ and ‘splendid’ and ‘enormous’
+and ‘shattering’ were of common use. (In fact, it was he who made such
+words popular.) These words came naturally to him because (and he would
+be the last to admit it) he himself lived these words; such words only
+could express his vitality and significance. He was a giant. There is
+no other way of saying it. Except, perhaps, to say he still is.”
+
+James Branch Cabell “enjoyed all the work of Chesterton’s early and
+middle period. I admit that of his publications during, let us say
+vaguely, more recent years, I prefer to say nothing, out of loyalty
+to a person that has given me a vast amount of pleasure. I write this
+after verifying the fact that his earlier books when I re-read them,
+can still do this.”
+
+“Indeed I am a warm admirer of Chesterton,” affirms Rabbi Stephen S.
+Wise. “Apart from his delightful wit and his genius in many directions,
+he was a great religionist. He as a Catholic, I as a Jew, could see eye
+to eye with each other, and he might have added, ‘particularly seeing
+that you are cross-eyed;’ but I deeply respected him. When Hitlerism
+came, he was one of the first to speak out with all the directness and
+frankness of a great and unabashed spirit.”
+
+Dr. Alexis Carrel well remembers that “Heretics” was the first
+Chesterton book that he read almost a quarter of a century ago,
+
+“The extreme clarity and brilliance of his style impressed me greatly.
+The train of his thought appeared to me as strong, flexible, and
+shining as a steel blade, and as merciless.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN[B]
+
+THE AUTHOR VISITS TOP MEADOW
+
+
+In a delightful villa, called Top Meadow, in Beaconsfield, a small
+town of Buckinghamshire, about forty minutes on the train from London,
+lives, and has lived for some ten years, Gilbert Keith Chesterton with
+his charming wife. Chesterton, a huge man, possesses the frankness and
+enthusiasm of a boy, with unkept curly blond hair, blue eyes, shaggy
+reddish brown moustache, an exceedingly pleasant and attractive smile,
+wearing clothes in a somewhat careless and negligent manner. Although
+clear and resonant, his voice is not as powerful as one would be led
+to expect for a man of his size. He possesses the little mannerism of
+twirling the ends of his moustache every now and then. He would make
+a joke with true Twainian seriousness upon his face, but unlike the
+great American such feigned seriousness becomes too much for him, and
+he bursts out in peals of Gargantuan laughter that often renders him
+speechless for a few seconds. At other times the idea of something
+funny will cause him to laugh most heartily before he has had a chance
+to express it in words.
+
+    [B] This entire chapter was read, corrected, and approved in
+        its present shape, by Chesterton himself a short time
+        before his death.
+
+In a little hallway, Chesterton introduced me to his wife, and then led
+the way into the living room, a tremendous chamber fully a hundred feet
+long, low-ceilinged and surrounded on all sides by shelves bulging and
+overflowing with books of every description, a massive fire-place built
+of large stones that must have come from the bed of a nearby brook, and
+a number of what proved to be exceedingly comfortable chairs grouped
+around the empty fire-place; for it was midsummer.
+
+As we sat down before the fire-place, Chesterton said he was vastly
+amused over a delegation from America that had called on him the day
+before.
+
+“They were making a tour of Europe for the express purpose of
+unearthing everything they could about Browning. They called on me
+because I have once written a book on the poet. It was a grave mistake
+on their part to think that because a man has written a book on a
+particular subject in the dim and distant past, he therefore knows
+everything about that subject. At the time of writing the book, I
+probably was a little more up on Robert Browning than the average
+person, but all my superior knowledge has slipped from me long ago.”
+
+The question of modern youth came up for discussion.
+
+“Young people today have the idea that old timers are landmarks. I
+hope I do not fill as much space as Saint Paul’s, but at least I am a
+Victorian ruin dating from the year 1874. The last time I was in New
+York I noticed that the landscape was always changing. When a baby is
+born he just has time to look at the skyscrapers a week or so before
+they are pulled down. Pulling down New York seems to be the local
+industry. A baby goes out in his perambulator and his home is pulled
+down before he gets back.”
+
+“What do you think of the young people today, Mr. Chesterton?”
+
+“Well,” he replied, “their chief trouble is they don’t want to admit
+that old people really do know the modern movement because we are
+able to compare it with movements of the past. But the young people
+know nothing else but the present. The result is that they do not
+give modern conditions much thought. For instance, if we had moving
+sidewalks today, the young people would take it for granted, the old
+ones alone could compare them with the stationary sidewalks.”
+
+“Do you think that much change has taken place in the last fifty
+years,” I asked.
+
+“We cannot grasp the tremendous change that has taken place since 1874,
+my birth year. Your country used not to pay much attention to culture.
+When Matthew Arnold began his lecture series in America, he was worried
+about what the American papers would say of him for his criticism
+of certain phases of American culture which he had handled rather
+severely, but was relieved to find that the papers had large headlines
+reading,
+
+“‘Matthew Arnold has side whiskers.’ But today you have a very high
+regard for culture in your country.”
+
+“What literary people did you meet in America, Mr. Chesterton?”
+
+“Among others I met Robert Cortes Holliday, and Sinclair Lewis,” he
+replied. “I found Lewis a pleasant fellow. He was anxious to learn
+about the conditions in England. That man, I think, has considerable
+genius. I met ‘A. E.’ George Russell, also when I was at Yale. He was
+completely wrapped up in giving his lectures on agriculture to you
+Americans.”
+
+“What does he think of our country?”
+
+“He has a semi-humorous, rather critical, attitude towards you.
+He won’t write anything much in praise or anything particularly
+hostile.”[C]
+
+    [C] This prophesy of Chesterton’s proved to be correct.
+
+“What American cities especially appealed to you?”
+
+“Baltimore I found exceedingly charming,” answered Chesterton. “There
+is a quaint atmosphere about the place that is hard to describe. Saint
+Louis I also liked, a most pleasant cultured city.”
+
+“I once heard you lecture in Saint Louis, Mr. Chesterton,” I remarked,
+“and I agree with what you said about the underdog:
+
+“‘When the very poor man gets angry and ‘bites,’ everyone, even the
+social workers, treat him as though he were a mad dog. Has he not
+the right to get deliberately angry, the same as anybody else? Once
+I debated with Clarence Darrow, and when I talked to him after the
+lecture, he seemed to have sympathy for the poor man, the underdog,
+who was goaded on to do things, by saying that he was mad. Why cannot
+people give the underdog credit for biting when he wants to, instead of
+contending that he is just the same as a mad dog on a rampage?’”
+
+When Galsworthy became the topic of conversation, Chesterton remarked,
+
+“Galsworthy always reminds me of the solicitor of an old English
+family. I cannot altogether feel that he reflects modern England. He
+lays too much stress upon a college education. He believes that a man
+not blessed with a college education might at any time murder his
+mother. Galsworthy also lacks the sweet balance of humor, only a rather
+limited amount of humor breathes forth from his works. Like Darrow he,
+too, holds to the belief that the underdog is always mad if he causes
+the slightest trouble.
+
+“Again Galsworthy never seems to write with set purpose, while I am one
+of those people who believe that you’ve got to be dominated by your
+moral slant. I’m no ‘art-for-art’s-sake’ man. I am quite incapable of
+talking or writing about Dutch gardens or the game of chess, but if
+I did, I have no doubt that what I say or write about them would be
+colored by my view of the cosmos.”
+
+When the question of pessimism came up, I mentioned that the week
+before I had had the pleasure of dining with A. E. Housman at
+Cambridge[D] who facetiously told me that he was often compared to
+Hardy because both their names began with an “H”.
+
+    [D] See “An Evening with A. E. Housman,” by Cyril Clemens, 1937.
+
+“That is all the basis critics often have for forming comparisons,”
+replied Chesterton with a smile, “but in this case there is a measure
+of truth in the comparison. Both undoubtedly have a certain amount of
+pessimism. Poet Housman’s, however, has the tang of the fresh air about
+it, whereas Hardy’s seems somewhat unpleasant.”
+
+And to illustrate his point, Chesterton quoted from “A Shropshire Lad,”
+
+      “Oh many a peer of England brews
+      Livelier liquor than the Muse,
+      And malt does more than Milton can
+      To justify God’s ways to man.
+      Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
+      For fellows whom it hurts to think:
+      Look into the pewter pot
+      To see the world as the world’s not.”
+
+A little later we went to the small dining room which was a few steps
+higher than, and was separated by a heavy silk curtain from, the living
+room. At a massive oaken table we sat down to a delicious tea.
+
+When I asked Mrs. Chesterton what was the national dish of England, she
+promptly replied,
+
+“Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, undoubtedly.”
+
+“Fried eggs and bacon is my favorite dish,” spoke up Chesterton.
+
+I then asked the author what would be his choice if he had to go on a
+desert island and could take but one book along.
+
+“It would depend upon the circumstances,” he replied. “If I were a
+politician who wanted to impress his constituents, I would take Plato
+or Aristotle. But the real test would be with people who had no chance
+to show off before their friends or their constituents. In that case
+I feel certain that everyone would take Thomas’ ‘Guide to Practical
+Shipbuilding’ so that they could get away from the island as quickly as
+possible. And then if they should be allowed to take a second book it
+would be the most exciting detective story within reach. But if I could
+only take one book to a desert isle and was not in a particular hurry
+to get off, I would without the slightest hesitation put ‘Pickwick
+Papers’ in my handbag.”
+
+The talk switched to the Russian situation. Chesterton thinks that
+Lenin was of the mad Russian type, just such a type as Tolstoy,
+
+“But Trotsky is at once both more commercial and cunning; he is the
+typical Russian or German Jew.”
+
+The Chestertons own a pert little Scotch terrier named Quoodle. “I
+named him Quoodle,” explained Chesterton, “after the hero of one of my
+early, but alas forgotten, novels, in the hope that unwary visitors
+like you would ask about the origin of the name and I would have a good
+excuse to talk about my novel! But when only the family is present we
+shorten the name to Quo: a handy name and one that can be yelled to the
+top of the lungs.”
+
+Among the other delectable viands that Mrs. Chesterton’s bounty
+provided were some cakes made out of the white of eggs, that caused me
+to say,
+
+“These cakes put me in mind of some period of English Literature.”
+
+“They remind me, rather,” responded Chesterton with a hearty laugh, “of
+icebergs and I wish that I was sitting on a large one just now. (It was
+an extremely hot August afternoon.) But if we must compare them to some
+period of English literature they remind me of the rococo period, the
+age of Horace Walpole, in particular of some of the decorations of his
+home ‘Strawberry Hill’.”
+
+Tea over, Chesterton suggested going to see his garden. After putting
+on an enormous sombrero, and taking in his hand something like a small
+axe, but which proved to be a walking stick which his Polish friend,
+Roman Dyboski, had given him, he led the way through a French window
+out into a tidy little garden. We sat on camp chairs in a pleasant
+spot. Chesterton’s one seemed somewhat frail, shaking a little, and to
+make matters worse, the cat Stanley Baldwin came along and fell sound
+asleep right under his master’s chair! If anything had happened to the
+chair, Baldwin would have awakened in cat heaven!
+
+The conversation turned on the rather whimsical subject of chairs.
+
+“H. G. Wells in one of his books,” remarked Chesterton, “has written
+several pages on the subject of chairs. Some non-materialists might
+very well contend there is no such a thing as a chair. They would argue
+that since there are all kinds and varieties of chairs, when you use
+the word ‘chair’ you cannot have any particular one in mind: therefore
+the word is only abstract and hence has no equivalent in actuality!”
+
+When I wondered if anything had ever been written on the subject of
+shoes, Chesterton answered that his friend Hilaire Belloc had done an
+exceedingly entertaining essay on the subject, “Belloc makes the point
+that the kind of shoes a man wears and how he keeps them, is a better
+indication of his character, than any other piece of apparel.”
+
+Chesterton told of a literary club which had lately given a fancy
+dressed ball for its members, and that he went as Doctor Samuel
+Johnson. When I asked who Mrs. Chesterton went as, he replied with a
+merry twinkle in his eye,
+
+“My wife went dressed as one of the characters in a novel that I am
+going to write in the near future! You see that I devise ways and means
+to advertise both my old novels and my new ones!”
+
+The subject of Rome and Mussolini came up, and when I expressed
+admiration for “The Resurrection of Rome,” he snapped,
+
+“I think it was a pretty bad book.”
+
+At my disagreement, a look of mild surprise appeared on Chesterton’s
+face,
+
+“Well,” explained he, “it was written just after a stay in Rome, and I
+think that I made the fatal mistake of reading the book too soon after
+it was written. That should never be done by any author. The longer
+after the writing that I wait to read one of my books, the better it
+seems.”
+
+When I mentioned that Mussolini had told me how much he had enjoyed
+reading “The Man Who Was Thursday,” and had found it exceedingly funny,
+Chesterton answered,
+
+“Does anyone find my books funny? It pleases me to hear that, for at
+times I fear that my humorous works are taken seriously and my serious
+ones humorously. I also had an audience with Mussolini. He did not
+act in a high and mighty manner at all, but showed a genuine interest
+in England and asked me numerous questions about the country. He was
+indeed a jolly card.”
+
+“In what language did you carry on your conversation,” I asked.
+
+“We spoke in French,” replied Chesterton, “and when leaving I said, ‘I
+hope you excused my poor French, Your Excellency.’ To which Mussolini
+answered, ‘That’s all right; you speak French about as well as I speak
+English’.”
+
+After a moment’s pause Chesterton reflected, “I don’t suppose that was
+much of a compliment for my French, because at that time Mussolini knew
+practically no English.”
+
+“When do you do most of your writing, Mr. Chesterton?”
+
+“Whenever I get a chance, I do not care much for the typewriter and I
+find pen or pencil much too tedious, for I am a rather slow writer. At
+present I do a considerable amount of dictating. I can compose just as
+readily this way.”
+
+One of the last questions I asked my host was his opinion of Mark Twain,
+
+“I have always admired the genius of Mark Twain which may truly
+be called gigantic. Mark Twain dealt so much with the gigantic
+exaggeration of imagination; the skyscrapers of literature. He was the
+greatest master of the tall story who has ever lived and was also, what
+is more important, a thoroughly sincere man.”
+
+As the cab to take me to my London train was announced, Chesterton
+graciously inscribed his “History of England” in the following fashion,
+
+                  “Greetings to the Mark Twain Society
+                        from an Innocent at Home
+                            G. K. Chesterton
+                     Known as the Unjumping Frog of
+                             Bucks County.”
+
+                       and Mrs. Chesterton added,
+                      “And from Frances Chesterton
+                         Wife of the Innocent.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+FATHER BROWN.
+
+
+Once in telling his creator what delight Father Brown had given him,
+the author asked if the spiritual detective was a real person.
+
+“Indeed he is,” answered Chesterton. “His name is Father John O’Connor
+and he lives in Bradford, Yorkshire.”
+
+“‘Trent’s Last Case’ had recently appeared,” Father O’Connor himself
+writes the author, “and Chesterton full of admiration for E. C.
+Bentley, was humbly envious, longing to add to the small (as it was
+then) crop of detective stories. He also was bitten with costume drama
+and would without provocation ‘lurk’ by the jamb of a doorway with
+cloak-and-sword (he had a sword-stick) as it were in wait for the Duke
+of Guise. He had a column the next week in ‘The Daily News,’ relating
+how the forest-keepers of Ilkley apprehended him for making passes at
+the local trees, but released him on learning that he was a guest of a
+Justice of the Peace.
+
+“Many a glorious day we had together under that hospitable roof of
+Francis Steinthal and his ever gracious wife. Chesterton himself tells
+how two young men that first evening, after I had gone home, wondered
+how a sheltered existence like mine could ever take part in the rude,
+naughty world as it stood, and how this gave the first push off to the
+Father Brown series. Disguise is mingled with description--I did carry
+a specially large and cheap umbrella--had quite a habit of brown-paper
+parcels--and the episode of the sapphire cross--(in America, a diamond
+cross, of course) has this relation to sordid fact, that I was still
+vain in having bought five sapphires for five shillings in an obscure
+pawnshop in Bradford. Many years later, in Bradford again, some duffer
+introduced me as Father Brown to two international crooks who were
+playing themselves into the book-trade, and they both disappeared,
+leaving no trace, within twenty-four hours!”
+
+Father O’Connor never forgot the day that he spent with the two
+Chesterton brothers at St. John’s, Ilkley, and has often wondered since
+if anyone ever had a better chance to observe their mental difference
+and their deep attachment at such close quarters as he did that day.
+Cecil was a Church of England Conservative Fabian Socialist, Gilbert
+was almost an official Liberal, and at that time writing for “The Daily
+News.” Cecil had already, in “The Fabian Review,” battered daylight
+through the Liberal Party in many a large hole. This can be seen in his
+“Gladstonian Ghosts.” From lunch till tea and from tea till dinner,
+Cecil stood his ground, and Gilbert must have walked many miles around
+the large dining table trying to reply to his brother’s arguments.
+
+Chesterton gave the author his own version of how he first conceived
+the idea for the famous character,
+
+“While at tea with Father O’Connor the conversation turned to
+philosophical and moral channels, and I mentioned with considerable
+timidity, a certain rather sordid question of vice and crime, which
+I intended to discuss in a future essay. I was vastly astonished to
+find that the priest not only had a thorough working knowledge of the
+subject but was able to furnish me with further facts of an almost
+sensational nature.
+
+“Some days later Father O’Connor and I took dinner with two Cambridge
+undergraduates. When the priest left the room, the young men remarked
+on what a thoroughly charming and cultivated person he was despite the
+fact that in his cloistered existence he knew so little of the world.
+One of them remarked, ‘It’s a very beautiful thing to be innocent
+and ignorant, but I think it’s a much finer thing not to be afraid of
+knowledge.’
+
+“The complete and crushing irony of the remark so touched my
+imagination that there was born in my mind the idea of a priest who
+should appear to know nothing, but as a matter of fact, knows more
+about crime than the criminals themselves. The point of him (Father
+Brown) was to appear pointless; and one might say that his conspicuous
+quality was in NOT being conspicuous. I have always thought that the
+most appropriate compliment ever paid my famous detective priest came
+from the lips of a charming Catholic lady who remarked, ‘I am very fond
+of that ‘officious little loafer’.”
+
+The prototype of one of the Father Brown characters, Hesketh Pearson,
+writes the author,
+
+“I greatly enjoyed the Father Brown stories, and remember his telling
+me that he had described me in one of them, though I cannot remember
+which. My last meeting with him was not altogether a pleasant one
+because he started it by asking,
+
+“‘Why, are you not a Catholic? All the best writers of today are
+Catholics and you are much too clever to be anything else!’
+
+“I was forced to explain my view of God, which was not his,
+and this disagreement cast a slight shade over the subsequent
+conversation--though I am sure he was much too kindly a soul to let it
+affect his feelings towards me, which were always most cordial. He was
+extremely generous to me at two crucial moments in my life, and I shall
+always remember him with gratitude, admiration and affection.”
+
+Rafael Sabatini’s first acquaintance with Chesterton’s work “was made
+through Father Brown, and I don’t know that I cared more for any of
+his creations. He was, we all know, one of three contemporaries to
+whom allusion was commonly made by their triple initials: G. K. C. in
+his case. The other two, G. B. S. (George Bernard Shaw and Clement K.
+Shorter). One day that perverse genius, T. W. H. Crossland (of whom
+little may have been known in the States) was in my study chatting
+with me in his usual disgruntled fashion. The conversation turned on
+Shorter. Whilst he talked he scribbled on a British Museum reading
+room ticket, which he left carelessly on my table. After he had gone I
+looked at the ticket and found on it scribbled the following quatrain,
+which has remained hitherto unpublished,
+
+  ‘G. K. S.
+  G. K. C.
+  G. B. S.
+  N. B. G.’”
+
+G. B. Stern has “received intense pleasure from a good deal of G. K. C.
+One of my most treasured books is a first edition of ‘The Napoleon
+of Notting Hill’ which excited me wildly when I first read it, some
+time in my teens. I was born in Holland Park, and used to be sent as
+a child for daily walks all over Campden Hill and up and down through
+‘Napoleon’ kingdom, so that it had a strong local interest as well as
+its romantic appeal. I think, therefore, this remains the favorite of
+his works, together with ‘Lepanto,’ ‘The Secret People,’ and two or
+three of the other poems; but I also greatly enjoy and have re-read
+several times the Father Brown stories and ‘The Flying Inn.’ Also I was
+present at the very first performance in London of the play, ‘Magic,’
+which seemed to me even then inspired with those queer colored bursts
+of truth which were so peculiarly Chesterton.”
+
+The late Mr. S. S. Van Dine, author of “The ‘Canary’ Murder Case” and
+“The Philo Vance Murder Case,” wrote the author, “I am very glad to
+be included as one of America’s admirers of G. K. C.’s Father Brown
+series. Father Brown has long been a favorite with me.”
+
+And Mary Roberts Rinehart, “Of course I was a great admirer of the
+Father Brown stories, and was naturally pleased that Mr. Chesterton
+liked my own work. In a way we formed a sort of mutual admiration
+society.”
+
+“Chesterton and I wrote a detective story together,” recalls Sir Max
+Pemberton. “I opened the mystery--he closed it, most ably, of course. I
+can’t remember what it was about, but I am sure he brought the villain
+to justice.
+
+“He was a truly great figure--a worthy successor to the immortal Doctor
+Johnson. Both had rare gifts, of literature and Faith.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+SOME APPRAISALS.
+
+
+“Chesterton was one of the great and dynamic forces during the time
+he lived,” declares Ralph Adams Cram. “I ‘fell for him’ many years
+ago when almost by accident I found and read ‘The Napoleon of Notting
+Hill.’ That settled the case for me, and after that I was, so to speak,
+his intellectual and spiritual slave. Of all his books it seems to
+me this, together with ‘The Man Who Was Thursday,’ ‘The Bell and the
+Cross,’ ‘The Flying Inn’ and ‘The Victorian Age of English Literature’
+are those for which I care most. This may seem a curious selection, but
+in most of these he makes his points through indirection, and in some
+ways this seems to me a more powerful method of conveying his ideas and
+inspiring the public than the more explicit works, the object of which
+is very obvious. This is not to disparage anything he ever did--except,
+perhaps, the Father Brown Mystery stories, which seem to me rather
+unworthy of him, though even these serve to show the immense breadth
+of his interest, his knowledge, and his literary ability.”
+
+The late W. B. Yeats wrote the author that he found Chesterton “a
+kindly and generous man of whom I constantly heard from friends, but as
+far as I can recollect I only met him socially twice, once at a Club
+dinner and once for tea at a country house. So much of my life has
+always been spent in Ireland that I know comparatively little of the
+English celebrities. I don’t want to write about his works: I have read
+very little of it, and to write even of that little would open up great
+questions I don’t want to come to any decision about in my present
+ignorance (which is likely to endure).”
+
+In his “Autobiography,” Chesterton states that he had some talk
+about poetry and property with Yeats at the Dublin Art Club, “a most
+exhilarating evening.” Yeats asked Chesterton to debate at the Abbey
+Theatre, defending property on its more purely political side, against
+an able leader of Liberty Hall, the famous stronghold of Labor politics
+in Dublin, Robert Johnson, who was exceedingly popular with the
+proletarian Irish.
+
+“That passage from G. K. C.’s ‘Autobiography’ is correct so far as I
+can remember,” wrote Yeats in a second letter. “It was a time when the
+English Government was stopping discussion and we kept discussion
+open at the Abbey Theatre when it had stopped elsewhere, by getting
+people to speak on the conservative side and letting debate develop as
+it likes afterwards. Johnson who replied to Chesterton was at that time
+the most important Irish labour leader: he is still very important. He
+was in the Irish Senate for some years, Bernard Shaw lectured either
+the week after or the week before Chesterton. Both men were brilliant,
+Chesterton taking the line that the possession of small properties was
+essential to liberty, Johnson putting the Trades Union point of view
+that it was more important for the workman to spend his money on his
+children than to save it.”
+
+Cuthbert Wright’s only personal connection with Chesterton was to have
+been mentioned in one of his last books, “The Well and the Shadows”:
+“Some year ago I had published a review of G. K. C.’s ‘Catholic Church
+and Conversion,’ in which I drew attention to what I considered
+a stylistic defect, his mania for alliteration. He seems to have
+remembered it during the intervening years, and doing me the honor to
+couple my name with that of Mr. T. S. Eliot wrote as follows,
+
+“‘It must be a terrible strain on the presence of mind to be always
+ready with a synonym. I can imagine Mr. T. S. Eliot just stopping
+himself in time and saying, ‘Waste not, require not.’ I like to think
+of Mr. Cuthbert Wright having the self-control to cry, ‘Time and
+fluctuation wait for no man.’ I can imagine his delicate accent when
+speaking of a pig in a receptacle or of bats in the campanile.”
+
+Professor Roman Dyboski of Krakow, Poland, was first drawn to
+Chesterton when he read some articles in the “Illustrated London News,”
+and some passages from his historical poem, “The Ballad of the White
+Horse.” The professor suggested his advanced students making a special
+study on the author, and the result was two Polish books on G. K. C.
+Soon translations of Chesterton’s works became fairly numerous in
+Poland. His play “Magic” had several successful runs on Polish stages,
+and the Polish Radio popularized “The Man Who Was Thursday” in a
+dramatic version.
+
+Shortly after his visit to Poland early in 1927, Chesterton sent Dr.
+Dyboski an introduction to a collective volume of studies by Polish
+scholars written to commemorate the Seventh Hundred Anniversary of the
+death of St. Francis of Assisi, and the services of the Franciscans to
+civilization.
+
+On July 7, 1927, Chesterton spoke on Poland at the Essex Hall in the
+Strand. Crowds of his admirers were present; the late Cardinal Bourne
+himself appeared on the platform; the Polish Ambassador took the
+chair; Hilaire Belloc moved the vote of thanks which was seconded by
+Dyboski. The first part of the address struck all present as the most
+illuminating English opinion that had ever been expressed on Poland,
+
+“I am to speak on Poland, a country very unfamiliar to the average
+English person. In order to facilitate approach to the subject, let me
+begin by saying that Poland is Poland. This is the kind of statement
+which, when I make it, is of course called a paradox (Laughter). Yet
+what I wish to express is something quite plain and simple. Those of
+you who have studied medieval history, may remember the ancient kingdom
+of Bohemia--situated, according to Shakespeare, by the sea-side--now
+you hear much of Czechoslovakia, unknown to you before. Again, those
+of you who are old enough to remember the World War, will recall the
+fervent admiration which we all felt for the heroism of the Servian
+nation: now we often hear the name of Yugoslavia, which we never heard
+in those days. As for Poland, she is now known by the same name which
+she bore through centuries, when she was a great power in Europe,
+and by which our fathers knew her to exist in those days when she
+had disappeared from the map, yet continued to live as a nation and
+to struggle for freedom. That is why I begin by saying that Poland
+is Poland, and submit that as a fundamental fact for you to consider
+before we go further.”
+
+It is difficult to imagine more eloquent and emphatic words of
+recognition for the continuity of Poland’s national tradition through
+eight centuries of recorded independent existence, through a century
+and more of division and captivity, and into the dawn of reunion
+and regained liberty. Chesterton, who in these words as well as in
+various poems and essays, always acknowledged in Poland one of the
+corner-stones of the historical structure of European civilization,
+remained a faithful friend of Poland to his death.
+
+“Grey Beards at Play,” a book of poems in the Mark Twain tradition
+with G. K.’s own illustrations, first impressed the philosopher L. E.
+Gilson. But the book which remains with him as the most stimulating
+is “Orthodoxy,” “When it came out I hailed it as the best piece of
+apologetic the century had produced. In a sense all his later works
+are a variation on the same theme. I was interested in the biography
+of the conversion of a well known American financial expert whose
+conversion was brought about by reading in succession Chesterton’s
+‘Orthodoxy,’ Fulton Sheen’s ‘God and the Intelligence,’ and Karl
+Adams’ ‘Spirit of Catholicism.’ I don’t wonder they would convert the
+Devil if he had a sense of humor, and open mind, and could pray for
+grace!”
+
+Mr. Gilson believes that Chesterton will not really be fully
+appreciated before a century or two. The book of his which he likes
+best is “St. Thomas Aquinas:” “I consider it as being without possible
+comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas. Nothing short
+of genius can account for such an achievement. Everybody will no
+doubt admit that it is a ‘clever’ book, but the few readers who have
+spent twenty or thirty years in studying St. Thomas Aquinas, and who,
+perhaps, have themselves published two or three volumes on the subject,
+cannot fail to perceive that the so-called ‘wit’ of Chesterton has put
+their scholarship to shame. He has guessed all that which we had tried
+to demonstrate, and he has said all that which they were more or less
+clumsily attempting to express in academic formulas. Chesterton was
+one of the deepest thinkers who ever existed; he was deep because he
+was right; and he could not help being right; but he could not either
+help being modest and charitable, so he left it to those who could
+understand him to know that he was right, and deep; to the others, he
+apologized for being right, and he made up for being deep by being
+witty. That is all they can see of him.”
+
+Eileen Duggan gives the opinion of a New Zealander,
+
+“One of the innumerable society diarists who writes for a hobby
+recorded an anecdote that illustrates Chesterton’s complete absorption
+in a subject. He had been given, rather foolishly, a little gold period
+chair, and as he made his points, it slowly crashed beneath him. He
+rose just in time and sinking into another chair that someone put
+behind him, began at the word he had last spoken. It was evident to all
+that he had barely noticed the incident rather than that he had decided
+to ignore it.
+
+“A New Zealander who heard him lecture relates that his appearance
+after a long delay caused the Chairman to express relief that he had
+not been knocked down by a tramcar. G. K. C. rose calmly and thanked
+him for his solicitude, ‘but,’ said he, ‘Mr. Chairman, had I met a
+tramcar it would have been a great and, if, I may say so, an equal
+encounter.’”
+
+“His journalistic training,” continues Miss Duggan, “had taught him
+simplification and the author of those penetrating studies on Dickens
+and Browning would put his points on Distributism so that they could
+be understood by the man in the street. A sacrifice seemed worthless
+to Chesterton, unless it were voluntary and not State-imposed; in
+Distributism, then, he saw the solution of the world’s problems, the
+answer for soul and for body of its ills.
+
+“It has been charged that he was the enemy of Jewry, but his hand
+was against only a small and powerful Oligarchy within it which, he
+claimed, harmed the poor Jew of the ghetto more than the Gentile and,
+commenting on the anti-Jewish excesses which have outraged the world,
+he said that he had now to defend the Jews against Hitler. It will be
+remembered that he struck at all internal abuses and certain lines
+of his were arrowheads in the national flesh. These for instance, on
+postwar corruption drew blood,
+
+      “‘Oh, they that fought for England,
+      Following a fallen star,
+      Alas, alas for England!
+      They have their graves afar.
+
+      But they that rule in England
+      In stately conclave met,
+      Alas, alas for England!
+      They have no graves as yet.’
+
+“He was a Little Englander; partly, one suspects, as a reaction from
+Kiplingism: but in an age of peace he was a defender of just wars. He
+inveighed against those who blamed the older generation in 1914 when
+they decided that war was the only honorable solution and later he said
+that a universal peace, founded on a universal panic, raised the point
+as to whether the supreme moral state will be found when everybody
+is too frightened to fight; and dying, but undefeated, he repeated
+as a creed, ‘Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy--responsible forms of
+rule--have collapsed under plutocracy, which is irresponsible rule.
+And this has come upon us because we departed from the old morality in
+three essential points. First, we supported notions against known, old
+customs; secondly, we made the state top-heavy with a new and secretive
+tyranny of will; and third, we forgot that there is no faith in freedom
+without faith in free-will. Materialism brings with it a servile
+fatalism--because nothing, as Dante said, else than ‘the generosity of
+God could give to man after all ordinary, orderly gifts, the noblest
+of all things which is----liberty.’”
+
+Chesterton examined and scrutinized the conscience of England as he did
+his own, but only a fool would deny that from York to Cornwall he loved
+his country with a Little Englander’s passion!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+THE POET
+
+
+Not a few of his readers feel that Chesterton’s chief bid to fame is
+his poetry. Alfred Noyes, for instance, writes the author,
+
+“Chesterton led one of the most original lives of his day in Europe.
+It is well to remember this when it is suggested that men who avail
+themselves of the rich experiences of the centuries are merely echoes
+of the past. The true originality does not consist in inventing ideas
+that have no relation to truth and no roots in reality, but in the
+discovery and unveiling of something that has always been there,
+though we may hitherto have lacked the eyes to see it, or the power
+to express and interpret it. Chesterton had an expert gift for making
+one see things in all their original miscellaneousness, as things that
+really =are=, and yet--=cannot= be, or give any rational account of
+themselves. Many years ago in a poem on the death of Francis Thompson,
+I wrote of the overwhelming mystery that there should be a single grain
+of dust in existence, the sheer impossibility of it on any rational
+ground, and how the smallest atom defied exploration and ultimately
+asserted a superrational origin.
+
+      “‘I am ... yet cannot be, ...!
+
+“Chesterton tosses out his thoughts in a glorious liberality; but I
+am proud to think that this line unconsciously found its way into two
+of Chesterton’s poems afterwards--‘The House of Christmas,’ where he
+speaks of ‘the things that cannot be, and that are,’ and the splendid
+lyric ‘Second Childhood,’ where he says,
+
+      “‘And stones still shine along the roads
+      That are and cannot be!’
+
+“Like most men of genius he kept his own immortal childhood all his
+life; and it was in the matrix of it, the vision that ‘saw’ as a
+manifestation of something ‘supernatural,’ ‘something that ultimately
+defied reason, not because it was merely difficult to understand, but
+because it rested on an eternal and absolute mystery (above and beyond
+the range of secondary causes) it was in this wonder at the abiding in
+the terrestrial that he made me feel the power of his faith,
+
+      “‘When all my days are ending
+        And I have no songs to sing
+      I think I shall not be too old
+        To stare at everything,
+      As I stared once at a nursery door
+        Or a tall tree and a swing--
+
+      Strange crawling carpets of the grass
+        Wide windows of the sky--’
+
+“One of the greatest of all his poems is the sonnet entitled ‘The
+Convert,’ in which he describes how, after he had ‘bowed his head,’ he
+came out where the old world shone white, and heard ‘myriads of tongues
+like autumn leaves,’ ‘not so loveable,’ but ‘strange and light,’
+in their whispering assumption that, among the old riddles and new
+creeds, he must now be taken as belonging to a dead past. He sees them
+singing--not harshly--‘but softly as men smile about the dead.’ And
+then comes this magnificent and soul-stirring challenge from the ‘dead
+man’,
+
+      “‘The sages have a hundred maps to give
+      That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree.
+      They rattle reason out through many a sieve
+      That holds the soil, but lets the gold go free;
+      And all these things are less than dust to me
+      =Because my name is Lazarus, and I live!=’”
+
+Francis B. Thornton, the authority on Gerard Manley Hopkins, first knew
+Chesterton through his drinking songs, “An admirable introduction; they
+were so much more than their title signifies, and they transported me
+to the happy age which preceded the Malvolios and their hatred of cakes
+and ale. To me Chesterton will always be the poet. He not only saw what
+other men looked at, he saw =through= as well, and it was this faculty
+which gave an angelic quality to his humor. He was like a bull in a
+china shop, but it was a papal bull enunciating principles in the midst
+of a wreck of fragile half-truth.”
+
+Mr. J. Corson Miller “was introduced to the poetry of Chesterton by Mr.
+William Rose Benet who dilated on the vigor and splendor of ‘The Ballad
+of the White Horse.’ I read that magnificent work, and thereafter read
+all the verse that G. K. C. produced. I am a great admirer of his
+poetical work. I admire his flexible sonnets, with their vast sweep
+of thought, and radiant vision. His various lyrics, love, nature, and
+religious lyrics, are all excellent; his religious poetry is sublime.
+His well known lyric, ‘The Donkey,’ with its superb last two lines,
+or couplet, is unforgettable. His ‘Queen of the Seven Swords’--his
+second last, if not his last, published volume of verse, bears in my
+humble opinion, the breadth and fire of eternal life. His was, indeed,
+a great spirit: no toadying, or cavilling; no smirking or masking,
+but strong and free, with the strength of the clean West wind, he put
+his thoughts and opinions and visions in books and papers, and let
+the seeds of his ideas fall where they would, with results be what
+they might. His many-sided genius is well known: political and social
+economist; poet, historian, novelist, short-story writer, artist and
+cartoonist, playwright--hardly any field in art and literature can be
+mentioned--without his having touched it in some manner and left his
+mark, too.”
+
+Prof. Joseph J. Reilly holds that Chesterton will be best remembered
+for his poetry,
+
+“The initial book I read was ‘Varied Types.’ My first reaction was one
+of delight in Chesterton’s brilliance, my second a realization that his
+views were colored so decidedly by his personality that one could not
+hope to get a genuinely objective appraisal from him. This has always
+seemed to me an element of strength and of weakness and ever since
+I have turned to Chesterton’s criticism most largely for the unusual
+flashes of insight which he shows than for any completely balanced
+judgment. In one sense he is like a delicious dessert: it is not the
+main part of a dinner but no dinner would be satisfying without it.
+
+“My next acquaintance was with his ‘Orthodoxy’ which I found full of
+wisdom, insight, and inspiration. As I went on, I sometimes grew a
+little weary of his paradoxes but changed my mind when I happened one
+day upon his statement that to him paradox was ‘truth standing on its
+head.’
+
+“After reading his volume of poems through several times and
+thinking him over for many months preparatory to writing an
+article on Chesterton as poet, I came to the conclusion to which I
+still cling that Chesterton’s best claim to the attention of our
+great-grand-children will be based on his poetry.”
+
+John Gould Fletcher considers “Lepanto” is Chesterton’s finest poem,
+“next to that superb ‘Ballad of the White Horse’--too long for most
+people, I fancy, but absolutely characteristic of his great, generous,
+simple, and manly nature.
+
+“I did not learn to like his poetry because of a parent or teacher.
+From my earliest years I have always read all the poets I could lay
+my hands on; and in later years, I have continued the practice. I read
+‘Lepanto’ and the ‘Ballad’ some time back in 1912 as I recall, during
+my early years in London--read them and liked them. As regards the
+American poets, I should say that it was particularly marked in the
+case of Vachel Lindsay.”
+
+“I am on record,” declares Clement Wood, “that he is the greatest
+poet of his generation. I well remember when ‘Lepanto’ was recited to
+Vachel Lindsay by Floyd Dell; but Lindsay missed the rhythm which was
+ballad measure--seven beats to the line. Lindsay was influenced by
+Chesterton’s ballad measure which he re-used in the ‘Congo’ and other
+poems--but as four beats to the line.
+
+“‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ is the greatest of all modern ballads,
+possibly the greatest of all ballads,--more sustainedly memorable,
+glorious throughout. Many of the shorter pieces, too, have my warmest
+admiration.”
+
+“The story of my reading ‘The Battle of Lepanto’ on the shore of Lake
+Michigan to Vachel Lindsay is true,” declares Floyd Dell. “Note the
+echo of ‘Lepanto’ in ‘General William Booth,’
+
+      “‘Dim drums throbbing in the hills half heard
+      Booth enters boldly with his big brass drum.’
+
+“Booth was the first poem in Vachel’s new style, and followed my
+chanting recitation of the poem--which (my way of reading it) was in
+turn based on Yeats’ theories of how poetry should be read. Vachel had
+an unparalleled mental possession of the folk tunes (so to speak) of
+American speech--camp-meetings, soap-box, tramp, farmer, Negro, and so
+on--but they never broke through into his own verse until after he had
+heard the theory of Yeats and the poem of Chesterton.”
+
+Thomas Caldecot Chubb feels that Chesterton has been an important
+influence in the shaping of a brilliant American poet, “I realize that
+discussing influences is dangerous and that most people like to think
+of genius as bursting into the world full grown like Medusa from the
+forehead of Jove. But quite the opposite is usually true and most men
+of genius are but the latest--not the last link--in an unending chain.
+They receive, they use, they pass along. And anyone who will compare
+‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ with ‘The Drug Shop, or Endymion in
+Edmonstoun,’ written by Stephen Vincent Benet when he was less than
+twenty years old, will realize that Benet obtained more than a handful
+of his poetic implements from Chesterton. This is a paradox in itself,
+that the gusty panegyrist of the days following the decline of Rome
+should make an important contribution to so native and so American a
+voice.”
+
+No better way to end this chapter than with what Stephen Vincent Benet
+writes the author,
+
+“Thank you for sending me your Chapter on Chesterton’s poetry which
+I have read with much interest. I have always greatly admired both
+‘Lepanto’ and the ‘Ballad of the White Horse’ and I still re-read
+them.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+CHESTERTON THE MAN
+
+
+Chesterton possessed one of the most likeable characters of
+contemporary literary men. There is usually something or other
+that mars the characters of most, but who would have Chesterton
+different? Even his faults are beloved: his weight, his tardiness,
+his absentmindedness, his slovenly manner of dressing, his sometimes
+careless way of eating and drinking. In short he can almost be
+described as Falstaff without his moral grossness.
+
+Chesterton lived for many years in a flat overlooking the beautiful
+Battersea Park, where Mrs. Lillian Curt would often see him strolling
+in deep thought. His wife Frances--a dainty little lady, clever and
+level-headed and most devoted to her husband--would sometimes get
+anxious when he was long overdue for meals. Then quickly donning her
+outdoor garments she would anxiously start off to find him, remarking,
+“I am off to seek my Mighty Atom.” The reference being to Marie
+Corelli’s “The Mighty Atom” which had but recently appeared.
+
+“I knew G. K. C.,” writes A. Hamilton Gibbs, “when I was in process
+of becoming an undergraduate at Oxford. Being so grotesquely fat that
+he couldn’t dress himself he used to appear in socks at breakfast,
+eat hugely, and then go out into the garden with a pad of paper and a
+packet of cigarettes. In the course of a couple of hours there would
+be a ring of cigarettes on the grass around him and when the wind blew
+away his pages, he would scream for help with a series of epigrams
+which I am sure found their way into his later pages. Whenever he went
+from the country to London there was always a little black bag in his
+hand. In the bag was a bottle of wine, and in the station refreshment
+room he would order a cup of tea and a wine glass. Many times I’ve seen
+him taking alternate sips of tea and wine between mouths of a penny
+bun!”
+
+Whenever he visited Glasgow, Chesterton stayed with Professor
+Phillimore who occupied the Greek chair at Glasgow University.
+Phillimore entertained many literary people in Glasgow, Hilaire Belloc,
+Thomas Hardy, Galsworthy, and so forth. Usually disengaged in the
+mornings, the visitors were often brought to the Annam Gallery to be
+entertained by looking at paintings and etchings. Mr. Annam had the
+opportunity of making photographic portraits of Chesterton in 1912,
+when the latter was at his bulkiest. He seemed much interested in his
+striking appearance and in his likeness to Dr. Johnson. He wore a dark
+grey highland cloak and a tiny Homburg hat. As he was leaving the
+studio a small boy stopped and stared at the great man. G. K. noticed
+the youngster’s interest and puffed himself out to his very biggest for
+his benefit. Nothing was said, of course, but the pose was obvious. In
+the course of conversation he made various references to his appearance.
+
+Mrs. Hugh C. Riviere remembers Chesterton as a school boy at St.
+Paul’s, a tall slim youth who even then had the feeling of the romance
+of weapons that runs through so much of his work. He went to stay
+with Mr. and Mrs. Riviere after his marriage when his wife was ill in
+bed and unable to see to his packing. The result was that he arrived
+=with nothing= but an old revolver bought on the way, and his favorite
+sword-stick with an ivory-handle!
+
+The Sunday after the Great War had commenced Riviere was staying the
+week-end at a house a few miles from Beaconsfield, and walked over to
+see the Chestertons. They were in a very national state of excitement
+and emotion, as all were on such a day. His first thought was, what
+could he do to help his country,
+
+“I couldn’t wield a sword as I can’t lift my right arm above my
+shoulder. I should be no use in cavalry, no horse could carry me.” Then
+with a sudden hopefulness and that humor that was so often directed
+against himself, “I might possibly form part of a barricade.”
+
+The Chestertons, his brother Cecil, and his friend W. C. Worsdell, all
+belonged to a debating society known as “I. D. K.” (I Don’t Know). In
+the earlier period G. K. C. attended the meetings pretty regularly but
+later on rarely, being, as his wife declared, “too busy.” One of the
+earliest meetings was at the Chiswick house, of his wife’s family, the
+Bloggs. At the end of the discussion Chesterton remarked in his usual
+jocular style,
+
+“We’re in a complete fog!”
+
+But more than once he declared that the speeches of the I Don’t Knows
+were much cleverer than those heard in the House of Commons. At one
+meeting Chesterton could not find a chair, so he was obliged to squat
+on the floor, and he dropped down with a thud that shook the whole
+house!
+
+One year the Chestertons were coming back from Bromley after a
+delightful afternoon spent at E. W. Fordham’s house where the guests
+had produced some plays written by their host--one of them an
+exceedingly clever and amusing take-off of G. K. C. himself which the
+original had greeted with continuous chuckles and gurgles of laughter.
+Having returned with them year after year from this show and knowing
+his habit, Riviere remarked,
+
+“Aren’t you going to have the usual cigar, Gilbert?”
+
+“I was not going to have a cigar and I =don’t= want a cigar, but if
+it’s a case of a holy ritual here goes,” he answered characteristically
+with a chuckle as he took out a cigar and commenced smoking.
+
+While visiting Columbus, Ohio, to lecture, Chesterton had a friendly
+discussion with Professor Joseph Alexander Leighton and Dr. T. C.
+Mendenhall, the noted physicist--on the question whether veridical
+communications from the dead were received by living persons. Dr.
+Mendenhall contended that some at least of these communications were
+genuine, and therefore established the reality of life after death.
+Leighton took the role of skeptic, contending that when, as in some
+undoubted cases, bits of information, quotations, etcetera, had been
+received through mediums, they probably were due to subconscious
+memories, and that in other cases their apparent supernormal character
+was probably the result of coincidence. Chesterton agreed to the
+genuineness of the communications, but took the view that they were
+transmitted by bad spirits and that it was spiritually unhealthy for
+living persons to have any kind of traffic with them.
+
+No one could condemn a thing in fewer words than Chesterton. Speaking
+about that much discussed book of other days, Renan’s “Life of Christ,”
+he said to his friends Desmond Gleeson and George Boyle,
+
+“I remember reading it while I was standing in the queque waiting to
+see ‘Charlie’s Aunt.’ But it is so obvious which is the better farce,
+for ‘Charlie’s Aunt’ is still running.”
+
+The old English advertisement of “Charlie’s Aunt” always had a picture
+of the old woman getting along at top speed, with the words, “still
+running.”
+
+Father Cyril Martindale did not meet Chesterton very often, but he
+felt that he knew him well all the same, “this was because despite
+his shyness, or I should say modesty, he =let= you know him, and
+intercepted no barriers. This modesty was again seen in his dealings
+with young men. It never occurred to him that they could have nothing
+interesting or useful to say, or that he was called upon to act the
+oracle.
+
+“And this simplicity could again, I think, be seen in what people
+called his paradoxes. He always insisted that that was not what they
+were, but sheer statements of the obvious. To him, it was life as
+ordinarily lived that seemed ‘paradoxical’--it was amazing to him that
+men could think the things they did, especially as doing so issued into
+so uncomfortable as well as, too often, so wicked a life.
+
+“Sometimes the constant appearance of the word ‘wild’ in his writings
+irritated me. He had a vivid and active imagination, so that he saw all
+sorts of connections and illustrations that others did not: but his
+mind in reality worked in a very orderly way. I think the explanation
+may be this--he constantly described himself as ‘lazy’ and I expect
+that by temperament he was. He always put down the rapidity of his
+brother’s conversion with the tardiness of his own, at sheer laziness
+on his part. Now had he let himself go to laziness, he would have been
+letting his mind, too, go ‘wild.’ But he did neither. Very likely he
+used the word in a slightly different sense from the one in which I
+used it: he felt it as the opposite of ‘smug’ and so forth. It remains
+that I think he had to conquer a real tendency to laziness, and so, to
+letting his mind just hop about in a (to me) ‘wild’ and disorderly way.
+
+“I think he died in some ways a broken-hearted man. There were no
+signs of the world having learnt anything that was good, even from its
+sufferings: all the more noticeable was his peace and serenity in God;
+and this is why I do not hesitate to say that I think there was to be
+discerned in him =real holiness=.”
+
+Father (now Monsignor) John O’Connor known to fame as Father Brown,
+recollects that on Sunday, July 30th, 1922, he had “the immense
+happiness of receiving Chesterton into the Church. Mrs. Chesterton was
+present, profoundly moved, and Dom Ignatius Rice, O. S. B., in the
+chapel of the Railway Hotel at Beaconsfield, the first public church in
+town. I remembered his lines written years before,
+
+      ‘Prince: Bayard would have smashed his sword
+      To see the sort of Knights you dub.
+      Will someone take me to a pub?
+      Is =that= the last of them? O Lord!
+      Will someone take me to a pub?’
+
+“In 1925 Mrs. Chesterton followed him into the Church on the Feast
+of All Saints. They almost at once began to sponsor the erection of
+a permanent church near the railway station. And now it is being
+enlarged as a memorial to him.
+
+“Gilbert Chesterton and I were wont to call down Mark Twain’s name
+in benediction and to wish there were more like him, whether in his
+own States or any others. I recall many of our delighted exchanges on
+Mark the deathless. I was once thrilled to give him a patiche out of
+something he had not read,
+
+‘Buck Fanshaw’s Funeral.’
+
+“That he had not read it was to me a miracle. He had read everything I
+ever heard of that Mark Twain had written.”
+
+Patrick Braybrooke saw his cousin Chesterton for the last time at
+Beaconsfield. “It was a hot afternoon in summer and in the sweet garden
+at his home he recited poetry, made up verses, discussed American
+hotels, and came to the conclusion that Stevenson was the bravest man
+who ever wrote.”
+
+One morning not long afterwards as he was sitting in the refreshment
+room of a London underground, Braybrooke picked up casually enough a
+newspaper. “I saw some words and my world seemed to fall into pieces.
+For I read SUDDEN DEATH OF G. K. CHESTERTON. It seemed like the end of
+an era of literary greatness in every way. But I was glad he did not
+have a long illness--a long drawn-out anti-climax was not for him. When
+his time came he went home quickly, almost as though like one of the
+Stevenson characters--hit by an arrow. He went home and the Catholic
+Church which he loved so well took care of his soul and in the little
+Church at Beaconsfield to the subdued mutters of the Mass we said our
+last farewell.”
+
+Chesterton died on June 14, 1936, and was buried in the graveyard
+of the Beaconsfield Catholic Church. Just recently the Republic of
+Ireland has given a great bell for the Chesterton Memorial Church thus
+inscribed.
+
+“Presented to the parish of Beaconsfield by friends and admirers of
+Gilbert Keith Chesterton, to ring the call to faith, which he so
+chivalrously answered in song, in word, and in example, to the glory of
+God and of England.”
+
+Walter de la Mare penned a memorial quatrain to his life-long friend,
+
+      “Knight of the Holy Ghost, he goes his way,
+      Wisdom his motley, Truth his loving jest;
+      The mills of Satan keep his lance in play,
+      Pity and Innocence his heart at rest.”
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+                                                               Page
+  Adams, James Truslow, meets Chesterton                         78
+
+  Adams, Karl                                                   150
+
+  Aristotle                                                     131
+
+  Armstrong, Prof. A. J., entertains C.                          58
+
+  Arnold, Matthew                                               127
+
+  Autobiography                                                 145
+
+
+  “Ballad of the White Horse”                          94, 160, 162
+
+  Baltimore, liked by Chesterton                                128
+
+  Barnes, Bishop E. W.                                          108
+
+  Barr, Robert                                                   25
+
+  Barrie, James M.                                               37
+
+  Beaverbrook, Lord                                             108
+
+  Belloc, Hilaire                                         7, 10, 14
+    First meets Chesterton                                       24
+    Quoted                                          35, 44, 75, 133
+
+  Benet, Stephen Vincent                                      162–3
+
+  Benet, William R.                                             158
+
+  Bentley, E. C.                                       Iff., 5, 137
+
+  Bierce, Ambrose                                                40
+
+  “Biography for Beginners”                                      85
+
+  Birkenhead, Lord                                          56, 109
+
+  Blackwood, Algernon                                            33
+
+  Blatchford, Robt. complimented by C.                         21–3
+
+  Blessed Virgin                                              89–90
+
+  Blogg, Frances, marries C.                                     13
+
+  Boer War, opposed by C.                                     19–20
+
+  Borden, Lucille                                                39
+
+  Boswell                                                     7, 28
+
+  Bourne, Francis Cardinal                                      148
+
+  Braybrooke, Patrick, at C.’s funeral                        172–3
+
+  Bridges, Horace J., debates with C.                        68 ff.
+
+  Brown, Edw. tells of C.’s Welsh lecture                     49–52
+
+  Browning, Robert                        3, 14, 58, 95, 125–6, 152
+
+
+  Cabell, James Branch                                          122
+
+  Carrell, R. Alexis, on C.                                     123
+
+  Cecil, Lord                                                    33
+
+  Cecil, Lord David                                              38
+
+  Cambridge                                                     107
+
+  Canadian Authors’ Society, toasted by C.                       76
+
+  Catholic Church, C. joins                                 90, 102
+
+  Chamberlain, Joseph                                            19
+
+  Chesterton, Cecil, brother                    14, 138–9, 167, 170
+
+  Chesterton, G. K.
+
+  Chubb, T. C., describes C. at Yale                           92–7
+
+  Clarke, Isabel C., entertains C. in Rome                     35–6
+
+  Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain)                                19
+    Praised by C.                                     135, 149, 172
+
+  Cobbett, William                                             97–8
+
+  Columbus, Ohio, C. visits                                     168
+
+  Connolly, Myles, impressions of C.                            120
+
+  “Convert, The,” poem by C.                                    157
+
+  Cram, Ralph Adams                                 33 ff., 144 ff.
+
+
+  Dante                                                         153
+
+  Darrow, C., debates with C.                      66 ff., 117, 128
+
+  de la Mare, Walter, meets C.                         32–3, quoted
+
+  de Castro, Adolphe, meets C.                                   40
+
+  Dickens, Charles, admired by C.                         3, 30, 95
+    “Pickwick Papers,” C.’s favorite                       131, 152
+
+  Distributism                                               14, 24
+
+  Drinkwater, John                                               51
+
+  Drood, Edwin                                                 27–7
+
+  Doyle, Conan                                                  117
+
+  Dudley, Owen F., meets C.                                      34
+
+  Duggan, Eileen                                            151 ff.
+
+  Dyboski, Roman                                       132, 147 ff.
+
+
+  Eliot, T. S.                                                  146
+
+  “Everlasting Man”                                             118
+
+
+  Falstaff                                                       92
+
+  Father Brown                                          25, 94, 144
+
+  Fletcher, James Gould                                       160–1
+
+  “Flying Inn, The”                                     85, 95, 144
+
+  Fordham, E. W., boyhood friend                          4 ff.,168
+
+  France, Anatole                                                15
+
+  Frank, Waldo, admires C.                                      120
+
+  Frankau, Gilbert, meets C.                                     25
+
+
+  Galsworthy, John                                               24
+    discussed by C.                                             129
+
+  Garland, Hamlin, meets C.                                     119
+
+  George Fifth, King, meets C.                                   11
+
+  Gibbs, A. Hamilton, meets C.                                  165
+
+  Gibbs, Sir Philip, meets C.                                  20–1
+
+  Gill, Eric, C.’s friend                                        27
+
+  Gilson, L. E.                                             149 ff.
+
+  “G. K.’s Weekly”                                           14, 27
+
+  Glasgow, C. lectures in                                        53
+    visits                                                    165–6
+
+  “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” praised by C.                            24
+
+  Gordon, Charles W., describes C.                               78
+
+  Graham, Cunninghame                                            11
+
+  Graham, Kenneth, compared to C.                                35
+
+  “Greybeards at Play,” C.’s first book                          14
+
+  Guedalla, Philip, meets C.                                   31–2
+
+  Gwynn, S., recalls C.’s first book                 14, 17, 18, 38
+
+
+  Hamilton, Cosmo, debates with C.                           62 ff.
+
+  Hammond, J. L.                                               18–9
+
+  Hardy, Thomas                                                 129
+
+  Harris, Frank                                                  29
+
+  Hawthorne                                                     111
+
+  Henry Eighth, King                                         36, 97
+
+  Hereford, Oliver, quoted                                       69
+
+  Hazlitt, Henry                                                117
+
+  Heine                                                          41
+
+  “Heretics”                                            15, 30, 116
+
+  Hilton, James, writes C. as a boy                              23
+
+  Hirst, F. W., edits Speaker with C.                            19
+
+  “History of England”                                          136
+
+  Holliday, Robert Cortes, meets C.                             127
+
+  Hollis, Christopher, meets C.                                  24
+
+  Holy Ghost                                                     95
+
+  Housman, A. E.                                                107
+    quoted by C.                                            129–130
+
+  Huxley, Aldous, admired by C.                                  63
+
+  “History of England”                                          136
+
+
+  Jackson, Holbrook, meets C.                                 41–45
+
+  Jacobs, W. W., meets C.                                        23
+
+  James, Henry                                                   10
+
+  Joan of Arc, C. speaks on                                      33
+
+  Johnson, Dr. Samuel                      28, 36, 43, 88, 143, 165
+    Chesterton dressed as                                       134
+
+
+  Kaye-Smith, Sheila, praised by C.                             112
+
+  Kernahan, Coulson, meets C.                                25–6–7
+
+  Kingsmill, Hugh, meets C.                                      29
+
+  Kipling, Rudyard                                      76, 96, 153
+
+  Knox, John                                                    105
+
+
+  Lane, John                                                     15
+
+  Lenin                                                         131
+
+  “Lepanto,” poem by C.                                94, 119, 160
+
+  Lewis, Sinclair                                        112–3, 127
+
+  Lindsay, Vachel                                               161
+
+  Liverpool, C. lectures in                                      53
+
+  Locke, John                                                    41
+
+  Lodge, Sir Oliver                                              21
+
+  Lowdnes, Mrs. Marie Belloc, meets C.                           33
+
+
+  Mabbott, T. O., praises C.                                  115–6
+
+  MacDonald, George                                              26
+
+  MacDonald, Ramsay                                         26, 108
+
+  “Magic,” play by C.                                         116–7
+
+  “Man Who Was Thursday”                                          3
+    Praised by James Hilton                              24, 32, 95
+    Admired by Mussolini                                   134, 144
+
+  Martindale, Cyril C.                                      167–171
+
+  Masefield, John                                               108
+
+  Masterman, Charles                                             11
+
+  May, J. Lewis                                                  15
+
+  Megroz, Rodolphe L., visits C.                                 79
+
+  Miller, J. Corson                                             158
+
+  Moore, Tom                                                 17, 18
+
+  More, Thomas                                                   90
+
+  Mussolini, Benito, visited by C.                            134–5
+
+
+  Napoleon, quoted                                              120
+
+  “Napoleon of Notting Hill”         15, 16–7, 79, 85, 95, 116, 144
+
+  “New Jerusalem”                                                87
+
+  “New Witness”                                                  14
+
+  Notre Dame University, C. at                               99–113
+
+  Noyes, Alfred                                               155–8
+
+
+  O’Connor, Father John                                     137–140
+    Receives Chesterton Into Church                           171–2
+
+  Oldershaw, J. L.                                        5, 18, 19
+
+  “Orthodoxy”                              15, 32, 116, 149–50, 160
+
+  Ould, Hermon, offers C. club presidency                        86
+
+  Oxford                                                        107
+
+
+  Patterson, Mrs. F. T., hears C. lecture                    66 ff.
+
+  Pearson, Hesketh                                        31, 140–1
+
+  Pemberton, Sir Max                                            143
+
+  Phelps, William Lyon                                      98, 118
+
+  Philip the Second, misinterpreted by C.                       119
+
+  Pollock, Channing                                             115
+
+  Poland                                                    148 ff.
+
+
+  Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur                                      51
+
+
+  Redfield, William C.                                           62
+
+  Remarque, Enrique Maria, C. dislikes                           64
+
+  Rinehart, Mary Roberts                                        143
+
+  Ripley, Clements, admires C.                                   32
+
+  Riviere, Hugo C., paints C.                                  85–6
+
+  Roberts, R. Ellis, hears C. lecture                            46
+
+  Robinson, E. A.                                           166, 97
+
+  Rodin                                                          44
+
+  Rome, C. visits                                       90, 97, 134
+
+  Rose, Sir Holland                                             107
+
+  Roseberry, Lord                                                54
+
+  Ruskin, John                                              19, 107
+
+  Russell, Bertrand, C.’s opinion of                            108
+
+  Russell, George                                         98, 127–8
+
+
+  Sabatini, Rafael                                            141–2
+
+  Saint Januarius                                                44
+
+  St. Louis, Missouri, C. lectures                        72–4, 128
+
+  Saint Paul’s School                                            13
+
+  “Saint Thomas Aquinas”                                        150
+
+  Scott, Walter                                                   3
+    “Ivanhoe” reviewed by C.                                     75
+
+  Shaw, Bernard, C.’s book on                    15, 27, 44, 46, 55
+    Meets Chesterton                         75–6, 95, 96, 141, 146
+
+  Shorter, Clement K.                                           141
+
+  Sheen, Fulton                                                 150
+
+  Slade Art School, attended by C.                               13
+
+  “Speaker,” The                                               18–9
+
+  Stevenson, Robert Louis, quoted                                83
+
+  Stewart, Bishop G. C., at C.’s lecture                     68 ff.
+
+  Stewart, Donald Ogden, admires C.                             117
+
+  Strachey, Lytton, compared to C.                               35
+
+  Swinburne                                                       3
+
+
+  Tennyson                                                    3, 95
+
+  Thackeray                                                      95
+
+  Thompson, Francis                                             155
+
+  Thomas, Edward                                                  2
+
+  Thoreau                                                       111
+    quoted                                                      121
+
+  Tinker, Chauncey B.                                           118
+
+  Titterton, W. R., C. writes                                  81–3
+    Describes C.                                                 84
+
+  Tolstoy                                                       131
+
+  “Trent’s Last Case,” by E. C. Bentley                         137
+
+  Trevelyan, George M.                                          107
+
+  Trotsky                                                       131
+
+
+  Van Dine, S. S., admires Father Brown                         142
+
+  Van Druten, John                                               51
+
+  “Varied Types”                                                159
+
+  Velasquez                                                      44
+
+  “Victorian Age of English Literature”                         144
+
+
+  Walker, Headmaster, discovers C.’s genius                       1
+
+  Walpole, Horace                                               132
+
+  Walsh, William Thomas, describes C.                         118–9
+
+  Watts, G. F., admired by C.                                     3
+
+  “Well and the Shadows”                                        146
+
+  Wells, H. G.                    34, 46, 64, 79–80–81, 86, 96, 133
+
+  West, Rebecca                                                 109
+
+  Wise, Stephen S., admires C.                                  122
+
+  Wood, Clement                                                 161
+
+  Wright, Cuthbert                                              146
+
+  Wyndham, George                                                11
+
+
+  Yealy, Francis J., hears C. lecture                            47
+
+  Yeats, Elizabeth, at G. K.’s wedding                           13
+
+  Yeats, William B.                                             108
+    meets C.                                                  145–6
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
+predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
+were not changed.
+
+Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
+marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
+unbalanced.
+
+Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them,
+have been sequentially alphabetized and placed below the paragraphs
+that reference them.
+
+The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
+references. The entry for “Chesterton, G. K.” has no page references
+(which makes sense, as the entire book is about him). Some entries that
+were misalphabetized have been moved to the correct places, but the
+Transcribers did not do this systematically.
+
+Page i: “unanimity” was printed as “unanmity”; changed here.
+
+Page 12: “just ’ad” was printed as “just ’as”; changed here.
+
+Page 13: The footnote anchor originally was placed at the end of the
+next paragraph, but was moved because the footnote refers to the person
+mentioned in the earlier paragraph.
+
+Page 14: “pledged to wage eternal against” seems to be missing a word.
+
+Page 30: “finding reasons for his” was printed as “finding seasons for
+his”; changed here.
+
+Page 31: “with insufficient impudence” was printed that way; perhaps it
+should be “sufficient”.
+
+Page 38: “quiet chat” was printed as “quite chat”; changed here.
+
+Page 38: “I remember how Lord David Cecil when still a boy” was printed
+that way; “how” seems to be extraneous.
+
+Page 40: “in phases as colorful” was printed that way.
+
+Page 40: “points in phrases” was printed as “points in phases”; changed
+here.
+
+Page 41: Extraneous opening single quote removed just before “Do you
+happen to write poetry”.
+
+Page 41: Missing closing quote mark added after “It was a quasi sonnet
+entitled ‘The Jewish Poet.’”
+
+Page 44: “sombrero” was printed as “comprero”; changed here.
+
+Page 48: “This he thought was very reasonable theory” was printed that
+way.
+
+Page 49: The second occurrence of “Debates Union” was printed as
+“Debate’s Union”; changed here.
+
+Page 51: “Liberty: the Last Phase,” was printed as “Liberty: the Last
+Phrase,”; changed here.
+
+Page 57: Extraneous closing quote removed after “of life and
+experience.”
+
+Page 62: “he never forgot” was printed as “he never forget”; changed
+here.
+
+Page 88: “Cycle Valley” was printed that way.
+
+Page 89: “it did before” was printed as “it did befire”; changed here.
+
+Page 90: “Thomas More” was printed as “Thomas Moore”; changed here.
+
+Page 94: “that varnished period” was printed that way.
+
+Page 106: “It would not have mattered” was printed as “I would not have
+mattered”; changed here.
+
+Page 107: Extraneous closing quote removed after “condition did not
+prevail.”
+
+Page 108: “no other poet” was printed as “no other post”; changed here.
+
+Page 118: “just as fervently” was printed as “just as feverently”;
+changed here.
+
+Page 121: “It might ever more accurately” was printed that way; “ever”
+may be a typo for “even.”
+
+Page 122: “significance” was printed as “signifcance”; changed here.
+
+Page 139: “battered daylight” was printed as “bettered daylight”;
+changed here.
+
+Page 140: “knows more about crime” was printed as “know more about
+crime”; changed here.
+
+Page 146: “was essential” was printed as “was ensential”; changed here.
+
+Page 146: “debate develop as it likes” was printed as “debate develop
+as it like”; changed here.
+
+Page 146: “Some year ago” was printed that way.
+
+Page 149: “Grey Beards at Play” was printed that way, but should be
+“Greybeards”.
+
+Page 150: “I consider it as being” was printed as “I consider is as
+being”; changed here.
+
+Page 158: “Gerard Manley Hopkins” was printed as “Gerald Manley
+Hopkins”; changed here.
+
+Page 162: “Booth was the first poem” was printed as “Both was the first
+poem”; changed here.
+
+Page 171: The stanza of a poem is reproduced here as it was printed in
+the original book, but differs from reproductions of that stanza in
+most other sources.
+
+Page 172: “patiche” probably should be “pastiche”.
+
+Page 175: “Benet, Stephen Vincent” was printed as “Bent, Stephen
+Vincent”; changed here.
+
+Page 177: “edits Speaker” was printed as “edits speaker”; changed here.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75165 ***
diff --git a/75165-h/75165-h.htm b/75165-h/75165-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1d8553d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75165-h/75165-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,8133 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>
+      Chesterton, As Seen by His Contemporaries | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
+    <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+    <style> /* <![CDATA[ */
+
+body {
+    margin-left: 2.5em;
+    margin-right: 2.5em;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker body {margin: 0;}
+.x-ebookmaker-drop {color: inherit;}
+
+h1, h2 {
+    text-align: center;
+    clear: both;
+    margin-top: 2.5em;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    word-spacing: .2em;
+}
+
+h1 {line-height: 1;}
+
+h2 {font-weight: normal;}
+h2.chap {margin-bottom: 0;}
+h2+p {margin-top: 1.5em;}
+h2 .subhead {display: block; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: 1.5em;}
+.x-ebookmaker h1, .x-ebookmaker .chapter, .x-ebookmaker .section {page-break-before: always;}
+.x-ebookmaker h1.nobreak, .x-ebookmaker h2.nobreak, .x-ebookmaker .nobreak {page-break-before: avoid; padding-top: 0;}
+
+.transnote h2 {
+    margin-top: .5em;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+}
+
+.subhead {
+    text-indent: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+    font-size: larger;
+    font-weight: bold;
+}
+.subhead1 {
+    text-indent: 0;
+    text-align: center;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    font-weight: normal;
+}
+
+p {
+    text-indent: 1.75em;
+    margin-top: .51em;
+    margin-bottom: .24em;
+    text-align: justify;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker p {
+    margin-top: .5em;
+    margin-bottom: .25em;
+}
+
+.caption p, .center p, p.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0;}
+
+.p2 {margin-top: 2em;}
+.p4 {margin-top: 4em;}
+.vspace {line-height: 1.5;}
+
+.in0 {text-indent: 0;}
+
+.smaller {font-size: 85%;}
+.larger  {font-size: 125%;}
+.large   {font-size: 150%;}
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.right   {text-align: right; margin-right: 2em;}
+
+.bold {font-weight: bold;}
+
+hr {
+    width: 33%;
+    margin: 4em auto 4em auto;
+    clear: both;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker hr {
+    margin-top: .1em;
+    margin-bottom: .1em;
+    visibility: hidden;
+    color: white;
+    width: .01em;
+    display: none;
+}
+
+table {
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    max-width: 80%;
+    border-collapse: collapse;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker table {width: auto; max-width: 90%; margin: 1em auto 1em auto;}
+
+.tdl {
+    text-align: left;
+    vertical-align: top;
+    padding-right: 1em;
+    padding-left: 1.5em;
+    text-indent: -1.5em;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker .tdl {
+    padding-left: 1em;
+    text-indent: -1em;
+    padding-right: 0;
+}
+
+.tdr {
+    text-align: right;
+    vertical-align: bottom;
+    padding-left: .3em;
+    white-space: nowrap;
+}
+
+#toc td {padding-bottom: .3em;}
+#toc .tdl {padding-left: 0; text-indent: 0;}
+#toc .tdr {vertical-align: top;}
+
+.pagenum {
+  position: absolute;
+  right: .25em;
+  text-indent: 0;
+  text-align: right;
+  font-size: 70%;
+  font-weight: normal;
+  font-variant: normal;
+  font-style: normal;
+  letter-spacing: normal;
+  line-height: normal;
+  color: #acacac;
+  border: .0625em solid #acacac;
+  background: #ffffff;
+  padding: .0625em .125em;
+}
+
+.figcenter   {
+    margin: 4em auto 4em auto;
+    text-align: center;
+    page-break-inside: avoid;
+}
+
+img {
+    padding: 1em 0 0 0;
+    max-width: 100%;
+    height: auto;
+}
+
+a.ref {text-decoration: none;}
+
+.caption  {text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; line-height: 1.4;}
+
+.footnote {
+    border: thin dashed black;
+    margin: 1.5em 10%;
+    padding: .5em 1em .5em 1.5em;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker .footnote {margin: 1.5em 5%;}
+
+.footnote {font-size: .95em;}
+.footnote p {text-indent: 1em;}
+.footnote p.in0 {text-indent: 0;}
+
+.fnanchor, .footnote .label {
+    vertical-align: 60%;
+    line-height: .7;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-decoration: none;
+}
+.fnanchor {font-weight: bold; font-size: .8em;}
+.footnote .label {font-size: .8em;}
+h2 .fnanchor {font-size: .5em; vertical-align: text-top;}
+
+table.index .tdl {padding-right: .5em;}
+table.index .tdr {vertical-align: top; padding-left: 0;}
+table.index tr.ifrst td {padding-top: 1em;}
+table.index tr.ifrst td.tdl {padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;}
+table.index tr.indx td.tdl {padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -2em;}
+table.index tr.isub1 td.tdl {padding-left: 5em; text-indent: -2em;}
+
+.blockquot {
+    margin: 1.5em 5% 1.5em 5%;
+    font-size: 95%;
+}
+
+.x-ebookmaker .blockquot {margin: 1.5em 3% 1.5em 3%;}
+
+.poetry-container {
+    margin: 1.5em auto;
+    text-align: center;
+    font-size: 98%;
+    display: flex;
+    justify-content: center;
+}
+
+.poetry {display: block; text-align: left; margin-left: 0;}
+.x-ebookmaker .poetry {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;}
+.poetry .stanza {padding: 0.5em 0; page-break-inside: avoid;}
+.poetry .verse  {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;}
+
+.poetry .indentq  {text-indent: -3.45em;}
+.poetry .indentsq  {text-indent: -3.33em;}
+.poetry .indentdq  {text-indent: -3.8em;}
+.poetry .indent0  {text-indent: -3em;}
+.poetry .indent2  {text-indent: -2em;}
+
+.transnote {
+    border: .3em double gray;
+    font-family: sans-serif, serif;
+    margin-left: 5%;
+    margin-right: 5%;
+    margin-top: 8em;
+    margin-bottom: 2em;
+    padding: 1em;
+}
+.x-ebookmaker .transnote {
+    page-break-before: always;
+    page-break-after: always;
+    margin-left: 2%;
+    margin-right: 2%;
+    margin-top: 1em;
+    margin-bottom: 1em;
+    padding: .5em;
+}
+
+.covernote {visibility: hidden; display: none;}
+.x-ebookmaker .covernote {visibility: visible; display: block; text-align: justify}
+
+.gesperrt {
+    letter-spacing: 0.2em;
+    margin-right: -0.2em;
+}
+
+span.locked {white-space:nowrap;}
+.pagenum br {display: none; visibility: hidden;}
+.bbd {border-bottom: .3em double black;}
+em {font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;}
+
+    /* ]]> */ </style>
+</head>
+
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75165 ***</div>
+
+<div class="transnote section">
+<p class="center larger">Transcriber’s Note</p>
+
+<p>Larger versions of the illustrations may be seen by right-clicking them
+and selecting an option to view them separately, or by double-tapping and/or
+stretching them.</p>
+
+<p class="covernote">New original cover art included with this eBook is granted
+to the public domain. It includes an illustration and part of the title
+page, both taken from the original book.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Transcribers_Notes">Additional notes</a> will be found near the end of this ebook.</p>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="section">
+<figure id="i_1" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 30em;">
+  <img src="images/i_001.jpg" width="1280" height="1304" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">
+    <p>G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.<br>
+      Done especially for this book<br>
+      by<br>
+      CONRADO W. MASSAGUER
+    </p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section">
+<h1><i class="bbd larger">CHESTERTON</i><br><br>
+<span class="smaller">
+<i>As Seen by His</i><br>
+<i class="bbd">Contemporaries</i></span></h1>
+
+<p class="p4 center">
+CYRIL CLEMENS<br>
+<span class="smaller">Author of<br>
+“MY COUSIN MARK TWAIN,”<br>
+Etc.</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center">
+With Introduction by<br>
+<span class="large">E.&nbsp;C. BENTLEY</span><br>
+Author of<br>
+“TRENT’S LAST CASE,”<br>
+Etc.</p>
+
+<p class="p4 center">
+1939<br>
+INTERNATIONAL MARK TWAIN SOCIETY<br>
+Webster Groves, Missouri
+</p>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section center">
+<p class="p4 vspace">
+Number Eight of the Society’s<br>
+Biographical Series</p>
+
+<p class="p2 larger">WHOLE NUMBER FOURTEEN</p>
+
+<p class="p2 vspace">Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill,<br>
+Chairman Biographical Committee</p>
+
+<p class="p2 smaller">Copyright<br><br>
+
+INTERNATIONAL MARK TWAIN SOCIETY<br>
+
+All rights reserved, including the right to<br>
+reproduce this book or parts thereof.</p>
+
+<p class="p4">Printed in the U.&nbsp;S.&nbsp;A.<br><br>
+
+by<br><br>
+WEBSTER PRINTING &amp; STATIONERY CO.,<br>
+<span class="smaller">Webster Groves, Missouri</span>
+</p>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section center">
+<p class="p4 vspace">
+DEDICATED<br>
+with his kind permission<br>
+to<br>
+BENITO MUSSOLINI<br>
+a warm admirer of Chesterton<br>
+and his work.
+</p>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS">TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table id="toc">
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">by E.&nbsp;C. Bentley</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Chapters</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_ONE">One</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Boyhood Days</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_TWO">Two</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Literary Apprenticeship</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_THREE">Three</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Meetings with G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_FOUR">Four</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Some Friends</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_FIVE">Five</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">On the English Platform</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_SIX">Six</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">On the American Platform</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_SEVEN">Seven</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Some Recollections of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_EIGHT">Eight</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Chesterton at New Haven</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_NINE">Nine</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">At Notre Dame</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_TEN">Ten</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Chesterton and American Authors</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_ELEVEN">Eleven</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">The Author Visits Top Meadow</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_TWELVE">Twelve</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Father Brown</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_THIRTEEN">Thirteen</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Some Appraisals</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_FOURTEEN">Fourteen</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">The Poet</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_FIFTEEN">Fifteen</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Chesterton the Man</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">i</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION"><i class="gesperrt bold">INTRODUCTION</i><br>
+
+<span class="subhead1">by E.&nbsp;C. Bentley</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Cyril Clemens’ book about Gilbert
+Chesterton is of an unusual and, to
+my taste, a deeply interesting sort.
+Some one has remarked that the most
+satisfactory biographies were those in
+which the letters and journals of the
+subject bulked largest, since these, telling
+their own tale, showed the man
+better than any biographer could do it.
+Mr. Clemens has assembled a vast
+number of other people’s memories and
+appreciations of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.; and it may
+be said that they show the attitude of
+his contemporaries towards him better
+than any individual critic could describe
+it.</p>
+
+<p>There is a remarkable note of unanimity
+in these personal recollections and
+judgments. There are differences of
+view about the value of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s work;
+about the relative importance of this or
+that of its many aspects; about his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">ii</span>
+matter or style in lecturing; about the
+quality of his wit, and many points
+more. But as to the nature of the man
+as he was there is hardly any difference
+at all. He won the hearts of those who
+met him because of his manifest goodness
+of heart and happiness of temper;
+these things were as apparent to all
+who came near him as was his physical
+being.</p>
+
+<p>I do not imagine that Mr. Clemens
+asked me to write this introduction
+with the idea of my setting forth any
+opinions about the place of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. in
+our literature. I could offer none of
+any critical value, because for me the
+man and his work have always been
+one, and I have been for most of my
+life intensely prejudiced in favour of
+the man. Mr. Clemens knew of me, I
+suppose, as a boyhood friend of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.—as
+I appear in his Autobiography—and
+perhaps as having dedicated a book
+of mine to him in terms which told
+some fraction of what my feeling towards
+him was. I may, then, say now
+that I first met him at that time of life
+when personal influence counts for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">iii</span>
+most, and one’s nature is in the making
+for good or evil. His friendship was
+the best thing that ever happened to
+me, and I have always thanked God
+for it.</p>
+
+<p>Essential goodness, perfect sincerity,
+chivalrous generosity, boundless good-temper,
+a total absence of self-esteem—these
+are lovable traits; and with
+them, even in boyhood, were united brilliant
+intellectual powers and an enormous
+gift of humor. The effect of it
+all on an impressionable youth of fifteen
+or so can perhaps be guessed. For
+years we were as near to each other as
+it is possible for friends to be, I think;
+but there was no one who knew him
+even slightly that did not feel something
+of the spiritual attraction that he
+exercised—always in utter unconsciousness
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. was too conspicuously unlike
+the ordinary boy to be popular, in the
+sense of being on the best of terms with
+all and sundry. He was without any
+desire to excel or take the lead in any
+direction. He was unconscious of the
+very existence of games. He was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">iv</span>
+steeped in literature and art; and he
+could, at need, be perfectly happy with
+his own thoughts and the fruits of his
+imagination. He was, on the other
+hand, not unpopular; it was impossible
+for even an ill-natured boy, I should
+think, to dislike him; but his circle of
+friends was small in those early days.
+I have written something about this
+time of our lives to Mr. Clemens who
+has quoted it at the outset of this book.
+What I have been saying in this place
+is an attempt to express what Gilbert
+Chesterton meant to me.</p>
+
+<p>That circle of friends which was so
+small was to become as wide as any
+man’s of our time, as the recognition of
+his genius increased, and the magic of
+his personality gained greater scope.
+No death can ever have been mourned
+with a deeper sincerity of personal affection
+by so many, in his own country
+and in others.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_ONE">CHAPTER ONE<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">BOYHOOD DAYS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>One of Chesterton’s earliest and
+staunchest friends, Mr. E.&nbsp;C. Bentley,
+recalls,</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton was in his schooldays
+the centre of a small group of boys.
+They formed a club under his chairmanship
+... the Junior Debating Club,
+so called to distinguish it from the
+School Union Society, which was the
+preserve of the senior boys. He never
+did, as he states in his memoirs, any
+work at school in the academic sense,
+and so never rose to the position of a
+star boy. The star boys did not understand
+him and classed him as a freak
+who was unlikely to do the school any
+credit. He was so exceptionally untidy
+and absent-minded, even at the age
+when the ordinary boy becomes careful
+of his appearance, that he did not fit
+into the picture at all; and it needed
+the insight of Walker, the High Master
+of his day, to divine that there was the
+stuff of genius in him, and to ordain
+(as G.&nbsp;K. tells in his own modest way)
+that on the strength of a remarkable
+prize poem ... the only ‘regular’ thing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span>
+he ever did at school ... he should
+‘rank with the eighth form,’ the highest,
+to which he would never have attained
+on his school performance. Very
+few of the boys of whom he saw most
+did anything in the field of letters in
+after life.” The poet Edward Thomas
+was not at St. Paul’s with G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. as
+many think. Mr. Robert Eckert, the biographer
+of Thomas, states that the
+latter was a schoolmate of Cecil,
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s younger brother.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bentley continues: “About
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.:—His spare time at school—which,
+as he makes clear in his Autobiography,
+was mostly spent.... I
+should say entirely ... in talking, reading,
+writing, and drawing pictures. He
+had a wonderful decorative handwriting,
+and was already a masterly
+draughtsman. Apart from walking, of
+which he never tired as a boy, he took
+no part in any sport. His sight was
+always very bad without his glasses.
+He was nevertheless strong and healthy
+as a boy, rather slim than otherwise; it
+was not until the twenties that he began
+to put on flesh. It was not ordinary
+fatness; I believe some gland trouble
+must have been at the root of it.</p>
+
+<p>“Speaking generally, Chesterton would
+talk about everything when at school
+that had to do with the realm of ideas.
+He never took much interest in things<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span>
+that are called practical. Politics in a
+broad sense he would talk about, but
+for the details of legislation he cared
+nothing. He always was, of course,
+what we know as a Liberal; in the
+large sense he remained a Liberal all
+his days.</p>
+
+<p>“Literature he would discuss by the
+hour, especially poetry. He hated the
+fashionable decadence of that time ...
+say 1890–1900 ... as may be seen
+from the dedication to ‘The Man
+Who Was Thursday.’ He delighted in
+pictorial art, above all in the generous
+idealism of G.&nbsp;F. Watts.</p>
+
+<p>“As to books, G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. never gave any
+attention to those which constituted
+school-work. He was passionately fond
+of Scott and of course, Dickens. He
+knew Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne
+by heart, and had enjoyed every other
+English poet in large degree. He did
+not care in those days for lighter reading.</p>
+
+<p>“There was a school library, but it was
+reserved for the use of the highest class
+in the school, which G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. never attained.
+There was a popular fiction library
+also, but he did not, I think, make
+use of it. G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. was too amiable to
+get into fights, but he would use his
+strength occasionally in standing between
+a small boy and others who were
+badgering him. He honored religion,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span>
+but had none whatever of a doctrinal
+kind until years later.”</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton, as I knew him in 1889,”
+writes Mr. E.&nbsp;W. Fordham, another old
+schoolmate, “was utterly unlike the
+average English schoolboy. He took no
+part in games. He showed no particular
+brilliance as a scholar, and yet far
+from being looked down upon, he was, I
+think, always regarded as one who lived
+in a different mental world from the
+rest of us, a world that many of us admired
+from afar but would never expect,
+or, it may be, ever hope to enter.
+We felt, though we never alluded to,
+his mental pre-eminence. Thus when
+the Junior Debating Club was formed,
+G.&nbsp;K. became Chairman without question
+and without a rival. It was obvious
+that he alone was fitted for the
+post, and most admirably he filled it.
+The teas at the houses of the various
+members of the Club which preceded
+the debates were often tempestuous to
+the last degree, but Gilbert, although
+he took no share in the more physical
+aspects of our revelry, was very far
+from playing the part of a wet blanket.</p>
+
+<p>“His laugh was the loudest and the
+most infectious of all. There were
+times when the boisterous manifestations
+of some of us overflowed into, and
+tended to overpower, the Debates. Then,
+with the utmost good temper, G.&nbsp;K.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span>
+would assert himself, and order would
+be restored.</p>
+
+<p>“I remember once, after I myself had
+been particularly noisy and troublesome,
+Gilbert explained to me that the
+throwing of buns and slices of cake did
+not really help in the production of
+good debates, and he hinted, very kindly
+and seriously, that some restraining
+action might have to be taken if the
+rioting did not diminish. I hope, indeed,
+I believe, I took the hint. This
+occasion was thereafter referred to as
+the day ‘when the Chairman spoke seriously
+to Mr. F.’</p>
+
+<p>“G.&nbsp;K. was the mainspring of the
+Junior Debating Club. He was valiantly
+supported by Oldershaw, Bentley,
+and others, but without him neither the
+Club itself, nor that strange little magazine,
+‘The Debater’ could have flourished
+as each of them did. Like boy,
+like man. That which he believed in
+he put his whole heart into, and never
+spared himself in furthering its interests.
+He gave the Junior Debating
+Club his eager and inspiring support
+for the two very good reasons, that it
+gave great enjoyment to himself and a
+few of his friends, and that he thought
+it a widening and humanizing influence—completely
+outside the range of ordinary
+school affairs. The Chairman
+loved the Junior Debating Club, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>
+most certainly the J.&nbsp;D.&nbsp;C. loved the
+Chairman.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fordham pins further recollections
+around the “Autobiography”:</p>
+
+<p>“I am a prejudiced person. Fifty
+years of friendship and admiration are
+an insuperable bar to impartiality.</p>
+
+<p>“G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. and I were at school together:
+we were fellow members of the
+Junior Debating Club of which he was
+Chairman. We both contributed to our
+Club’s magazine, ‘The Debater.’ I
+wrote rubbish; he wrote articles and
+verses of a very different quality. In
+this book he speaks almost with contempt
+of his ‘juvenilia.’ They were in
+fact such as very few boys of his age
+could have produced. Even then, at the
+age of fifteen or sixteen, he had a
+sense of style and a command of language
+which the High Master of St.
+Paul’s and other authorities did not fail
+to recognize. ‘The Dragon,’ one article
+begins, ‘the Dragon is the most
+cosmopolitan of impossibilities.’</p>
+
+<p>“As I say, I admired Gilbert Chesterton
+throughout his life, and after reading
+his ‘Autobiography’ I admire him
+still more. My attitude is rather that of
+a hero-worshipper than a critic, but I
+believe that no impartial critic could
+read this book and fail to see that here
+was a genius, and better, a brave and
+an honest man, a man who loved life<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>
+and loved his friends, loved laughter
+and hated oppression; in short a very
+great man. Despite all the modesty
+with which it is written, the book makes
+all these things clear. From beginning
+to end it is a magnificent <em lang="la">apologia pro
+vita sua</em>; nevertheless I hope it will not
+be the sole record of his life. There are
+countless things that he could not and
+would not tell of himself but that should
+not be forgotten. ‘Belloc,’ he writes,
+‘still awaits a Boswell.’ It is equally
+true that Chesterton awaits one. Is it
+legitimate to hope that his Boswell may
+be Belloc? There is a grand harvest to
+be gathered by his Boswell, whoever
+that may prove to be. G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. was a
+brilliant talker. He banished dullness
+from whatever company he was in. No
+argument arose but he would drive
+home his point by some arresting illustration.
+We were arguing once as to
+whether some policy or other were good
+or bad. ‘The word ‘good,’ said G.&nbsp;K.,
+‘has many meanings. For example, if
+a man were to shoot his grandmother
+at a range of 500 yards I should call him
+a good shot, but not necessarily a good
+man.’</p>
+
+<p>“No one could stump him by an unexpected
+question. He took part in a
+debate many years ago at, I think, the
+Lyceum Club, and in the course of his
+speech he discussed, as did other speakers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>
+various racial characteristics. After
+the debate I was walking round with
+him when an elderly lady whom he did
+not know came up and said with something
+of a simper, ‘Mr. Chesterton, I
+wonder if you could tell what race I
+belong to?’ With a characteristic adjustment
+of his glasses he replied at
+once, ‘I should certainly say, Madam,
+one of the conquering races.’</p>
+
+<p>“Only a year or two ago he watched
+with tolerant, and indeed highly vocal
+amusement, (his was both the strangest
+and the jolliest laugh man ever had) a
+representation of himself in some private
+theatricals. When they were over
+he said to the daughter of the player
+who had impersonated him—a sturdy
+figure, it is true, but less generously
+planned than the original—‘Do you
+know I believe your father <b>is</b> Gilbert
+Chesterton and I am only a padded impostor.’</p>
+
+<p>“Reading this book has recalled these
+trifles to my mind just as it has recalled
+the figure of the boy Chesterton as I
+first knew him in the early nineties. I
+can see him now, very tall and lanky,
+striding untidily along Kensington High
+Street, smiling and sometimes scowling
+as he talked to himself, apparently oblivious
+of everything he passed, but in
+reality a far closer observer than most,
+and one who not only observed but remembered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
+what he had seen. The fascination
+of this book is, in great part,
+due to the fact that he retained these
+powers of observation and memory
+throughout his life, and that he has applied
+them to himself as rigorously and
+as vividly as to his fellows.</p>
+
+<p>“‘I should thank God for my creation,’
+said Gilbert’s grandfather, ‘if I
+knew I was a lost soul.’ Gilbert would
+have done the same. ‘The primary problem
+for me,’ he writes, ‘was the problem
+of how men could be made to realize
+the wonder and splendour of being
+alive,’ and it is because he himself did
+realize it that he is able to say of his
+later years, ‘I have grown old without
+being bored. Existence is still a strange
+thing to me, and as a stranger I give
+it welcome.’</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton begins this book with a
+joke about his baptism. It is characteristic
+of the man. He loved laughter as
+much as he hated hypocrisy. ‘I have
+never understood,’ he says, ‘why a
+solid argument is any less solid because
+you make the illustrations as entertaining
+as you can.’ It is because, in this
+autobiography the philosophy is spiced
+with fun, and the fun sometimes spiced
+with philosophy, that so true a picture
+of the man emerges from the book.
+When he looks at himself he sees not
+only an intensely interesting being but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
+also an intensely amusing one. He
+speaks of his school days as the period
+during which ‘I was being instructed
+by somebody I did not know, about
+something I did not want to know.’ He
+tells how on his wedding day he stopped
+to buy a glass of milk at some haunt of
+his infancy, and again to buy a revolver
+and cartridges ‘with a general notion
+of protecting my bride from the pirates
+doubtless infesting the Norfolk Broads.’</p>
+
+<p>“You will find the same amusement he
+found if you read and re-read his chapter
+on ‘Friendship and Foolery,’ his story
+of the sudden invasion of Henry James’
+house at Rye by Mr. Belloc and another,
+unshaven and dishevelled but vociferous
+and irrepressible, his account of the
+birthday dinner to Mr. Belloc at which
+there were to be no speeches, and at
+which everybody present spoke, and his
+story of the aged negro porter in America
+with a face like a walnut whom,
+he says, ‘I discouraged from brushing
+my hat, and who rebuked me saying,
+‘Ho, young man, yo’s losing ye dignity
+before yo times. Yo’s got to look nice
+for the girls.’</p>
+
+<p>“The sketches of his friends and those
+of the many public men with whom he
+came in contact are of extraordinary
+interest. In a few lines he paints sharp
+and unforgettable portraits not only of
+his intimate friends but of men and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
+women with whom he had perhaps but
+one short conversation. It is thus he
+tells of his meeting with King George V
+at the house of the late Lord Burnham.
+He sums up his impression of ‘about as
+genuine a person as I ever met’ in these
+words—‘If it should ever happen that
+I hear before I die among new generations
+who never saw George the Fifth
+that he is being praised either as a
+strong silent man, or depreciated as a
+stupid and empty man, I shall know
+that history has got the whole portrait
+wrong.’</p>
+
+<p>“There are brilliant little sketches of
+George Wyndham, Charles Masterman
+and Cunninghame Graham, among many
+others; of each one it is the true thing
+and the generous thing that he sets
+down. No less arresting are the little
+cameos of wholly unknown men and
+women who said or did something that
+left an impression on his receptive and
+retentive mind. For example there was
+the ‘huge healthy simple-faced man of
+the plastering profession’ who at a
+Penny Reading, being unable to endure
+further recitations about to be provided
+by a gentleman who had already
+obliged with ‘The Charge of the Light
+Brigade’ and ‘The May Queen,’ ‘arose
+slowly in the middle of the room like
+some vast Leviathan arising from the
+ocean and observed, ‘Well, I’ve just ’ad<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>
+about enough of this. <em>Good</em> evening,
+Mr. Ash. <em>Good</em> evening, ladies and gentlemen,’
+and shouldered his way out of
+the Progressive Hall with an unaffected
+air of complete amiability and profound
+relief.’</p>
+
+<p>“Memorable as are all the records of
+his outer life, the insight that he gives
+us into his mental and spiritual development
+is of deeper significance. It would
+be impossible, for me at least, to summarize
+the subjective side of this autobiography.
+To be understood, even to
+be partly understood, it must be read
+in its entirety. Many readers will not
+be able to accept the conclusions to
+which Chesterton found himself inevitably
+driven, but none can fail to see
+that his steadfast faith, his sure hope,
+and his abounding charity were the outcome
+of no slipshod or haphazard
+thought, but of mental processes to
+which he gave the whole of his clear
+and original mind, and that in his life-long
+struggle towards the light which
+he felt assured he had ultimately found
+he was as completely honest with himself
+as he always was in his dealings
+with his fellow men.</p>
+
+<p>“This is a noble record of a noble
+life.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_TWO">CHAPTER TWO<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">LITERARY APPRENTICESHIP</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Chesterton had a shorter apprenticeship
+for a writing career than most men
+of letters. After leaving St. Paul’s he
+went to the Slade Art School where he
+graduated in 1891 at the age of seventeen.
+He forthwith began reviewing
+books on art for the “Bookman,” the
+“Speaker,” and other periodicals. In
+1901 he married Frances Blogg whom
+he had known for some time. Among
+those present at the wedding was Miss
+Elizabeth Yeats, the sister of the poet
+William Butler Yeats, who recalls,</p>
+
+<p>“My sister and I were at the Chesterton’s
+wedding at St. Mary’s Abbots
+in Kensington. Gilbert wanted the ceremony
+as ceremonial as possible—but
+Frances, who then belonged to some
+new thought people in religious matters,
+wanted everything possible cut
+from the Church of England Service—except
+just the legal parts. Gilbert
+had been, of course, brought up a nonconformist.”</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton’s marriage was the beginning
+of thirty-five years of happiness
+with a wife who was ideally congenial.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">A</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span></p>
+
+<p>His first book “Greybeards at Play,”
+consisting of jingles and sketches, had
+appeared in 1894. As time went on he
+gradually found the expression of ideas
+more satisfying than any kind of art
+work.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">A</a> Frances Chesterton died December 12, 1938.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>From 1898 to 1901 he and his brother
+Cecil helped Hilaire Belloc on “The New
+Witness,” a weekly paper pledged to
+wage eternal against political corruption.
+Some years earlier he had severed
+his connections with socialism and
+adopted Belloc’s ideas now known as
+“Distributism,” the progress of which
+was to be ultimately chronicled by the
+famous “G.&nbsp;K.’s Weekly” founded in
+1926.</p>
+
+<p>Stephen Gwynn recalls the first book
+written for Macmillan.</p>
+
+<p>“It is so long ago that I only dimly
+remember my first encounter with
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. He was married and they let
+a flat—Battersea Park—a tiny flat—in
+1901. I never knew two people
+who changed less in nearly forty years.</p>
+
+<p>“On my advice the Macmillans had
+asked him to do Browning in the ‘English
+Men of Letters,’ when he was still
+not quite arrived. Old Mr. Craik, the
+Senior Partner, sent for me and I found
+him in white fury, with Chesterton’s
+proofs corrected in pencil; or rather not
+corrected; there were still thirteen errors<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>
+uncorrected on one page; mostly in
+quotations from Browning. A selection
+from a Scotch ballad had been quoted
+from memory and three of the four
+lines were wrong. I wrote to Chesterton
+saying that the firm thought the
+book was going to “disgrace” them.
+His reply was like the trumpeting of
+a crushed elephant. But the book was
+a huge success as it deserved to be.”</p>
+
+<p>J. Lewis May writes about another
+early book,</p>
+
+<p>“A book that created something of a
+sensation in its day was the penetrating
+study of George Bernard Shaw by
+Chesterton. The mention of Chesterton
+reminds me that it was Lane who
+published his ‘Orthodoxy’ and his
+‘Napoleon of Notting Hill,’ as well as
+‘Heretics.’ Those, I think, were in the
+days before the royalty system came in,
+and I fancy Lane bought them outright.
+It was in regard to the
+first that I heard that Chesterton
+brought it in chapter by chapter as he
+wrote it, and it was written on any
+miscellaneous scraps of paper that
+came to his hand. He did not disdain,
+I have been told, even the paper that
+sugar is wrapped in, for the purpose of
+recording his valuable thoughts. Anatole
+France was accustomed to use the
+inside of envelopes or the backs of bills
+for the same object.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span></p>
+
+<p>William Platt gave Chesterton encouragement
+at the start,</p>
+
+<p>“We are all aware that one of G.&nbsp;K.
+C.’s first successes was by a series of
+articles signed ‘The Defendant’ each one
+being headed ‘In Defense of....’</p>
+
+<p>“I wrote immediately to the clever
+young ‘Defendant’ telling him of the
+certainty of his future as a writer. He
+immediately came ’round to see me.
+Tall, young, handsome, vivacious. At
+once we fraternized.</p>
+
+<p>“After that our trends in life became
+rather diverse. We met occasionally,
+chiefly at public gatherings in London.
+At rare intervals we exchanged letters.
+But G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. never forgot my early prediction
+of his inevitable rise to fame, or
+the many things we had in common, in
+his sense of knight-errantry and mine.
+In any hall the moment he caught sight
+of me he would greet me with his radiant
+smile, or, if free, he would at once
+come over to me.”</p>
+
+<p>A newspaperman once asked Chesterton
+what he considered his first most
+important book,</p>
+
+<p>“‘Napoleon of Notting Hill’ and I almost
+missed writing it. If I hadn’t
+written it, I would have stopped writing.
+I was what you Americans call
+‘broke’—only ten shillings in my pocket.
+Leaving my worried wife, I went down
+Fleet Street, got a shave, and then ordered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
+for myself, at the Cheshire
+Cheese, an enormous luncheon of my
+favorite dishes and a bottle of wine. It
+took my all, but I could then go to my
+publishers fortified. I told them I
+wanted to write a book and outlined the
+story of ‘Napoleon of Notting Hill.’ But
+I must have twenty pounds, I said, before
+I begin.</p>
+
+<p>“‘We will send it to you on Monday.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘If you want the book,’ I replied,
+‘you will have to give it to me today as
+I am disappearing to write it.’ They
+gave it.</p>
+
+<p>“Later Chesterton said, ‘What a fool
+a man is, when he comes to the last
+ditch, not to spend the last farthing to
+satisfy the inner man before he goes
+out to fight a battle with wits.’”</p>
+
+<p>Just before the War the Irish Lit-er-a-ry
+Society had a debate at which
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. was the principal speaker: the
+Chairman being Stephen Gwynn, and
+among the other speakers was Jimmy
+Glover at that time conductor of the
+Drury Lane orchestra, whose father
+published the collected edition of Tom
+Moore’s melodies. In introducing Chesterton,
+Stephen Gwynn chipped him on
+his life of Browning in the “English
+Men of Letters Series,” and on certain
+mistakes he had made on it, and wondered
+why he had undertaken a subject,
+about which he apparently knew so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
+little. Chesterton, with his usual
+chuckle and wiping the perspiration
+from his face on to the lapels of his
+frock coat, retorted that he had had
+some doubts on the undertaking, but
+when he had discovered in the series
+entitled “English Men of Letters,” a
+life written by an Irishman (Stephen
+Gwynn) on another Irishman (Tom
+Moore) he had no further qualms in
+the matter. The back-chat continued
+for a time, and Mr. Boyle recalls, ended
+by Chesterton suggesting that he
+should get on with the subject of the
+evening and then proceed with the important
+matter before them, which was
+the weighing of himself against Jimmy
+Glover who had had the audacity to
+state that he was heavier than the famous
+author. After the meeting George
+Boyle had a few words with G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+and reminded him that he was in St.
+Paul’s School with him but that he had
+been in a higher class than himself.
+With the same good-natured chuckle
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. said this was quite impossible
+as he had always remained in the very
+lowest class he could while at that
+school.</p>
+
+<p>As known from his “Autobiography,”
+Chesterton wrote a great deal for “The
+Speaker” under J.&nbsp;L. Hammond’s editorship.
+The latter came to know him
+through L.&nbsp;R. Oldershaw (an old school<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>
+friend of his who shared rooms with
+Hammond at that time in the Temple.)
+Oldershaw wrote for “The Speaker”
+(mainly fiction reviewing) and he
+brought Chesterton to see Hammond.
+As we can imagine he made a deep impression
+on Hammond, and on the other
+young men who worked for “The
+Speaker.” The first contribution he
+made was an article on Ruskin in the
+form of a review of a life by W.&nbsp;G.
+Collingwood. This appeared on April
+26th, 1900. The first number of “The
+Speaker” after it had passed into the
+hands of a group of Liberals to which
+Hammond belonged, was published at
+the beginning of October, 1899.</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton wrote much during the
+Boer War, including some excellent
+skits on Chamberlain and other topics
+at the General Election of 1900.</p>
+
+<p>F.&nbsp;W. Hirst has recollections about
+“The Speaker”:</p>
+
+<p>“As regards G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton, I was
+partly responsible for publishing his
+early contributions to ‘The Speaker’
+which I helped edit from 1899 (when I
+first met him) until after the end of
+the Boer War. My political cooperation
+with Chesterton (and Belloc) was
+mainly due to our antipathy to aggressive
+imperialism which was shared with
+Mark Twain.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_THREE">CHAPTER THREE<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">MEETINGS WITH G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Alice Henry of Melbourne,
+Australia, has kindly pointed out to
+the author that the following is something
+which has never had any but
+ephemeral publication in a newspaper,
+and yet it is surely one of the most
+striking messages he ever uttered.
+Chesterton was the one British writer,
+utterly unknown before, who built up a
+great reputation during the South
+African War, and it was gained, not
+through nationalistic support, but
+through determined and persistent opposition
+to the British policy. After the
+war ended, he ran a column in the
+“London Daily News.” A correspondent
+had asked him for a definition of
+his anti-war attitude. This was his
+reply,</p>
+
+<p>“The unreasonable patriot is one who
+sees the faults of his fatherland with
+an eye which is clearer and more merciless
+than any eye of hatred, the eye of
+an irrational and irrevocable love.”</p>
+
+<p>The reader will recall that in his
+“Autobiography” Chesterton states that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>
+it was in Fleet Street that he first met
+Sir Philip Gibbs “who carried a curious
+air of being the right man in the wrong
+place.”</p>
+
+<p>However, in a letter to the author,
+Sir Philip disagrees with this,</p>
+
+<p>“As regards G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C., he was a good
+friend of mine and has placed me on
+record in his ‘Autobiography’ as ‘the
+right man in the wrong place’—though
+as a matter of fact I claim to have been
+the right man in the right place—which
+was Fleet Street, where he and
+I met many times as writers for the
+Press. His books belong to my mental
+library and he will live in English literature
+as one of our great essayists,
+and above all as a good poet.”</p>
+
+<p>Sir Oliver Lodge recalls:</p>
+
+<p>“G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. at one time lived at the
+set of flats in Artillery Mansions where
+I had one of them, and I used to meet
+him outside sometimes waiting for a
+cab in the street and had a few words
+with him. I also met him at the Synthetic
+Society dinners, and once I impounded
+a piece of blotting-paper on
+which he had made a lot of characteristic
+scribbles (clever sketches of
+faces) absentmindedly during a discussion
+at one of these dinners.”</p>
+
+<p>Robert Blatchford, the well known
+editor of “The Clarion” and author of
+“Merrie England,” who was born away<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>
+back in 1851, tells of a long controversy
+he had with Chesterton in the
+press some thirty years ago about determinism:
+“Some years later he wrote
+in some paper, I forgot which, and paid
+me the finest compliment I ever received.
+He said,</p>
+
+<p>“‘Very few intellectual minds have
+left such a mark on our time: have cut
+so deep or remained so clean. His case
+for Socialism, so far as it goes, is so
+clear and simple that any one would
+understand it when it was put properly:
+his genius was that he could put it properly.
+His triumphs were triumphs of
+strong style, active pathos, and picturesque
+metaphor: his very lucidity
+was a generous sympathy with simple
+minds. For the rest he had triumphed
+with being honest and by not being
+afraid.’</p>
+
+<p>“Now in paying me that compliment
+he complimented himself, for only a
+very warm-hearted and generous man
+could have treated an opponent with
+such gallantry and kindness. But you
+cannot publish that tribute without giving
+the impression that I am fishing
+for a cheap advertisement.</p>
+
+<p>“Then as to his books. I liked what
+he wrote about Dickens and some of his
+poetry, and I recognize his brilliance:
+but a good deal of his work I found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
+rather tiresome, and you cannot publish
+such an opinion.</p>
+
+<p>“We met several times and got on
+quite pleasantly together.”</p>
+
+<p>W.&nbsp;W. Jacobs, the author of “Many
+Cargoes,” recollects,</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot recall my first meeting
+with Chesterton: it was so very long
+ago. But I do remember an occasion
+when he sat next to me at dinner and
+said that he had rheumatism so badly
+that he did not know how he would be
+able to stand up for his speech. A difficulty
+which he solved by keeping my
+right shoulder in a strong hand and
+bearing down upon it. It was a good
+speech, but it seemed to be the longest
+I had ever listened to.”</p>
+
+<p>“I regret that I never met G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+personally,” laments James Hilton, “but
+I did when quite a small boy send him
+a poem I had written (a drinking song
+as a matter of fact), modeled after his
+own style, and received a charming letter
+from his wife, I think, saying that
+he had been much interested and ‘believed
+that after the war there would
+be a great recrudescence of drinking
+songs.’ This was my first letter from
+even the wife of a celebrity and I was
+very proud of it. As a matter of fact,
+in my entire life I have only written
+anything you could call fan letters to
+two authors, Chesterton on this one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
+occasion, and again later to Galsworthy.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish I could give you more interesting
+reminiscences of Chesterton,
+whose work I admire very much, but
+we were of different generations and it
+happened that we never met, though
+we had many mutual friends. I think
+my favorite book of his is ‘The Man
+Who Was Thursday,’ which I remember
+reading during my school days. I am
+very pleased to hear from you that he
+expressed admiration for ‘Goodbye Mr.
+Chips.’ I did not know of this and it is
+a source of deep gratification to me.”</p>
+
+<p>Christopher Hollis first met G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+in company with one of Belloc’s sons:</p>
+
+<p>“The first time that I met Mr. Chesterton
+was, when as an undergraduate
+at Oxford, I was in the company of
+Hilary Belloc, the son of Mr. Belloc, to
+see the Association Football Cup Final—the
+culminating event of the English
+football season—at Wembley. We were
+traveling by motor bicycle from Oxford
+to Wembley and, passing through Beaconsfield
+in the middle of the morning,
+Hilary Belloc took me to pay a call on
+Mr. Chesterton, whom we found walking
+in the garden with his wife.”</p>
+
+<p>And Hilaire Belloc himself:</p>
+
+<p>“I met Mr. Chesterton first when I
+was thirty, and he, I think, twenty-six.
+That was at the end of the year 1900.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
+I had already written and spoken for
+some years on what later became known
+as ‘Distributism.’ I do not think that
+he had by that time written or spoken
+upon public affairs.”</p>
+
+<p>Gilbert Frankau is “afraid that I
+only met G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton once. This
+was at a debate. He took the chair
+and was, I remember, a little sarcastic
+about my own contribution. But the
+sarcasm was so beautifully done that it
+became almost a compliment. He
+really had a rare charm of manner. And
+he really was a character. Characters
+being only too rare in this modern
+world where all tend to become stereotyped.
+I was, of course, a Father
+Brown fan. But which really made the
+deepest impression on my young mind
+was Chesterton’s poetry. It had, for
+me, the supreme virtue of vigor.”</p>
+
+<p>The critic Coulson Kernahan admired
+Chesterton hugely:</p>
+
+<p>“The first time I met him was when
+he was lunching with dear old Robert
+Barr at the Savage Club. Barr came
+over to my table to say ‘Chesterton is
+my guest and I told him who you were.’
+He said ‘Kernahan and I are two of
+the rather uncommon authors, today,
+who write of serious and religious subjects.
+I’d like to meet him.’ ‘So come
+over to my table, Kernahan, and meet
+him.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span></p>
+
+<p>“I did. At about two o’clock Barr
+had to leave to keep an editorial engagement,
+and I said to G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. ‘I am
+a member. Won’t you stay on as my
+guest now your host is going?’ He
+did. He stayed till six o’clock, talking
+brilliantly all the time (with an interlude
+for tea—’till then he had enjoyed
+the club’s excellent wine), and never
+once repeated himself. Then we met
+again at the Centenary Celebration of
+George MacDonald. Ramsay MacDonald
+was President of the Centenary
+Memorial, with Chesterton and myself
+as Vice-Presidents, and G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. was
+one of the speakers, and very happy
+and interesting in what he said.</p>
+
+<p>“My last meeting with him was in
+Hastings. My wife and I were passing
+the Queen’s Hotel on the front, and I
+heard myself hailed by name. It was
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. sitting outside in the sun at a
+table, with a bottle of wine before him,
+and he invited us to come and share it,
+and as many more bottles as we felt inclined
+for. Once again, he talked in
+that brilliant paradoxical and ‘intriguing’
+way of his and for hours on at a
+time. My wife and I came away with
+his musical, but rather high voice, still
+in our ears, and with new and many
+beautiful, but sometimes perplexing
+thoughts, born of what that man of
+genius had said, in our minds.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span></p>
+
+<p>“That, alas, is all I can tell you of
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. But if you can get sight of
+my book ‘Celebrities’ which I think
+Dutton published in America, you will
+find G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. figuring there as Judge,
+(Bernard Shaw as Foreman and myself
+as one of the Jury), at the much discussed
+Edwin Drood trial held in the
+June before the war by the Dickens Fellowship
+of which I was, and still am,
+a Vice-President. Chesterton, as I say
+in my book, took the part of Judge seriously
+and finely, for we wished to come
+to some discovery about Edwin Drood.
+But Bernard Shaw ‘guyed’ the show,
+and turned a serious inquiry into a
+farce.”</p>
+
+<p>Eric Gill, the well known sculptor,
+recalls,</p>
+
+<p>“Apart from seeing Chesterton many
+times at meetings I don’t think I actually
+met him in a personal way until
+about 1925 on the occasion of the
+founding of ‘G.&nbsp;K.’s Weekly,’ when I
+stayed the night at his house and we
+discussed the policy of his paper, especially
+with reference to industrialism
+and art. After we came to live here
+(which is only a few miles from Beaconsfield)
+we saw him more often.”</p>
+
+<p>A party of members of St. George’s
+Rambling Society, devoted to historical
+and archaeological research were visiting
+Beaconsfield on a pleasant afternoon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>
+in the September of 1935. They
+called upon the author at his home,
+“Top Meadow.” Mrs. Chesterton received
+them with much courtesy, and
+while they were talking to her, he came
+into the Lounge Hall of his house, which
+was fitted up in the Tudor style, with
+large fire-place, around which everyone
+grouped. They rose when he entered,
+and he soon engaged all in conversation.
+He was in excellent form. His first
+question, “What really did you come
+here to see?” was promptly answered
+by one of the members, Fred H. Postans,
+“We came to see Mr. Chesterton.”
+He then told an amusing anecdote
+against himself. He had been much
+annoyed by the noise made by the
+local film studios quite close to his
+home, and after sending several ineffectual
+letters of protest, eventually
+asked his secretary to call upon the
+manager of the studios. Upon doing so,
+that lady made a strong protest saying
+emphatically, “The position is becoming
+impossible.... Mr. Chesterton can’t
+write,” to which the manager replied,
+“We were well aware of that.” He
+relished the telling of this story immensely.
+He went on to give some
+local details about Beaconsfield. It was
+asked him whether he ever intended to
+write a Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson,
+and he said he thought that had already<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
+been done very well by Boswell.
+Postans pointed out that there was a
+little too much Boswell in that, in his
+opinion. He seemed to agree and said
+that he greatly admired the Doctor and
+it was not entirely impossible that he
+might undertake to write his life.</p>
+
+<p>“My only meeting with Chesterton,”
+writes Hugh Kingsmill, “was in the autumn
+of 1912, when I went to Beaconsfield
+to interview him for ‘Hearth and
+Home,’ which was being edited by
+Frank Harris. One of his arms was in a
+sling, and he found great difficulty in
+pouring out drink. To my surprise he
+was not quaffing ale but sipping a
+liqueur. He insisted however in pouring
+the drinks for both of us, out of
+courtesy. He seemed to me very absent-minded
+and gentle, and I formed an
+extremely pleasant impression of him.
+At the same time he did not strike me
+as at all alive to ordinary existence.
+His praise of the man in the street and
+of common life has always seemed to me
+a defense thrown up against his own
+temperament. I think he was naturally
+an artist and poet of the self-absorbed,
+rather limited kind, and that he was
+afraid of this tendency, and fled to
+democracy, Dickens and eventually the
+Roman Church, in order not to lapse
+into pure aestheticism. As far as I
+know, and I have met many of them,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
+his friends were drawn from rather
+cranky people, not from normal types,
+and this illustrates the division between
+his opinions and his temperament. He
+was not a good judge of individuals, in
+my opinion. Nothing could be further
+from the truth than his picture of
+Dickens as a roistering lover of the
+poor. On the other hand, his intelligence
+was very acute in the destructive
+criticism of the fads and poses against
+which he was always contending. If
+he did not understand ordinary life, he
+certainly understood the aesthetes,
+faddists and millenarians of the twenty
+years before the war, and made brilliant
+game of them in ‘Heretics.’ Since
+the war, his work seems to me to have
+fallen off greatly. I have seen him
+several times, wandering about the
+streets or in Marylebone station, and
+was touched by his melancholy look. I
+think life depressed him. In his youth
+he praised the poor man’s literature of
+thrillers and shockers. In his later life
+he denounced the cinema. What the
+distinction, at any rate in mind, between
+printed nonsense and visible nonsense
+is, he never explained. I attribute this
+change of fact that as he grew older,
+he could not summon up enough energy
+to continue his celebration of the
+man in the street, and was more concerned
+with finding reasons for his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
+faith in his last refuge from a perplexing
+world, the Roman Catholic Church.</p>
+
+<p>“But he did a valuable work in destructive
+criticism, and he was a lovable
+figure. I cannot think of any other
+well-known writer of the day in England
+whom one would not sooner spare
+from the scene than G.&nbsp;K. My friend
+Hesketh Pearson was staying with me
+when I read of Chesterton’s death. I
+told him of it through the bathroom
+door, and he sent up a hollow groan
+which must have been echoed that
+morning all over England.”</p>
+
+<p>Philip Guedalla recollects, “I first
+saw Gilbert Chesterton on the occasion
+of a visit of his to Oxford when I was
+an undergraduate ’round about 1909
+or 1910. It was a dark vision of the
+inside of a four-wheeled cab almost entirely
+filled with Chesterton. From its
+interior an arm and hand emerged and
+proceeded to struggle wildly with the
+outside handle of the vehicle. There
+was a College debate the same evening
+of which Chesterton was the opener;
+and I was offered up to him as the only
+undergraduate with insufficient impudence
+to attempt this suicidal controversy.
+He came back with me to my
+room in College and performed two acts
+which would have struck him as sacramentally
+Chestertonian. First he sat
+through my only arm chair to its destruction;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
+then he finished all my
+whisky. On the next morning I piously
+presented for signature by its author a
+copy of ‘Orthodoxy’ and was profoundly
+shocked when he inscribed it ‘BOSH
+BY G.&nbsp;K. CHESTERTON.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I should be delighted to go on
+record as one of the admirers of G.&nbsp;K.
+Chesterton,” writes Clements Ripley.
+“He has always been an enthusiasm of
+mine. The first book of his I ever read
+was ‘The Man Who Was Thursday.’ I
+couldn’t have been more than fourteen
+when I picked this up and of course a
+great deal of the symbolism and the
+metaphysical quality of the book escaped
+me at that age. I read it for
+the story and it was a very fast moving
+and fascinating story. I think even
+then I appreciated the brilliancy of
+Chesterton’s paradoxical style, although
+at that time I certainly wouldn’t have
+called it that.”</p>
+
+<p>“It seems hardly possible,” ponders
+Walter de la Mare, “that a human being
+with the least claim to a vestige of
+intelligence should have forgotten his
+first meeting with G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. I am, however,
+that unfortunate kind of man, and
+cannot even remember my first observations
+on entering this (at least)
+exceptionally interesting world. I recall
+most vividly, of course, many meetings
+and these memories are not in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
+slightest degree composite ones—even
+if memories ever are composite. And
+so vividly, indeed, that it all but
+amounts to an hallucination—as if we
+were meeting again!</p>
+
+<p>“Like how many, many friends of his,
+I have the greatest affection for, and
+admiration of, his work—and how much
+his work was he himself, though not,
+of course, all himself! That, I suppose,
+can never be.”</p>
+
+<p>“There is in London a distinguished
+Society,” declares Marie Belloc Lowndes,
+“called The Wiseman Dining Society.
+As its name implies, it is a Catholic
+Society, but no distinction is made with
+regard to the religion of the speakers.
+A great number of outstanding men
+and women have delivered addresses on
+every kind of subject of interest to an
+educated man and woman. The net
+thrown has been large, among those
+who have spoken being people as different
+as Lord Cecil (of the League of
+Nations), Algernon Blackwood, the famous
+novelist, Liddell Hart, the most
+noted military critic in the English-speaking
+world, and Bernard Pares, the
+great authority on Russia. Of them
+all, and the Society has been in existence
+now for something like ten years—by
+far the most interesting, and the
+most beautifully delivered address, was
+that of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. on Joan of Arc. This<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
+was the more remarkable, as to the
+best of my belief, Chesterton was not
+celebrated in this country as a speaker.
+I myself never heard him speak in
+public, but on that one occasion. No
+reporters can be admitted to these dinners
+because a very free discussion follows
+every paper read, so I fear no record
+of the speech exists.”</p>
+
+<p>Father Owen F. Dudley records, “I
+remember still quite vividly my first
+meeting with Mr. Chesterton and having
+tea with him in his house in Beaconsfield,
+Bucks. He was tremendously
+jovial over H.&nbsp;G. Wells, whom we discussed,
+and whom he considered a
+thinker who always stopped thinking.
+As I watched him, I realized that all
+the jokes that were bubbling out of him,
+as well as the epigrams, would in all
+probability appear in some article or
+book. Mrs. Chesterton and the Secretary
+were at tea and it struck me as
+one of the cheeriest households I had
+ever been in.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_FOUR">CHAPTER FOUR<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">SOME FRIENDS</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“There’s nothing worth the wear of living</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Save laughter and the love of friends.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>No one believed more in these words
+of his friend Hilaire Belloc than Chesterton
+himself. He delighted in thousands
+of steadfast friends and acquaintances,
+and they rejoiced in his
+inimitable wisdom and good fellowship.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist, Isabel C. Clark, first met
+him in 1929 when he and his wife
+lunched with her at Piazza Grazioli: “I
+cannot remember that he said anything
+at all amusing or arresting, resembling
+in this the late Lytton Strachey and
+Kenneth Graham so that I imagine few
+authors are as loquacious as myself.
+But then I am not a man of genius!</p>
+
+<p>“When I saw him he was fifty-five
+years of age but looked at least ten
+years more, probably on account of his
+enormous bulk about which he was fond<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
+of joking; indeed I believe he was
+proud of resembling Dr. Johnson in this
+respect.</p>
+
+<p>“I heard him lecture on Henry VIII
+here at the Convent of the Holy Child
+when he said that Henry had no intention
+of Protestantizing the Church in
+England but thought he could have a
+Catholic Church with himself at the
+head of it, and that he was astonished
+to discover how rapidly it disintegrated
+into many sects. I remember his saying
+on this occasion: ‘Many people are
+prejudiced against Henry VIII because
+he was a Large Fat Man,’ and then
+going off into a chuckle of laughter,
+swelling himself out to an enormous
+size as he spoke. His wife told me he
+always rather spoilt his own jokes by
+laughing at them before he uttered
+them.”</p>
+
+<p>Ralph Adams Cram met him first in
+London a good many years ago: “Father
+Wagget asked my wife and myself once
+when we were staying in London, whom
+we would like best to meet—‘anyone
+from the King downward.’ We chose
+Chesterton who was a very particular
+friend of Father Wagget. At that time
+we put on a dinner at the Buckingham
+Palace Hotel (in those days the haunt
+of all the County families) and in defiance
+of fate, had this dinner in the
+public dining room. We had as guests<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>
+Father Wagget, G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. and Mrs. Chesterton.
+The entrance into the dining
+room of the short processional created
+something of a sensation amongst the
+aforesaid County families there assembled.
+Father Wagget, thin, crop-headed
+monk in cassock and rope;
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C., vast and practically globular;
+little Mrs. Chesterton, very South Kensington
+in moss green velvet; my wife,
+and myself.</p>
+
+<p>“The dinner was a riot. I have the
+clearest recollection of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. seated
+ponderously at the table, drinking
+champagne by magnums, continually
+feeding his face with food which, as he
+was constantly employed in the most
+dazzling and epigrammatic conversation,
+was apt to fall from his fork and
+rebound from his corporosity, until the
+fragments disappeared under the table.</p>
+
+<p>“He and Father Wagget egged each
+other on to the most preposterous
+amusements. Each would write a
+triolet for the other to illustrate. They
+were both as clever with the pencil as
+with the pen, and they covered the
+backs of menus with most astonishing
+literary and artistic productions. I particularly
+remember G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. suddenly
+looking out of the dining room window
+towards Buckingham Palace and announcing
+that he was now prepared ‘to
+write a disloyal triolet.’ This was during<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>
+the reign of King Edward VII, and
+the result was convincing. I have somewhere
+the whole collection of these literary
+productions with their illustrations,
+but where they are, I do not
+know.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ten or fifteen years ago,” recollects
+Stephen Gwynn, whom we have already
+quoted, “Barrie had taken a big house
+for August, and there was a large party,
+including several schoolboys and the
+Chestertons. It was decided to play
+the game of clues, and in the evening
+a dozen or more of us were each given
+bits of paper containing some mystification
+in verse. At the end all the
+clues led us to a most amusing charcoal
+portrait of Lord Beaverbrook.
+Everybody went to bed, and I was settling
+down to a quiet chat with G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+over whiskey and soda when three
+schoolboys filed past. ‘Thank you very
+much,’ they said to him, ‘for giving us
+an amusing evening.’</p>
+
+<p>“Next morning I said to the spokesman’s
+mother, ‘Your youngster said his
+piece very well.’ But she knew nothing
+about it. It had been the schoolboy’s
+own idea. Admittedly the Chestertons
+were the best guests in that gathering
+of a long and very mixed list.</p>
+
+<p>“I remember how Lord David Cecil
+when still a boy, sitting up there one
+night and expounding to us two elders<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>
+the point of view of the younger generation.
+Not only the easiest man in
+the world to talk with, but also a very
+good listener.”</p>
+
+<p>Lucille Borden, the novelist, found
+G.&nbsp;K.’s personality was even more impressive
+than the things he put to
+paper: “I remember once on meeting
+him I asked him what he thought of a
+certain small English boy (who calls us
+Aunt-Uncle though we are no relation)
+who used to plot out London in sections,
+selecting the men of prominence in
+those sections, then call on them. This
+between the ages of nine and thirteen.
+He was very small and fragile, and by
+reason of this, all flunkies and secretaries
+let him pass. So he not only
+gained access to the great man but
+used to go and sit with him, looking for
+all the world like Tiny Tim.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Indeed I remember that boy—he
+was an extraordinary chap. He will go
+far but he needs a guiding hand.’ ...
+This after the boy had grown. The
+thing that was so remarkable was, that
+Terence had only his inquisitive personality
+to recommend him. He has
+gone far but without the guiding hand,
+and drifted into the set pseudo-literati,
+sponsored by the Sitwells. However, at
+the age of eighteen or nineteen he married—a
+very clever young woman over
+whom the London newspapers fought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
+and whom the “Daily Mail” finally acquired—as
+one of their top-notch women.
+This gives Terry leisure to write
+terrible but correct poetry—and to
+carry on a most extraordinary and original
+literary career.</p>
+
+<p>“Back to ‘nos moutons’—we’ve seen
+Gilbert Chesterton start a broadcast-speech
+to a club on whose Board I am—for
+which he was allowed forty minutes:
+He rose from the speakers’ table—put
+his watch in front of him—began
+one of the most stirring prose poems to
+which we all ever listened—made his
+introduction—points in phrases as colorful
+as a rainbow—approached his conclusion—made
+his logical deductions
+and finished on the fortieth minute. It
+was such a tour de force as was rarely
+done in the earliest days of radio.”</p>
+
+<p>“When I was introduced to Chesterton,”
+writes Adolphe de Castro, “I was
+a bit abashed. He was so formidable
+and such a mighty eater. But his conversation
+and his wit were delightful.
+I have my doubts if any one ever had
+the temerity to ask Mr. Chesterton
+why he had embraced Catholicism. I
+asked him. Americans in those days
+were forgiven much, and a friend of the
+late Ambrose Bierce was a particularly
+privileged character. Chesterton twirled
+the end of his scraggly moustache for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
+some time, then he said: ‘Because of its
+primitivity.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Then you ought to have become a
+Jew,’ I said. ‘Judaism has greater
+primitivity.’</p>
+
+<p>“To which he rejoined: ‘It has too
+much primitivity and is not sufficiently
+elastic for adaptability.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘You hold with Heine that Judaism
+is not a religion but a misfortune?’ I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Heine was a great poet,’ returned
+Chesterton. ‘And do you recall what
+John Locke said, ‘A merchant lies for
+gain; a poet lies for pleasure.’ Do you
+happen to write poetry?’</p>
+
+<p>“I put my hand in my pocket and
+pulled out a sheaf of papers, extracted
+one and gave it to him. He read it.
+‘I like this,’ he said.</p>
+
+<p>“It was a quasi sonnet entitled ‘The
+Jewish Poet.’”</p>
+
+<p>“At one time I doubted the existence
+of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.,” declares Holbrook Jackson.
+“I listened to the stories of him as one
+listens to the yarns of men who have
+been in the ends of the earth. And
+even now, after I have looked upon him
+with my own eyes, I have to nudge
+myself to realize his probability. He
+has the reality of one of those dragons
+or fairies in which he has such invincible
+faith. I first beheld him on a Yorkshire
+moor far from his natural element,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
+which is in London. He was in
+the locality on a holiday, and I had gone
+over to verify his existence just as one
+might go to the Arctic regions to verify
+the existence of the North Pole or the
+Northwest Passage.</p>
+
+<p>“He was staying at the house of a
+Bradford merchant adjoining the moor,
+and I was to meet him there. It was
+April and raining. I trudged through
+the damp furze and heather up to the
+house only to find that the object of
+my pilgrimage had disappeared without
+leaving a trace behind him. No alarm
+was felt, as that was one of his habits.
+Sometimes he would go down to the
+railway station, and taking a ticket to
+any place that had a name which appealed
+to him, vanish into the unknown,
+making his way home on foot or wheel
+as fancy or circumstances directed. On
+this occasion, however, nothing so serious
+had happened. Therefore I adjourned
+with the lady of the house and
+Mrs. Chesterton to an upper hall, where
+a noble latticed window commanded a
+wide vista of the moor. I peered into
+the wild, half hoping that I should first
+behold the great form of Gilbert Chesterton
+looming over the bare brow of
+the wold, silhouetted against the grey
+sky like the symbol of a large new faith.</p>
+
+<p>“His coming was not melodramatic;
+it was, on the contrary, quite simple,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
+quite idyllic, and quite characteristic.
+In fact, he did not come at all, rather
+was it that our eyes, and later our
+herald, went to him. For quite close to
+the house we espied him, hatless and
+negligently clad in a Norfolk suit of
+homespun, leaning in the rain against a
+budding tree, absorbed in the pages of
+a little red book.</p>
+
+<p>“This was a most fitting vision. It
+suited admirably his unaffected, careless,
+and altogether childlike genius. He
+came into the house shortly afterwards
+and consumed tea and cake like any
+mortal and talked the talk of Olympus
+with the abandonment and irresistibility
+of a child. I found his largeness
+wonderfully proportionate, even, as is
+so rarely the case with massive men,
+to his head. This is amply in keeping
+with the rest of his person. He wears
+a tangled mass of light brown hair prematurely
+streaked with grey, and a
+slight moustache. His grey-blue eyes
+laugh happily as his full lips unload
+themselves of a constant flow of self-amused
+and piquant words. Like Dr.
+Johnson whom he resembles so much in
+form, he is a great talker. But while
+I looked at him I was not reminded of
+the lexicographer, but of Balzac. And
+as his monologue rolled on and we
+laughed and wondered, I found myself
+carried away to a studio in France,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
+where the head of Chesterton became
+one with the head of Rodin’s conception
+of France’s greatest literary genius.</p>
+
+<p>“Since my first meeting I have seen
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. many times. I have seen him
+standing upon platforms defending the
+people’s pleasures against the inroads
+of Puritanism. I have seen him addressing
+men from a pulpit, and on one
+memorable occasion at Clifford’s Inn
+Hall I saw him defending the probability
+of the liquefication of the blood of
+St. Januarius in the teeth of a pyrotechnic
+heckling from Bernard Shaw.
+Again I have seen his vast person dominating
+the staring throng in Fleet
+Street like a superman; and I have seen
+the traffic of Ludgate Circus held up
+for him, as he strolled by in cloak and
+sombrero like a brigand of Adelphi
+drama or a Spanish hidalgo by Velasquez,
+oblivious alike of critical bus-driver
+and wonder-struck multitude.</p>
+
+<p>“But best it is to see him in his
+favorite habitat of Bohemian Soho.
+There in certain obscure yet excellent
+French restaurants with Hilaire Belloc
+and other writers and talkers, he may
+be seen, sitting behind a tall tankard
+of lager or a flagon of Chianti, eternally
+unravelling the mysterious tangle of
+living ideas; now rising mountainously
+on his feet to overshadow the company
+with weighty argument, anon brandishing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
+a wine bottle as he insists upon defending
+some controversial point until
+‘we break the furniture’; and always
+chuckling at his own wit and the sallies
+of others, as he fights the battle of
+ideas with indefatigable and unconquerable
+good-humour.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_FIVE">CHAPTER FIVE<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">ON THE ENGLISH PLATFORM</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the course of his life, Chesterton
+accomplished much lecturing and public
+speaking as did most of the English
+writers of his generation such as Shaw,
+Wells, and to a lesser extent Galsworthy
+and Bennett. Like many Englishmen
+his success as a speaker was
+variable and subject to his health and
+feelings even more than most men. Yet
+no matter how indifferently Chesterton
+might have done in the formal part of
+his address, he always more than redeemed
+himself in the question-and-answer
+period that followed. The speed
+with which he would answer questions
+was simply incredible. As one listened
+to him answering one question after
+another usually of so unrelated a nature,
+one marvelled at ability and nimbleness
+so extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>The distinguished author R. Ellis
+Roberts, heard a lecture at Oxford:</p>
+
+<p>“I do not, alas! remember what Mr.
+Chesterton lectured to us about. I remember
+the manner of his lecture. It
+seemed to be written on a hundred written<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
+pieces of variously shaped paper,
+written in ink and pencils (of all colors
+and in chalk). All the papers were in
+a splendid and startling disorder, and
+I remember being at first just a little
+disappointed. Then the papers were
+abandoned, and G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. talked, and we
+got more and more interested and
+pleased. I remember a passage about
+cathedrals and railway stations which
+aroused opposition; and with opposition
+and question the real Chesterton
+broke loose. He will, I am sure, if he
+reads this in the next world, forgive
+me for saying that to myself I whispered
+‘Elephant’. All day the image
+had been present with me of something
+vast and weighty, incredibly simple,
+incalculably wise, and unquestionably
+kindly. Foolishly I mourned a certain
+sluggishness. Then as I say, came opposition;
+and suddenly—trunk up, roaring,
+speeding, faster and faster—the
+wisest of us was pursuing his trifling
+opponents through quickset hedge and
+over ploughed fields of argument. How
+he raced! I know, because of all the
+opposition none ran faster than I!”</p>
+
+<p>“My own acquaintance with Chesterton,”
+Father Francis J. Yealy, S.&nbsp;J.,
+writes “has been gained from his books
+and from one of his lectures delivered
+in Cambridge, England, in 1925. Just
+outside the town of Cambridge is a village<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>
+called Chesterton, the Anglican
+vicar of which sat on the stage during
+the lecture. Afterwards he made a short
+speech, inviting G.&nbsp;K. to visit the village
+and, I believe, suggesting that it
+might have been named after his ancestors.
+At any rate Chesterton responded
+gracefully and played most
+amusingly with this identity of names.
+It was possible, he said, that the place
+had been named after one of his ancestors,
+but it seemed more likely that
+the family had taken their name from
+it. Perhaps they had lived there in the
+remote past under a different name,
+and one of them, who would no doubt
+have been a worthless fellow, had eventually
+been run out of town. The natural
+place to go was of course Cambridge;
+and the people there with their great
+kindliness allowed him to loiter about.
+In time he became a familiar figure in
+Cambridge; but, as no one knew his
+name, they began to refer to him as the
+fellow from Chesterton and later simply
+as Chesterton. This he thought was
+very reasonable theory of the origin of
+his name.”</p>
+
+<p>“One day in February, 1902,” records
+Mr. Karl H. Harklander, “I happened
+to notice on the announcing board of
+the Leeds University that a G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton
+would lecture about ‘Man, Great
+Man, Super-man.’ I was a young textile<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
+manufacturer on a business journey
+and hungered for more than ‘bread
+alone!’ That night I heard the best
+and also the shortest lecture of my
+life; in less than twenty minutes our
+assembly was quite clear about ‘Man,
+Great man, Super-man.’ I marked my
+young ‘man’ who might become super-man,’
+but who chose to be ‘great man’
+in accordance with the exposition of the
+1902 lecture.”</p>
+
+<p>A charming reminiscence comes from
+Edward Brown:</p>
+
+<p>“In 1927 the great man accepted the
+Honorary Presidency of the University
+College of Wales (Aberystwyth) Debates
+Union. The undergraduates resolved
+that he should be conveyed from
+the station to the Queen’s Hotel in a
+manner worthy of his greatness and
+of our reputation for hospitality. An
+old fashioned vehicle of the ‘growler’
+variety was dug out from the lumber
+yard of an inn and some of the dust and
+signs of neglect were removed therefrom.</p>
+
+<p>“As Secretary of Debates Union I
+demanded and won, the privilege of
+driving this state coach. Our Officers
+Training Corps received permission to
+act as escort but were refused the privilege
+of carrying arms. They accordingly
+armed themselves with hoes,
+rakes, spades, axes, etcetera.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span></p>
+
+<p>“It had been arranged that the President
+of the Union should sit with
+Chesterton (‘back to the engine’) and
+the President of Ladies’ Hostel ...
+fortunately a very small lady ... with
+Mrs. Chesterton. But as soon as the
+two guests had taken their seats, the
+O.&nbsp;T.&nbsp;C. rushed the coach and some half
+dozen of them secured a seat or footing
+of some sort. A burly sergeant with
+battle axe (borrowed from the Art Department)
+sat beside Mrs. Chesterton
+facing G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. My stolid steeds were
+replaced by forty undergraduates, and
+we tore through the narrow streets at
+a most reckless pace.”</p>
+
+<p>In reply to the demand for a speech,
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. stood at the top of Queen’s
+Hotel steps and said,</p>
+
+<p>“You need never be ashamed of the
+athletic prowess of this College. The
+Pyramids, we are told, were built by
+slave labor. But the slaves were not
+expected to haul the pyramids in one
+piece!”</p>
+
+<p>In his address that evening he commented
+on the ancient custom of sending
+a condemned man to his death in
+the same coach as the executioner; and
+described his feelings as he faced the
+great axe in the coach. Later he presented
+the “executioner” with an exquisite
+caricature of them both with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
+axe between them. The caricature now
+hangs in the Men’s Union.</p>
+
+<p>An Honorary President of the Debate
+Union at Aberystwyth is always elected
+by the D.&nbsp;U. Committee (all students,
+save for one Lecturer). The name is
+submitted to the Senate for its approval.
+The Debate Union was formed
+from an amalgamation of the Literary
+and Debating Society and the Political
+Union in 1925 about a year before
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s Presidency. Chesterton was
+succeeded by John Drinkwater, John
+van Druten, and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.</p>
+
+<p>G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s speech was on “Liberty:
+the Last Phase,” by which he explained
+he meant the <em>latest</em> phase. Just
+as barons had fought against the tyranny
+of would-be despots, just as yeoman
+had fought those same barons for
+freedom of property and action, just as
+... etc. factory-hands; electors ... so
+ought men today to band in a great
+crusade to defend the common man’s
+freedom of the highway, a freedom
+which was being denied him by the
+motorist. The cause was obscured by
+the common man’s desire to join the
+enemy as soon as his means permitted
+him to do so. Envy of our enemy inspired
+a desire to emulate him. His
+chariots were objects of admiration,
+instead of loathing and furious hostility<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
+... But the fact remained that our
+roads, our ancient highways were being
+wrested from us. “The price of liberty
+is eternal vigilance.”</p>
+
+<p>The Senior History Lecturer and
+some others were of the opinion that
+the whole thesis of the address was a
+gigantic leg-pull!</p>
+
+<p>The students that evening were a
+songful crowd, and they had evolved in
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s honour a parody of a well-known
+Salvation Army hymn that went,
+“I’m H-A-P-P-PY, I know I am, I’m
+sure I am, I’m H-A-P-P-Y!”</p>
+
+<p>They had already several parodies on
+that spelling motif, such as “I’m
+D-R-U-N-K!”</p>
+
+<p>That evening as G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. entered,
+they all burst into, “I’m G.&nbsp;K. Chester—TON,”
+with terrific and increasing emphasis
+on the TON, later varying it
+“G.&nbsp;K.... Just-a TON.” The great
+man was delighted and bowed, smiled,
+and clapped his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Of Chesterton in Liverpool Mr. Clarence
+Fry recalls, “I was living in Liverpool
+at the time Mr. Chesterton joined
+the Roman Catholic Church. Having
+been charmed with his writings, I went
+to see and hear him lecture. I remember
+how disappointed I was with his
+address (perhaps owing to Protestant
+prejudices). But I had reckoned without
+my host. The Chairman said all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
+questions asked on paper would be
+answered by the Speaker. And then
+Mr. Chesterton rose and reading out
+each question, replied in a few pregnant
+words; immediately sitting down and
+beaming most angelically all round the
+hall on the audience, as much as to say,
+‘How’s that! Beat that, if you can!’
+And in <em>no</em> one case could any answer be
+ventured. I was delighted and overwhelmed
+with the sense of his masterly
+dealing with the issues laid before him.
+The replies were electric in their concise
+power. Also, as you may believe, I
+was charmed with his whole personality.”</p>
+
+<p>The chairman was the late Roman
+Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Dr.
+Keating, supported by the Catholic
+Bishop of Birmingham and other dignitaries.
+The occasion aroused great
+interest, as not long before G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. had
+joined the Catholic Church. The meeting
+was arranged so that this new “Defender
+of the Faith” might help the
+cause of Catholicism in the city. The
+speech was largely devoted to an exposition
+of his newly-found faith.</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton seldom came to Glasgow,”
+records George Mortimer, “and
+the only time I heard him was on his
+first visit to the city one Sunday evening
+fully thirty years ago when he lectured
+in the Berkeley Hall which seats<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>
+about six hundred people. His subject
+was ‘Some New Dangers of Oligarchies.’
+In those days Sunday evening
+lectures were not popular in Scotland,
+and neither are they now. The churches
+are in most cases meagrely attended in
+the evening, the majority of people
+either going for a walk, visiting their
+friends or remaining at home and listening
+to the wireless.</p>
+
+<p>“Evidently G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton, whom
+I had first seen referred to years previously
+as a new Carlyle, proved a powerful
+magnet, for instead of going to
+church I traveled from Paisley to Glasgow—seven
+miles by tramcar. All I
+remember about the meeting is that the
+hall was well filled; that a Scottish author,
+David Lowe, at present contributing
+reminiscences which he calls ‘Lowe
+Life’ to a Glasgow paper, was chairman;
+that Chesterton, then thirty years
+of age, was a large and fleshy man with
+a fine head of luxuriant brown hair;
+and that he made reference to the Boer
+War, to Lord Rosebery, and to Mr.
+Parks, a prominent lawyer, business
+man, Methodist and Liberal M.&nbsp;P., I
+have a general impression that he
+showed himself a democrat.”</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton was a past master of the
+art known popularly as ‘pulling your
+leg,’” according to Mr. William Platt.
+“With him, this was not merely a manifestation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
+of his exuberant temperament;
+it was also a matter of principle,
+a determination to make the other man
+see that there are two sides to every
+question.</p>
+
+<p>“I remember well his address to the
+British Humanitarian League. This
+body was of excellent principles, and
+supported by many and able and eminent
+persons; but it also contained many
+who had become rabid and fanatical,
+and so provided targets, for G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.</p>
+
+<p>“‘If’ he said ‘you ask me to extend
+my sympathy to the poor fox, pursued
+by savage sportsmen, shall I not also
+extend it to the poor sportsman, pursued
+by savage humanitarians?’</p>
+
+<p>“And he proceeded to draw a contrast
+between the typical elderly colonel, who
+ought by profession to be a man of
+blood, but who in point of fact was the
+kindest and mildest of men, and the
+typical humanitarian, who ought to be
+brimming over with human kindness,
+but who on the contrary was furiously
+ready to assail any unfortunate who
+happened in his or her opinion to transgress
+the code.</p>
+
+<p>“Bernard Shaw was present, and during
+the debate received a delicious setback
+from a witty Irishman called
+Connel. ‘Shaw is out to persuade us to
+be vegetarians,’ he said; ‘but if we all
+adopt that creed, what would happen?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
+Rabbits would obey the Scriptural command
+to increase and multiply until
+they overran the whole country-side
+and ate up every vegetable; and where
+then would Mr. Bernard Shaw get his
+daily bunch of carrots?’</p>
+
+<p>“Despite Chesterton’s ability to state
+the other side, and to state it wittily
+and well, he was no mere arguer for
+argument’s sake. He would not put
+forward any viewpoint unless he was
+convinced that there was ground for his
+support. He hated that type of politician
+or publicist who from sheer intellectual
+dexterity could argue in favor
+of any cause that it paid him to support,
+probably with his tongue in his
+cheek. This is very clearly seen in his
+brilliant retort to Lord Birkenhead,
+ending with that overwhelming:—‘Chuck
+it, Smith!’</p>
+
+<p>“Probably the finest instance of the
+effective use of slang by a great literary
+stylist!</p>
+
+<p>“When he spoke to me about my
+work he used to <span class="locked">say:—</span></p>
+
+<p>“‘What I admire about your idealism,
+as shown in your writings, is the fact
+that I know it to be genuine. For
+writers who merely pay lip-service to
+ideals, because they think it safest to
+do so, I have no use whatever. But I
+know that what you say, you mean.’</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton, like most artistic persons,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
+had a dislike for officialdom and
+bureaucracy. It seems so often to lead
+to a dull and spurious uniformity and
+standardization. The natural love of
+the artist is for variety, reaching out
+to a fullness of life and experience.</p>
+
+<p>“I remember hearing G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. make
+a very amusing point at a meeting of
+educationists where he was the chief
+speaker. He pictured a state of things
+where the official director of education
+might be a man with chronic catarrh.
+Far from realizing this as a deficiency,
+the official, he supposed, would attempt
+to impose it on others; to require that
+all pupils should be told to pronounce
+English as the director pronounced it.
+Or, as Chesterton amusingly put <span class="locked">it:—</span></p>
+
+<p>“‘He wadted theb do brodoudce Idglish
+as he hibself brodoudced it, this
+bad with the groddig gattarrh. Ibadgidge
+it for yourselves.’</p>
+
+<p>“To those who never heard G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+speak in public I would say that he
+stood on the platform as the very essence
+of good humour. He beamed on
+all and sundry. He radiated kindliness.
+He smiled, he laughed, he bubbled over.
+He was out to enjoy himself and to
+make every one present enjoy himself.
+A personification of mirth, good temper
+and happy humanity.”</p>
+
+<p>“Prof. A.&nbsp;J. Armstrong, head of the
+English Department of Baylor University,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
+Waco, Texas, heard G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. in
+England,</p>
+
+<p>“He talked to the members of my
+group for more than an hour on Browning.
+He referred to his own life of
+Browning as an immature work, although
+he said it was necessary for him
+to do a great deal of hack work when
+he was young, about the time of this
+publication.</p>
+
+<p>“When one of the ladies present interrupted
+and said,</p>
+
+<p>“‘Mr. Chesterton, the Browning work
+has some wonderful things in it,’ he
+only laughed and went on. In his
+thoughts he stayed close to the things
+that he had said in his book. His general
+conversation, of course, was delightful
+and was filled with the paradoxes
+for which he was so famous.</p>
+
+<p>“He took dinner with us at the Hotel
+Victoria, off Trafalgar Square, and Mrs.
+Chesterton was with him. I sat next
+Mrs. Chesterton the whole evening and
+she was a lovely woman, quiet, refined,
+a poetess, with a great many experiences
+which she told delightfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Chesterton had a delightful wit,
+was a vigorous speaker, and was a man
+of great power,—although—and I believe
+that this is not given with what
+one usually knows of him—he had a
+shy way of looking under his glasses
+that was charming.</p>
+
+<p>“A little later we had our symposium<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
+in London where Mr. Chesterton addressed
+a group of friends. I do not
+know whether you ever heard of Mrs.
+French-Sheldon or not. Before her
+death all the “Who’s Who” carried her.
+She was an American who learned her
+‘A B C’s’ from Washington Irving, and
+from that time until her death her life
+was one long spectacle. She told me
+that at one time she was the guest of
+George Sand, and that Chopin came in,
+and Victor Hugo later joined them.
+Just imagine such a coterie!</p>
+
+<p>“Mrs. French-Sheldon was one who
+did a great deal of exploring in Africa,
+and was the first white woman to enter
+one side of the African Continent and
+come out on the other. Later under the
+direction of J.&nbsp;B. Pond, she made
+twenty-three addresses in America and
+received $23,000 in cash for them, that
+is, one thousand dollars a night.</p>
+
+<p>“When I was interested in getting
+Mr. Chesterton to speak in Waco his fee
+was one thousand dollars. So in London
+when I introduced Mrs. French-Sheldon
+in the charming coterie, I said
+to Mr. Chesterton: ‘Probably when you
+were a little boy in short trousers this
+lady was touring American cities at one
+thousand dollars a night, so you can
+see that you are not the only one that
+gets that price, and she got it twenty
+years before you did.’ Mr. Chesterton<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
+answered with a smile. But he seemed
+tremendously impressed, for in the social
+hour that followed the symposium,
+he showed Mrs. French-Sheldon a number
+of courtesies.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lillian Curt heard a lecture in
+London,</p>
+
+<p>“His large body was rather picturesque,
+but one received a shock when a
+tiny, high pitched voice emanated from
+it. I well remember on one occasion
+before the War that G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. was asked
+to speak in the large Town Hall of Battersea.
+The occasion was the Annual
+Soiree of the West Lambeth Association
+of Teachers—a large and important
+local gathering of learned folk and their
+friends. G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. then in his prime,
+was the lion of the evening and the
+lion was expected to roar when his turn
+came. But no, G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. stood, like a
+huge cherub, emitting little squeaky
+phrases. The teachers huddled closer
+together and craned their necks forward.
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. went on unconcernedly
+and those who could hear, heard gems
+of the first (literally) water pour from
+those curved lips. Not that one sentence
+had much to do with the last, but each
+was a superb thought complete in itself
+and miraculously moulded. I was there,
+so I know—and enjoyed a delightful
+tete-a-tete with him and his charming
+wife afterwards. He was in strange<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
+contrast with his brother Cecil—a little
+man, wee-proportioned, with a charming
+literary style and good lecture-voice,
+who fell in the Great European
+war.”</p>
+
+<p>In 1928 Chesterton spoke before the
+Summer Course at the Victoria and
+Albert Museum. Mr. Charles A. Eva
+recalls that it was a sweltering hot
+July day, and when Chesterton turned
+up late owing to a train delay, he began
+his discourse by remarking,</p>
+
+<p>“This is no sort of weather for lecturing
+or listening, as the lecturer on this
+occasion can rely on the weather, and
+not on himself, to send the audience to
+sleep.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_SIX">CHAPTER SIX<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">ON THE AMERICAN PLATFORM</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Chesterton made two extended visits
+to the United States, in 1920–1, and in
+1930–1. Both times he traversed the
+length and breadth of the country, delivering
+innumerable lectures, making
+many addresses, and participating in
+not a few debates. No matter what
+the occasion he never forgot his sense
+of humor. At the Soldiers’ Memorial
+Hall, Pittsburgh, he was introduced to
+a large audience by Bishop Hugh C.
+Boyle. When G.&nbsp;K. stood up there arose
+a collective audible gasp at the enormous
+size of the man making his way
+to the amplifier. His opening words
+were,</p>
+
+<p>“At the outset I want to reassure you
+I am not this size, really; dear no, I’m
+being amplified by the thing.”</p>
+
+<p>He debated with Cosmo Hamilton
+at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on
+November 26th, 1930. The subject of
+debate was presumably unknown to
+the two authors, and was announced by
+the Chairman William C. Redfield, Secretary
+of Commerce under Wilson, “Is
+Immorality in the Novel Justified.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
+The audience was composed chiefly of
+educators, priests, college instructors,
+and grade teachers; all seemed properly
+pleased by the title of the evening’s
+discourse, and settled back to enjoy the
+action ... Chesterton annihilating
+his gracious and graceful opponent.
+They were not denied. Chesterton
+scored decidedly when he showed that
+what is moral is justified, and that the
+contrary, of course, could never be
+justified.</p>
+
+<p>This Chesterton explained in his introductory
+remarks, which he took
+from written notes, as Hamilton also
+did when he arose. Apparently they
+were formulated, and used in more than
+one debate in their tour. Chesterton
+charmingly denied he was there to
+make a football of Hamilton, who had
+protested such, but that he was rather
+a football in appearance, even if on the
+side of the angels, and Hamilton more
+the lithe athlete. After these amenities,
+Chesterton divided his argument into
+three sections: immorality in the novel
+violates ... first, good morals; second,
+good manners; third, good taste.</p>
+
+<p>“You can’t discuss inflaming the passions
+without doing it,” Chesterton
+pointed out. In reply to a query from
+Hamilton, “On the contrary, I like and
+admire very much the works of Aldous
+Huxley, but, (here he showed genuine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
+anger) as for that weak, sniveling,
+dirty, pacifistic Enrique Maria Remarque,
+I have nothing but contempt.”</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton made many notes, chuckling
+to himself as he scribbled something
+soon to come forth as a sally, pausing
+now and then to survey the audience or
+his opponent, and again interrupting
+his writing to place his pencil between
+his teeth to applaud some remark of
+Hamilton’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton’s voice was a fairly high
+tenor,” recalls Mr. Daniel Kern who
+was present, “not at all surprising. I
+have observed that many Englishmen
+despite bulk and great size, possess the
+same type voice. For example, H.&nbsp;G.
+Wells’ ... so high and snuffled that it
+was execrable coming over the radio.
+The loud-speaker system made it easy
+to hear both men. Both speakers were
+making use of a word which sounded
+like ‘eppitet’ or ‘epithet,’ which in the
+context could have had no meaning.
+The people about us were confused. As
+we became used to their voices, it developed
+that the word was ‘appetite.’
+You can estimate the frequency of the
+occurrence of this word in an ethical
+discussion when it is coupled with the
+modifiers ‘innate’ and ‘acquired’.”</p>
+
+<p>G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s pink face, framed by a
+white mane of hair, isolated by a
+rumpled dinner jacket, shining beautifully<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
+at the audience, caused Kern’s
+companion, a singular personality, to
+remark wistfully, “Chesterton’s just a
+saint, just a saint.”</p>
+
+<p>The warm, human, simple childlike
+nature, and the beaming benevolence of
+Chesterton’s smile was so utterly
+charming that Mr. W.&nbsp;D. Hennessy also
+present, was immediately reminded of
+two quite disparate characters his “favorite
+uncle, now deceased and Santa
+Claus. As I thought more about it, I
+realized that my first instinctive impression
+in its childlike simplicity, was
+founded upon a correct perception. My
+uncle was loved by every man, woman,
+child, and dog in his town and he was
+the most natural democrat I ever knew.
+I am just as certain that Chesterton
+was a beloved figure to his neighbors
+and that he was a true democrat in
+the best sense of that much abused
+term.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Hamilton several times referred
+to Chesterton as a cherub and a teacher.
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. expressed difficulty in reconciling
+the picture of a cherub and a
+teacher, but I think Cosmo Hamilton’s
+appellations were apt, for was not Chesterton
+an angelic teacher? And when a
+casual remark about the New York
+subway was made by Hamilton, I was
+delighted at the way G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. pounced
+upon it as a perfect allegory, comparing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
+the modern world looking for its way
+with the stranger lost in the labyrinths
+of the subway.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Joseph J. Reilly attended a debate
+at Mecca Temple in New York
+City, between Chesterton and Clarence
+Darrow, which dealt with the story of
+creation as presented in Genesis. It
+was a Sunday afternoon and the Temple
+was packed. At the conclusion of the
+debate everybody was asked to express
+his opinion as to the victor and slips of
+paper were passed around for that purpose.
+The award went directly to Chesterton.
+Darrow in comparison, seemed
+heavy, uninspired, slow of mind, while
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. was joyous, sparkling and
+witty ... quite the Chesterton one had
+come to expect from his books. The
+affair was like a race between a lumbering
+sailing vessel and a modern steamer.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Frances Taylor Patterson also
+heard the Chesterton-Darrow debate,
+but went to the meeting with some
+misgivings because she was a trifle
+afraid that Chesterton’s “gifts might
+seem somewhat literary in comparison
+with the trained scientific mind and
+rapier tongue of the famous trial lawyer.
+Instead, the trained scientific
+mind, the clear thinking, the lightning
+quickness in getting a point and hurling
+back an answer, turned out to belong
+to Chesterton. I have never heard Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
+Darrow alone, but taken relatively,
+when that relativity is to Chesterton,
+he appears positively muddle-headed.”</p>
+
+<p>Although the terms of the debate
+were determined at the outset, Darrow
+either could not or would not stick to
+the definitions, but kept going off at
+illogical tangents and becoming choleric
+over points that were not in dispute.
+He seemed to have an idea that all religion
+was a matter of accepting Jonah’s
+whale as a sort of luxury-liner. As
+Chesterton summed it up, he felt as if
+Darrow had been arguing all afternoon
+with his fundamentalist aunt, and the
+latter kept sparring with a dummy of
+his own mental making. When something
+went wrong with the microphone,
+Darrow sat back until it could be fixed.
+Whereupon G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. jumped up and
+carried on in his natural voice, “Science
+you see is not infallible!” Whatever
+brilliance Darrow had in his own right,
+it was completely eclipsed. For all the
+luster that he shed, he might have been
+a remote star at high noon drowned by
+the bright incandescent arc light of the
+sun. Chesterton had the audience with
+him from the start, and when it was
+over, everyone just sat there, not wishing
+to leave. They were loath to let
+the light die!</p>
+
+<p>Clarence Darrow wrote the author
+shortly before his death,</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span></p>
+
+<p>“I was favorably impressed by,
+warmly attached to, G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton.
+I enjoyed my debates with him, and
+found him a man of culture and fine
+sensibilities. If he and I had lived
+where we could have become better acquainted,
+eventually we would have
+ceased to debate, I firmly believe.”</p>
+
+<p>Bishop George Craig Stewart of Chicago,
+presided at Orchestra Hall when
+Chesterton debated in that city with
+Dr. Horace J. Bridges of the Ethical
+Cultural Society on the subject, “Is
+Psychology a Curse?” In his closing
+remarks Chesterton devastatingly sideswiped
+his opponent and wound up the
+occasion in a storm of laughter and
+applause,</p>
+
+<p>“It is clear that I have won the debate,
+and we are all prepared to acknowledge
+that psychology is a curse.
+Let us, however, be magnanimous. Let
+us allow at least one person in this unhappy
+world to practice this cursed
+psychology, and I should like to nominate
+Dr. Bridges.”</p>
+
+<p>During Dr. Bridges’ share of the debate
+Chesterton was drawing funny pictures
+on the back of a torn envelope
+which he produced out of his capacious
+inner pocket. At the close of the debate,
+Bishop Stewart begged the torn
+envelope with the funny pictures,
+which the artist initialed “From G.&nbsp;K.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>
+C. to G.&nbsp;C.&nbsp;S.” It now hangs framed
+with one of G.&nbsp;K.’s photographs in the
+episcopal drawingroom.</p>
+
+<p>At luncheon Bishop Stewart remarked,
+“Mr. Chesterton, <em lang="la">securus judicat orbis
+terrarum</em>. You have become a Roman
+Catholic, and I do not doubt that you
+have gained the whole world, but may I
+suggest that one may gain the whole
+world and lose one’s soul, and I think
+you have lost the soul of Chestertonianism,
+for after all, when you were an
+Anglican you were both a Protestant
+and a Catholic, and that was a delightfully
+Chestertonian position. Now you
+have become a Romanist, you have
+ceased to be a Chestertonian.”</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton’s only response to this
+Anglican leg pulling was a beaming and
+chuckling acknowledgment of the
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>At the luncheon Chesterton talked
+just as he wrote, on any subject that
+came up, in a free, flowing, brilliant
+manner, and everything he said might
+have been taken down and published as
+a part of his weekly letter to the
+“Illustrated London News.”</p>
+
+<p>In introducing Chesterton for the debate,
+Bishop Stewart had quoted Oliver
+Hereford’s delightful verse,</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“When plain folks such as you and I</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">See the sun sinking in the sky,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">We think it is the setting sun:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But Mr. Gilbert Chesterton</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is not so easily misled;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He calmly stands upon his head,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And upside down obtains a new</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And Chestertonian point of view ...</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Observing thus how from his nose</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The sun creeps closer to his toes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">He cries in wonder and delight,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">How fine the sunrise is tonight!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When the lecture was over, Chesterton
+strode down the aisle towards the
+main entrance where Mr. Edward Cassidy
+was standing with his wife who
+wished to get his autograph on a
+book. Suddenly a very important looking
+lorgnetted dowager accompanied by
+her daughter confronted the massive
+man.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Chesterton,” she demanded,
+“might I ask when did you become famous?”</p>
+
+<p>“I became famous, if you can call it
+that,” the great author chuckled, “at a
+time when there were no famous men
+in England.”</p>
+
+<p>He went on to explain that there had
+been no very great writers or journalists
+in England during the Boer War.
+His bitter opposition to the war ran so
+counter to the English press of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
+period that he became famous for his
+disloyalty, and for refusing to run with
+the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton impressed the late Reverend
+Frederic Seidenberg, S.&nbsp;J., who
+was also present in Orchestra Hall, as
+a man one could never forget, “not only
+his huge size, but his striking personality
+and ever present smile are things
+that one would carry through life. We
+had a full house, but his voice was so
+thin that I immediately had the speaker’s
+desk placed at the edge of the footlights.
+When he began again to speak
+several in the balcony called out,
+‘Louder!’ After a moment’s hesitation,
+Chesterton looked up and said, ‘Good
+brother, don’t worry, you’re not missing
+a thing.’ The audience roared.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Horace J. Bridges has kindly
+given his impressions,</p>
+
+<p>“I had two public debates with Chesterton,
+one in Chicago and one in Milwaukee.
+He struck me as a curious
+mixture of great personal charm, wide
+reading, exquisite critical faculty
+(manifested particularly in his interpretations
+of Browning and of Dickens),
+delightful humor, and a certain intellectual
+recklessness that made him indifferent
+to truth and reality. I cannot
+but feel that fundamentally—perhaps
+I should say subconsciously—he
+was a thorough-going skeptic and acted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
+upon the principle that, since we cannot
+really be positive about anything,
+we had better believe what it pleases
+us to believe. I think he never did
+justice to the real arguments for a case
+he opposed; and he had a slap-dash way
+of assuming that the weaknesses in an
+opponent’s case proved not only the
+falsity of that case, but—which is obviously
+a very different matter—the
+truth of his own case.</p>
+
+<p>“One may think my criticism of him
+unfair. I certainly do not mean it to be
+so, nor do I fail to recognize that men
+much more earnest in their truth-seeking
+than he was have sincerely believed
+the things he said he believed. My
+comment is on his mental processes, in
+distinction from the question of his particular
+beliefs.”</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton spoke in St. Louis at the
+Odeon Theatre. On the stage his entire
+appearance was distinctive: shaggy,
+tousled dark-light hair topped a massive
+head and full, ruddy face; eyes
+which seemed always half-closed were
+protected by thick-lensed glasses;
+heavy shoulders and ponderous girth
+bulked above long, slender legs. Over
+evening dress he wore a black cape;
+when he doffed it and stood ready
+to speak, his stiff, white shirt-front became
+awry and crept several degrees
+out of proper position.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span></p>
+
+<p>“A gentle giant Chesterton seemed,”
+recalls Mr. James O’Neill, “as he commenced
+to address his audience. His
+high-pitched voice sounded somewhat
+of a plaintive and apologetic note.”</p>
+
+<p>Lamenting the pseudo-sophistication
+of the day and the loss of appreciation
+for the simple pleasures of yore, Chesterton
+complained that the modern man
+and woman were seeking to escape
+ennui by finding new thrills, which
+tendency was expressed in our entertainments
+and even in our foods.
+Whereas we had once been satisfied
+with the taste of one palatable comestible
+at a time, we now demanded a combination
+of several in such an assembly
+as the modern three-deck sandwich. He
+regretfully observed that whereas our
+esthetic sense had once been pleased
+by such a dainty little figurine as the
+china shepherdess, we were now regaled
+by only such heroic figures as the billboard
+likeness of the lady who keeps
+her schoolgirl complexion by using a
+certain kind of soap and proclaims her
+secret to all who read. He was saddened
+by these thoughts and yearned for a
+return of the more simple but much
+more wholesome aesthetic attitudes
+currents in the days of his early manhood.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Katharine Darst says that
+when there was a call for questions,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
+they were slow coming, and dull when
+finally blurted out. Then there was a
+long, embarrassing pause. And finally,
+“Well, we’ve heard from the educated.
+Now, have the ignorant anything to
+ask?” ... this from the Chairman.
+Chesterton had such a vicious way of
+tearing poseurs apart with his sharp
+shafts that the reluctance of the audience
+to place itself at his mercy was
+natural. But here was too good a
+chance to miss. A number who had
+hesitated to make inquiries were on
+their feet at once. If they asked as
+the ignorant, they felt that they were
+armed against Chesterton’s barbs!</p>
+
+<p>A group of St. Louis women also
+heard Chesterton deliver a lecture paradoxically
+entitled,</p>
+
+<p>“The New Enslavement of Women.”</p>
+
+<p>This gave a compelling portrayal of
+how women exchanged the freedom of
+home for the slavery of office,</p>
+
+<p>“Twenty million young women rose
+to their feet with the cry, ‘WE WILL
+NOT BE DICTATED TO!’ And immediately
+proceeded to become stenographers!”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_SEVEN">CHAPTER SEVEN<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Bernard Shaw told the author
+that he was so much struck by a review
+of Scott’s “Ivanhoe” which appeared
+in the “Daily News” while Chesterton
+was holding his earliest notable
+job as feuilletonist to the paper that he
+wrote to him, “asking him who he was
+and where he came from, as he was evidently
+a new star in literature. He was
+either too shy or too lazy to answer.
+The next thing I remember is his lunching
+with us on quite intimate terms,
+accompanied by Belloc.</p>
+
+<p>“Our actual physical contacts, however,
+were few, as he never belonged to
+the Fabian Society nor came to its meetings
+(this being my set) whilst his
+Fleet Street Bohemianism lay outside
+my vegetarian, teetotal, non-smoking
+tastes. Besides, he apparently liked
+literary society; and it had the grace
+to like him. I avoided it and it loathed
+me.</p>
+
+<p>“But, of course, we were very conscious
+of one another. I enjoyed him
+and admired him keenly; and nothing
+could have been more generous than his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
+treatment of me. Our controversies
+were exhibition spars, in which nothing
+could have induced either of us to hurt
+the other.”</p>
+
+<p>In July, 1933, the Canadian Authors’
+Association paying its first official visit
+to England, was entertained at Claridge’s
+by the Royal Society of Literature.
+Miss Paty Carter recalls that at
+the end of the luncheon the toast was
+proposed by Rudyard Kipling and ably
+seconded by Chesterton. The contrast
+in appearance between the mover and
+seconder of the toast, caused a ripple of
+amusement: a contrast that might be
+likened to the Giant and Jack in the
+fairy story. Though Kipling, in reality,
+was only slightly below average size,
+and if a giant, Chesterton at least conveyed
+the impression of an amiable,
+gentle, likable giant.</p>
+
+<p>“You will be much puzzled at my
+occupying any space—so much space—in
+this august assembly,” he began,
+“and why any word of mine could possibly
+add to what this great literary
+genius, Mr. Kipling, has said. I cannot
+pose as a newspaper man; one reads of
+newspaper men slipping in through
+half-closed doors.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, no one could possibly think of
+me as slipping through a half-closed
+door! (Laughter).</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know Canada as Mr. Kipling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
+knows it. I have traveled here and
+there in the miserable capacity of one
+giving lectures. I might call myself a
+lecturer; but then again I fear some of
+you may have attended my lectures.
+The reason for my presence here today
+is to return hospitality. I have been
+twice to Canada. My first visit was
+made twelve years ago when I crossed
+to the Dominion from America—that
+was in the early days of Prohibition.
+The second time I went up the St. Lawrence.
+Then I knew that Canada had
+the foundations of all literature, because
+she had indeed a country. There was
+that vast natural background necessary
+to the growth of literary culture, and
+there was also what is necessary for
+all literature—legend. On the Plains
+of Abraham I was uplifted in the sense
+in which poetry or great music or even
+a great monument uplifts one.</p>
+
+<p>“The magnificent cordiality and
+courtesy of the Canadian people was,
+to me, amazing. The hospitality of the
+Canadian Authors’ Association was
+overwhelming. The Canadian Literature
+Society rushed out to welcome any
+stray traveler, and in the confusion I
+was mistaken for a literary man.
+(Laughter). I tried to explain I was
+merely a lecturer, and one of the first
+things for a lecturer to do is talk about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
+things he does not understand, such as
+Canada.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you coming with us to Downing
+Street, Mr. Chesterton?” asked Miss
+Carter as the authors all left the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>“No—o,” he drawled, with a delicious
+sort of chant. “Unfortunately, I have
+to attend a wretched meeting with
+three other men; all madmen, like myself!”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. James Truslow Adams happened
+to have been one of the four or five
+Americans elected to the Royal Society
+of Literature, and so he found himself
+in the rather odd situation of an American
+who was entertaining Canadians at
+an empire meeting.</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton,” recalls Mr. Adams,
+“was very witty, and although he took
+a number of sharp cracks at American
+journalism, I being the only person in
+the room who was not of the British
+Empire, there was nothing untrue or
+unkind. I have an extremely vivid impression
+of the man, not only of his
+enormous physical bulk and of his constant
+mopping of his forehead with his
+handkerchief, but also of his intellectual
+vitality.”</p>
+
+<p>The President of the Canadian Authors’
+Association, the late Charles W.
+Gordon (Ralph Connor) was “struck
+with the freshness of Chesterton’s
+thought, the brilliancy of his imagination,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
+and his warm human sympathy. I
+had heard him spoken of as cold, but I
+could not say that of his speech or of
+his personality that day.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rodolphe L. Megroz made a pilgrimage
+in 1922, to Chesterton’s home.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, certainly, sir,” said the
+railway porter at Beaconsfield when
+asked where Chesterton lived. “Turn
+to your left at the bridge and along the
+road to the old town. When you come
+to the film studios, go across into the
+side road and it’s surrounded by a field.
+His house is called ‘Top Meadow’.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. and Mrs. Chesterton received the
+visitor in a little room with white-washed
+walls and book-cases, and a
+long desk below a window that ran the
+length of the room. Megroz was anxious
+to compare Chesterton’s ideas with
+those of H.&nbsp;G. Wells whom he had seen
+shortly before, and particularly wished
+to question the former’s opinions on
+patriotism and nationalism. Although
+such books as the jolly “Napoleon of
+Notting Hill” belonged to the pre-war
+period, G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s own journalistic writings
+had shown no change in his dislike
+of internationalism and the kind of
+social organization favored by Wells.</p>
+
+<p>“The trouble is,” he said, “that terms
+like patriotism and nationalism are very
+often used by people who mean something
+quite different from what I mean.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
+My idea in ‘The Napoleon of Notting
+Hill’ was that men have a natural loyalty
+for their own home and their own
+land, I do not see why, instead of progress
+lying in the direction of bigger
+and bigger everything, it should not be
+found in the opposite direction, in local
+patriotism. I say let a man go on loving
+his own home, he will all the better
+recognize the other fellow’s right to do
+so.”</p>
+
+<p>“H.&nbsp;G. Wells,” continued Chesterton,
+“talks about abstractions like the World
+State, which has no root. The League
+of Nations lost its grip on realities by
+ignoring local patriotism.”</p>
+
+<p>When Megroz repeated Chesterton to
+H.&nbsp;G. Wells the latter remarked,</p>
+
+<p>“Possibly the World State is an abstraction
+at present, but what are not
+abstractions are the flying machines
+and poison gas; electricity and wireless;
+the fact that the food grown in India
+may be eaten in England, and the food
+grown in Australia may be eaten at the
+Cape. These are hard facts, and they
+demand sane treatment as hard facts,
+and the only possible sane treatment is
+to bring them under one comprehensive
+control.”</p>
+
+<p>Megroz got the impression that Chesterton
+was “certainly a romanticist,
+often escaping from reality. By fantasies,
+among which may be included<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
+his medievalism; but always one comes
+back to his great sanity, his poetic insight,
+his sweetness which redeemed
+all his propaganda, illuminated his
+poetry, and could fill even the detective
+story with a wisdom akin to mysticism.”</p>
+
+<p>What Chesterton wrote his friend
+Mr. W.&nbsp;R. Titterton about Wells is pertinent,
+and is here published for the
+first time, and with Mr. Wells’ leave,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="in0">My dear Titterton:</p>
+
+<p>I think we might drop the formal address
+on both sides; especially as I
+want to write to you about a personal
+feeling which I don’t want you to take
+too officially, or in that sense too seriously.
+I ought to have written direct
+to Pugh to thank him for his great
+generosity in giving us his most interesting
+sketch about Wells, which you
+were good enough to arrange for us.
+My task is made a little more delicate
+now, because there is something I feel
+about it, which I do hope neither he nor
+you would exaggerate or misunderstand.
+I was the more glad of his kind offer,
+when he made it, because I thought nobody
+could more ably and sincerely appreciate
+Wells; and I was rather pleased
+that Wells should be appreciated in a
+paper where he had been so often criticized.
+I do hope this work will not
+turn into anything that looks like a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
+mere attack on Wells; especially in the
+rather realistic and personal modern
+manner, which I am perhaps too Victorian
+myself to care very much about.
+I do not merely feel this because I have
+managed to keep Wells as a friend on
+the whole. I feel it much more (and I
+know you are a man to understand such
+sentiments) because I have a sort of
+sense of honor about him as an enemy,
+or at least a potential enemy. We are
+so certain to collide in controversial
+warfare, that I have a horror of his
+thinking I would attack him with anything
+but fair controversial weapons.
+My feeling is so entirely consistent with
+a faith in Pugh’s motives, as well as an
+admiration of his talents, that I honestly
+believe I could explain this to him
+without offense; and I will if necessary
+write to him to do so; but I thought I
+would write to you first; as you know
+him and may possibly know his aims
+and attitude as I do not.</p>
+
+<p>I am honestly in a very difficult position
+on the “New Witness,” because
+it is physically impossible for me really
+to edit it, and also do enough outside
+work to be able to edit it unpaid, as
+well as having a little over to give to it
+from time to time. What we should
+have done without the loyalty and capacity
+of you and a few others I can’t
+imagine. I cannot oversee everything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
+that goes into the paper and it would
+certainly be most uncomfortable for
+either of us to exercise our rights of
+“cutting” stuff given to us under such
+circumstances as Pugh’s: but I think I
+should exercise it if Pugh went very
+far in the realistic manner about some
+of the weak points in Wells’ career.
+There were one or two phrases about
+old quarrels in the last number which
+strike a note I should really regret
+touching more serious things; and I
+should like to consult with you about
+such possibilities before they appear in
+the paper. I cannot do it with most
+things in the paper, as I say; and nobody
+could possibly do it better than
+you. On the other hand, I cannot resign,
+without dropping, as you truly
+say, the work of a great man who is
+gone; and who, I feel, would wish me to
+continue it. It is like what Stevenson
+said about Marriage and its duties:
+“There is no refuge for you; not even
+suicide.” But I should have to consider
+even resignation, if I felt that the acceptance
+of Pugh’s generosity really
+gave him the right to print something
+that I really felt bound to disapprove.
+It may be that I am needlessly alarmed
+over a slip or two of the pen, in vivid
+descriptions of a very odd character;
+and that Pugh really admires his Big
+Little H.&nbsp;G. as I thought he did at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
+beginning of the business. I only write
+this to confide to you what is in my
+mind, which is far from an easy task;
+but I think you are one to understand.
+If the general impression on the reader’s
+mind is of the Big Wells and not the
+little Wells, I think the doubt I mean
+would really be met.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="margin-right: 1em;">Yours always sincerely,</span><br>
+G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Titterton wrote in a letter a few
+years ago:</p>
+
+<p>“Edward Macdonald assists G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+in editing the ‘Rag.’ In fact he does all
+the technical editing, though G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+controls the strategy. He is a splendid
+fellow, very simple and humble, very
+loyal, very wise. His editing of “G.&nbsp;K.’s
+Weekly” is a labor of love. What I
+know of G.&nbsp;K. you know already.
+You must be with him day by day
+to see the infinite simplicity—innocence—and
+friendliness of the man. We are
+fortunate to be led by a little child.
+When we were starting the Distributist
+League, I suggested that it should be
+called ‘The League of the Little Man.’
+And G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. said that, though he liked
+the title, he thought that, with him as
+President, it would be regarded as a
+great joke. Probably it would have
+been. Yet, in fact, he IS the little
+Man.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hugo C. Riviere has pleasant recollections
+of having painted Chesterton’s
+portrait:</p>
+
+<p>“What excellent talk I heard when he
+was sitting to me. It was, as I so often
+saw him, in his big Inverness cape with
+that massive head at that time covered
+with a big mane of brown hair, his hat
+on the grass and a favorite sword stick
+brandished against the sky. It was just
+after his ‘Napoleon of Notting Hill’
+was written. A little later I was to be
+made a very proud man by receiving a
+copy of ‘The Flying Inn’ and finding it
+was dedicated to me. You know, of
+course, what a fine large style G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+had himself as a draughtsman with a
+great and free grasp of form and character.
+How often when dining with us
+I have seen him take out an old envelope
+and rapidly cover it with extraordinary
+sketches. I have one carefully
+treasured in my ‘Napoleon of Notting
+Hill’ an old envelope covered with every
+sort and type of hand and figure, some
+in medieval dress, and some modern,
+two or three clever heads of G.&nbsp;B. Shaw
+and other clerical and political and imaginary.
+How delightful were the illustrations
+he made for ‘The Biography
+of Beginners’ that he and E.&nbsp;C. Bentley
+did together. I also remember G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.,
+after writing an article, over his last
+glass of wine when all of us, and he too,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
+were talking after dinner, and the boy
+sent by whatever magazine it was destined
+for, waiting in the hall. His favorite,
+and I think, characteristic, taste
+in wine was red Burgundy, but he did
+not notice his food much, as he was far
+too busy thinking and talking.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hermon Ould, the Secretary-General
+of the P.&nbsp;E.&nbsp;N. Club, met Chesterton
+many times. When H.&nbsp;G. Wells
+found the presidency too onerous and
+was threatening to resign, Mr. Ould
+offered the office to Chesterton who
+replied in a characteristic letter, dated
+August 2, 1935:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="in0">Dear Mr. Ould:</p>
+
+<p>You might imagine how miserable I
+feel in having again delayed a reply to
+your kind letters; and being again,
+after a struggle, forced back on the
+same dismal reply. The truth is that
+I did very much wish to accept this
+great distinction you have offered me;
+and have been trying to think of various
+ways in which it might be managed;
+but have come back to the conclusion
+that it really cannot be managed.
+The delay was partly due to your
+own persuasive powers; for I must admit
+that I was a good deal shaken by
+what you said about the possibilities of
+using the position for many things in
+which I believe. If I may say so, you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
+must be a very good secretary; and a
+good secretary is much more important
+than a good president. But I am practically
+certain that I should not be a
+good president. I am honestly thinking
+in the interests of the Club; and I feel
+it would be better for me to decline the
+candidature than for me to resign
+rather abruptly soon afterwards, because
+I found the responsibilities you
+describe too incompatible with the responsibilities
+I have already. As you
+truly say, it would be unworthy to accept
+what is merely a sinecure; and I
+really cannot manage this additional
+cure of souls....</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">Yours faithfully,</span><br>
+G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Father Vincent C. Donovan spent a
+good part of an afternoon with Chesterton
+and his wife at Boston’s Chatham
+Hotel. Many things were discussed,
+but Father Donovan recalls that the
+visitors were particularly interested in
+their impressions of America. They
+found Boston very English in appearance
+and atmosphere. Among other
+things Chesterton said,</p>
+
+<p>“All the Jews have been hounding
+me as a result of my ‘New Jerusalem.’
+I am not a little hurt and puzzled about
+their unreasonable attitude because in
+that work I have honestly tried to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
+objective, fair, and understanding, but
+they won’t see that.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Vincent de Paul Fitzpatrick first
+met Chesterton at the Belvedere Hotel,
+Baltimore, in February, 1921, and recalls
+that he praised the persistency of
+the Irish in struggling for their rights:</p>
+
+<p>“When you hear of an organization
+in England fighting for liberty, you
+must find whether or not that organization
+contains much Irish blood. It
+means all the difference in the world.
+If you hear in this country of a strike
+in the Cycle Valley, it is nothing to get
+worried over. But if you hear of a
+strike in Glasgow, you may expect
+something exclusive and exciting. The
+reason is that a mass of the Irish poor
+is found in that city, and the Irish will
+not submit meekly when any person
+or any group tries to trample upon
+them.</p>
+
+<p>“We see the English people grumbling
+at the perpetual interference with
+their rights and at the various restrictions
+to which they are subjected, but
+they are not organized. There are plenty
+of old radicals in England, who, as individuals,
+are sincere defenders of liberty,
+but they are isolated. Take, for
+example, old Dr. Johnson. With the
+Irish Catholics things are different.
+Their love for liberty seems to have
+been created by the Catholic Church—their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
+only corporate defender of liberty
+today—is the Catholic Church. Liberty
+means much to her—something to be
+protected. She defends it with her powerful
+organization. When we speak of
+the English Labor party in England
+fighting for its rights, we do not mean
+the English labor party, at all, we mean
+the Scotch-Irish Labor party.”</p>
+
+<p>On December 7, 1930, Mr. Fitzpatrick
+had a long talk with Chesterton at the
+St. Moritz, New York City. It was the
+eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception,
+and Chesterton was thinking of
+his newly found Faith,</p>
+
+<p>“It stands to reason that Christmas
+means more to me now that I am a
+Catholic than it did before I was converted
+to the Faith. But Christmas has
+meant much to me ever since my boyhood.
+I believed in Christmas before I
+believed in Christ. In the years immediately
+before my conversion I naturally
+thought much more seriously about
+Christmas, my thoughts became more
+consoling and Christmas was more
+beautiful as the passing days drew me
+nearer to the Church.</p>
+
+<p>“I believed in the spirit of Christmas
+and I liked Christmas, even when I was
+a boy filled with radicalistic tendencies
+when I really thought I was atheistic.
+In those days I wrote a poem to the
+Blessed Virgin. I was quite young and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
+the poem, God help me, must have
+been a rather wretched thing, though
+I imitated Swinburne, or at least, tried
+to imitate him when I wrote it.</p>
+
+<p>“From my early years I had an affection
+for the Blessed Virgin and for
+the Holy Family. The story of Bethlehem
+and the story of Nazareth appealed
+to me deeply when I was a boy. Long
+before I joined the Catholic Church the
+Immaculate Conception had my allegiance.
+That allegiance has been intensified
+steadily.</p>
+
+<p>“Aside from the teaching of the
+Church on the subject, a doctrine which
+we as Catholics accept, the thought that
+there was in all the ages one creature,
+and that creature a woman, who was
+preserved from the slightest taint of
+sin, won my heart.”</p>
+
+<p>Mother Mary St. Luke recalls that
+during Chesterton’s visit to Rome in
+the late Autumn of 1929, he went several
+times to the Convent of the Holy
+Child, where he lectured one day before
+a crowded audience on “Thomas More
+and Humanism.” At the conclusion,
+a Father Cuthbert thanked the speaker
+and expressed the appreciation of the
+audience, remarking on the mental resemblance
+of More and Chesterton, saying
+that he could quite well imagine
+them sitting together making jokes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
+some of them VERY good, and some
+of them VERY bad.</p>
+
+<p>The Chestertons were also present in
+the Vatican at the reading of the Degree
+for the Beatification of the English
+Martyrs. At the conclusion of the
+ceremony there was the usual rush and
+confusion in the neighborhood of the
+cloak-room next to the sala Clementina.
+A group of Holy Child pupils having
+gathered around Chesterton, and learned
+of his dismay at not being able to retrieve
+his famous cloak from the “Bussolanti”
+on account of the milling
+crowd, plunged into the melee and
+brought it back to him in triumph.
+They also secured a taxi for them in
+the Piazza di San Pietro—no small feat
+on such an occasion! G.&nbsp;K. expressed
+his appreciation of their efforts in his
+own beautiful “architectural” handwriting,
+which constitutes one of the most
+treasured possessions of the school,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">
+“For the Young Ladies Suffering<br>
+Education at the Convent of the<br>
+Holy Child.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“To be a Real Prophet once</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For you alone did I desire,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Who dragged the Prophet’s Mantle down</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And brought the Chariot of Fire.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_EIGHT">CHAPTER EIGHT<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">CHESTERTON AT NEW HAVEN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Thomas Caldecot Chubb met Chesterton
+at the Elizabethan Club in New
+Haven almost twenty years ago, and
+his initial impression still persists that
+he was a large man in every way,
+“Physically, of course, he was the size
+of Falstaff, but that is not all I am
+talking about. Perhaps the best way
+of saying what I mean, is to point out
+that he had this further in common
+with the huge knight who is, in a sense,
+truly Shakespeare’s most tragic figure:
+that beneath surface-wit and brilliance
+there was something one must label
+deep and profound.”</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton had been lecturing to a
+typical Yale audience of the early ’20’s—four
+or five consciously literary undergraduates
+who made a grim duty of
+never missing such a talk, and about
+ninety percent of the membership of the
+local women’s clubs. The Speaker
+spilled over, like a wine keg broached,
+into the Middle Ages. Among other
+things, he spoke, naturally, of their individual
+craftsmanship. He related how
+it appeared even in such matters as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
+meat and drink. He regretted with a
+nostalgic gusto those gone days when,
+as he put it, every monastery, almost
+every home had its own brand of liqueur
+or wine. Then he was transported from
+the crowded hall with its murmurs of
+polite, not too comprehending, applause,
+and made to stand in the dark living
+room of the white building across the
+street, with its comfortable shabby
+leather chairs, and its stiff painting of
+an acidulous and very white-faced Virgin
+Queen; and as he stood there—wearing
+a grey suit (so the picture,
+though perhaps inaccurately after so
+long a time, comes back to Chubb) and
+holding a cup of tea in one hand, his
+eyeglasses in the other—Chubb was introduced
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Chesterton,” Chubb said, “you
+have your wish.”</p>
+
+<p>Obviously, he wanted to know what
+wish and how he had it.</p>
+
+<p>“Thanks to Prohibition, every house
+is making, if not its own liqueur, at
+least its own likker.”</p>
+
+<p>It cannot truthfully be related that
+he was hugely diverted by Chubb’s attempt
+at being facetious. Bathtub gin
+was, it may be supposed, hardly just the
+evocation he would have wished of the
+spirit of the age of Abelard and Aquinas.
+And furthermore, Prohibition was
+a serious matter, not a jesting one. So<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
+Chubb was properly covered with an
+appropriate undergraduate confusion
+which he tried to hide by holding out
+a copy of “The Ballad of the White
+Horse.” This haltingly—after his previous
+boldness—he asked him to autograph
+and to write a verse from it upon
+the fly-leaf.</p>
+
+<p>“There is no need to go into details
+about his courteous compliance other
+than to indicate the thrill it gave me,”
+recollects Chubb, “by saying that in
+that varnished period the ‘Ballad’ seemed
+to me a high point in English poetry.
+It seemed almost incredible I was actually
+talking to and facing the man who
+wrote it. But a confession must be
+added to this statement. It was virtually
+all of Chesterton I knew by having
+read. That and ‘Lepanto’ were the
+only Chestertonian works I had deigned
+to cast my eyes upon. Of course, I
+knew the names of others. But that
+anyone who could write this immortal
+stuff should waste his time turning out
+such poor trash as a series of fluent
+novels, certain aggravating essays, a
+contradicting sort of history of England,
+and—horror of horrors—the
+Father Brown ‘detective’ stories, was,
+in a ghastly way, incredible. It was pot-boiling.
+It was prostituting one’s genius.
+It was selling out to Mammon and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
+the Philistines. And that was, of course,
+the sin against the Holy Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>“It is now necessary to reverse that
+stand—though here perhaps youth’s
+headlong egotism has merely been replaced
+by incipient middle age’s complacent
+one. For somehow the swinging
+lines which relate Alfred’s adventures
+seem a little bouncy now. They
+are dated, just as a brass radiator and
+acetylene lamps would date even a T-model
+Ford. Even the young don’t turn
+to them, being engaged in writing not
+quite grammatical verses to Communism
+and proletarian poetry which no
+member of the proletariat can make
+head or tail of. And ‘Lepanto,’ which—with
+‘Ivry’ and what Tennyson has
+to say about the Revenge—is among the
+most stirring short narrative poetry of
+the language, does not set the pulses
+beating quite as rapidly in 1939 as it
+did in 1922. But the entertainment and
+wisdom of ‘The Flying Inn,’ ‘The Man
+Who Was Thursday,’ and ‘The Napoleon
+of Notting Hill,’ and the cool, paradoxical
+truths—well, anyway, from time to
+time they are true—of the essays, of
+the history, of the writing on Browning,
+Thackeray and Dickens, of the controversies
+with that irritating but likeable
+friend-adversary G.&nbsp;B.&nbsp;S., still have
+their power to stimulate. And personally
+I now believe that the best of Chesterton<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>
+can be found, if you delve for it,
+in the Father Brown stories; that out
+of them can be mined by an attentive
+prospector the purest Chestertonian
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>“All of which, if true, places the man
+for us. A stimulating writer, a delightful
+writer, on certain occasions even an
+important writer, but was he quite a
+great one? With Kipling, Wells, Shaw,
+Arnold Bennett and perhaps half a dozen
+others with whom I will not rashly
+provoke controversy by naming, he will
+be compulsory reading for every student
+of the era. It is less certain that
+the general public will turn to him
+after a hundred or even after fifty
+years.</p>
+
+<p>“Yet he has given a lot, and in no
+way more than by his provocative way
+of seeing and saying things. He loves
+Meredith and he hates Hardy, yet he
+nails truth to the wall by saying that
+the man of the two who had a healthy
+point of view had the perverse and
+crabbed style, whereas the one with the
+perverse and crabbed point of view had
+the healthy and manly style. He stated
+pungently and accurately—writing of
+‘The Book of Snobs’—that ‘aristocracy
+does not have snobs any more than
+democracy does.’ Thackeray might
+have learned something from this. He
+had the insight to realize that Browning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>
+was among the finest love poets of
+the world though quite to the contrary
+runs the general opinion. (A similar,
+though not the same, revolutionary
+statement might be made of our own
+E.&nbsp;A. Robinson, substituting perhaps
+emotion for love.) He considered—a
+half truth—that the whole of present
+day England was the remains of Rome;
+and—a whole truth—that Henry VIII
+was as unlucky in his wives as they
+were in him. Which statements,
+plucked very haphazardly from out of
+his writings, ought to indicate what I
+mean.”</p>
+
+<p>Another who heard him at Yale was
+Mr. Harold Chapman Bailey:</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton’s lecture, as I recall it,
+was given in the Sprague Memorial
+Hall, which is part of the Yale Music
+School. The entire subject matter of
+the Chesterton address has escaped me,
+but in the question period afterward
+the first two or three questions were
+so puerile that despite my youth I was
+emboldened to rise with this query:
+‘Will you not tell me something about
+William Cobbett?’</p>
+
+<p>“I recall that at first Mr. Chesterton
+did not understand my question, but
+when I repeated it, he seemed greatly
+pleased to find that in far away America
+there was some interest in Cobbett.
+Accordingly he spent at least five minutes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
+explaining to us who William Cobbett
+was, what he stood for, and how in
+a measure Cobbett was his own spiritual
+ancestor. He concluded by remarking
+that the Yale University Press
+would do well to get out a new edition
+of Cobbett’s works. I have often wondered
+whether this query of mine
+played any part in stimulating him
+later on to write a volume on Cobbett.”</p>
+
+<p>Major James B. Pond also met
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. at New Haven, and had the
+privilege of being present when Chesterton
+and ‘A.&nbsp;E.’ (George Russell) met
+at the William Lyon Phelps’ house in
+New Haven. It was the first time these
+two men ever met. Russell hardly ever
+went out of Ireland and these two famous
+men had to come to New Haven
+to get personally acquainted. It happened
+they were both lecturing the
+same day.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_NINE">CHAPTER NINE<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">AT NOTRE DAME.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Chesterton was guest lecturer at
+Notre Dame University for the first
+semester of the 1930–1 school year, delivering
+eighteen lectures on English
+history, and the same number on the
+Victorian age of English literature.</p>
+
+<p>Visiting Beaconsfield a few years ago,
+Father John F. O’Hara, President of
+the University, told Chesterton that he
+had received “numerous letters from
+former students who were just beginning
+to appreciate the lectures he had
+given them. Chesterton was that way.
+One was forced to remember his striking
+sentences, and the underlying truth
+forced itself on the mind of the undergraduate
+when greater experience made
+understanding possible.”</p>
+
+<p>As Chesterton walked out on the
+stage and faced his first Notre Dame
+audience, he leaned upon the lectern
+and said, “Until quite recently, I was
+not at all certain that I would be able
+to be here tonight. Had I not come, you
+would now be gazing upon a great
+yawning void instead of myself.”</p>
+
+<p>This bit of humor and the manner in
+which it was expressed gave Father
+Charles Morton the feeling that here
+was a man of rare humility and of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
+simplicity which always accompanies
+genuine culture. As the lecture series
+progressed, two other qualities became
+prominent,—brilliance of mind and a
+profound Catholic faith. No matter
+what the subject of his lecture was,
+whether in the field of literature or of
+history, he invariably found a way at
+the end to relate all he had said to some
+profound religious truth. That people
+should praise him as a learned man was
+a source of genuine embarrassment to
+him. It amused him to be addressed
+as “professor,” and he invariably referred
+to himself as a “mere journalist.”</p>
+
+<p>Father Patrick J. Carroll looked upon
+Chesterton, master of antithesis “as
+himself the antithesis. A large lumbering
+hulk of a man, you would expect
+from him a deep, thundering speech.
+You are mistaken: his language is swift,
+sudden, arresting. Epigram follows
+epigram, until you get tired of brilliance,
+and begin to wonder if this big
+man is not more concerned with his
+sword play than with the serious business
+of defending truth against truth’s
+enemies. That is how you sometimes
+think: but, of course, your thinking is
+wrong.”</p>
+
+<p>Prof. Norbert Engels of the College
+of Arts and Sciences recalls that “at
+every lecture knowledge poured forth.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
+He never used a paper, a note, or a reference
+of any kind. He would quote
+extremely long passages of poetry or
+prose with utmost ease. I did not tire
+of his use of paradox as he used it with
+such consummate art. Those are inadequate
+judges of his genius who pronounce
+upon him from his writings
+only. To know Chesterton fully, besides
+his works, one should have heard
+him lecture, in order to catch the spirit
+of the man.”</p>
+
+<p>All the breath and flavor of ages of
+Christian culture came with Chesterton
+in the opinion of Father Charles M.
+Carey, “he entered our campus like
+some great Catholic warrior stepping
+down from the centuries that date back
+to a time when England was really
+‘Merrie England.’ Huge in girth and
+mind and heart, he was the embodiment
+of all that was good in that splendid
+Catholic heritage.</p>
+
+<p>“As his vast physical bulk lumbered
+from the wings to the rostrum, then
+slouched down in his chair, he threw
+a ruddy scowl across the rows of young
+University men before him, and a great
+feeling of awe swallowed up the idle
+chatter. There was not a single heart
+in that young Catholic audience that
+did not somehow experience the presence
+of greatness in our midst. To the
+man who knew little of the great apologist,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
+it may have been a moment of
+confused terror and curiosity. To anyone
+who had read but a paragraph from
+his pen, it was the moment which finds
+one helplessly silent in the presence of
+a superior being.</p>
+
+<p>“‘So,’ I thought to myself, as Chesterton
+thundered and swayed slightly to
+his place, his bushy hair in its own convenient
+parting and his wrinkled and
+baggy clothing left to look after itself
+with a pronounced abandon, ‘can this
+be the man that is so mentally nimble,
+so sure footed in thought, so precise in
+diction, so accurate in his thrusts, so
+merciless in heaping wrath on adversaries,
+and so loud in his frequent laughter
+at the absurdity of those who oppose
+his Christian fighting?’”</p>
+
+<p>Once he began to speak, Chesterton’s
+eyes lit up with a joy born of that common
+bond that is the Catholic faith,
+thus destroying all barriers of racial
+differences because, as he said, “Under
+the portals of our Lady’s Shrine, all
+men are at home.” That was the spirit
+that characterized his stay at Notre
+Dame. To his young listeners he was
+an inspiration. Every word that he
+uttered had a clear, certain and convincing
+ring in it that made for conviction.
+He was thoroughly Catholic.
+For him life was full of faith and
+beauty and romance. Every word that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
+he uttered had a freshness and wonder
+about it. His adroit phraseology, his
+accent and his inexhaustible flow of
+genuine humor quickened his youthful
+audience to frequent bursts of applause
+and measured gaiety.</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton had the honorary degree
+of Doctor of Law conferred upon him
+Wednesday afternoon, November 5,
+1930, in Washington Hall. Many honorary
+degrees had been conferred by
+Notre Dame, but this was the first time
+in the history of the University that a
+special convocation of the Faculty had
+been called to participate in the conferring
+of a degree.</p>
+
+<p>At four-thirty the academic procession
+left the University parlors and
+made its way to Washington Hall where
+members of the Senior Class and the
+guests were assembled. After an introductory
+musical program had been
+given by the student orchestra and Glee
+Club, Father J. Leonard Carrice, Director
+of Studies, announced the conferring
+of the degree,</p>
+
+<p>“The University of Notre Dame, in
+this special convocation of the Faculty,
+confers the degree of Doctor of Law,
+<b lang="la">honoris causa</b>, on a man of letters recognized
+as the ablest and most influential
+in the English-speaking world of
+today, a defender of the Christian tradition,
+whose keen mind, right heart,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>
+and versatile literary genius have been
+valiantly devoted to eternal truth, goodness
+and beauty, in literature, and in
+life—Gilbert Keith Chesterton, of London,
+England.”</p>
+
+<p>After receiving the Degree from
+Notre Dame’s President, the Rev.
+Charles L. O’Donnell, Doctor Chesterton
+replied,</p>
+
+<p>“I only wish it were possible for me
+to say, as you have suggested, something
+of what is in my heart in the way
+of gratitude. Gratitude is what I feel
+most deeply at present, and it is the
+irony of human fate that it is perhaps
+the only thing that cannot be expressed.
+If I said all the things which
+are usually said on these occasions, I
+should only be expressing my feelings,
+for in my case, they happen to be perfectly
+true. It is usual to say that one
+is not worthy of such an honor, and the
+vividness of my own unworthiness is
+so acute in my own mind that I find it
+almost impossible to express it and to
+thank you for the far too generous
+things which have been said. I have
+given a series of lectures on a subject
+on which a number of you are much
+better acquainted than I. If I happen
+to say something about the history of
+the Victorian age, the history which I
+am supposed to talk about, or if I happen
+to say something about the Victorian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>
+age in literature, I am all too painfully
+reminded that you have learned
+history and have studied literature. If
+I mention the Province of Canada, I am
+reminded that you have studied geography.
+Therefore I am afraid that I
+am not only unworthy but almost in a
+false position before you. I am a journalist,
+and the one thing I can claim is
+that I have endeavored to show that it
+is possible to be an honest journalist.
+Therefore, a great academic distinction
+of this kind gives me a very strong
+sense of gratitude. I can only thank
+you from the bottom of my heart, not
+only for this favor extended to me, but
+also for the very great patience with
+which you have listened to my lectures.</p>
+
+<p>“There is always a bond between us
+that would make you tolerant of me, I
+know. I have only once before gone
+through a ceremony of this kind and
+that was at the highly Protestant University
+of Edinburgh, where I found
+that part of the ceremony consisted of
+being lightly touched on the head with
+the cap of John Knox. I was very much
+relieved to find that it was not part of
+the ceremony on the present occasion
+that I should, let us say, wear the hat
+of Senator Heflin! I remember that,
+when I came to America before, about
+nine years ago, when I was not a
+catholic, and when I had hardly realized<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
+that there were Catholics in America,
+my first sensation in this country was
+one of terror. I recall the first landing
+and that great hotel in New York, the
+Biltmore, the name of which held for
+me such terrifying possibilities. (Surely
+there would not be <em>more</em> of it!) It all
+seemed alien, although I quickly discovered
+what kind and generous people
+the Americans are. I did not feel at all
+like that when I came to America for
+the second time. If you want to know
+why I felt different, the reason is in the
+name of your University. That name
+was quite sufficient as far as I was
+concerned. It would not have mattered
+if it had been in the mountains of the
+moon. Wherever She has erected Her
+pillars, all men are at home, and I
+knew that I should not find strangers.
+And, if any of you who are young
+should go to other countries, you will
+find that what I have said is true.”</p>
+
+<p>Prof. Daniel O’Grady was invited to a
+social evening with Chesterton at Notre
+Dame’s Sorin Hall ... among those
+present were the host Charles Philips,
+Paul Fenlon, Pat Manion, John Frederick,
+Lee Flateley, John Connolly,
+Steve Roney, Rufus Rauch ... all either
+professors or students. The affair
+started at nine in the evening and lasted
+until almost three in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>When Manion asked whether liquor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
+in England produced immorality,
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. replied,</p>
+
+<p>“Undoubtedly it does in certain London
+districts. When I stayed at the
+Royal York in Toronto on my way down
+to Notre Dame I noticed something
+oligarchical about the Ontario system
+inasmuch as there was a dance on and
+those who could afford a room left the
+ballroom on occasion and went upstairs
+for a nip displaying visible evidences
+thereof as one met them in the hall.
+Moreover in Ontario a permit was
+necessary whereas in Catholic Quebec
+this Protestant condition did not prevail.</p>
+
+<p>“I live near Oxford, and I often visit
+friends there. In Cambridge too I
+know and admire many men, such as
+the poet A.&nbsp;E. Housman, and the historians
+George M. Trevelyan and Holland
+Rose, the great Napoleonic authority.
+Speaking of the latter place
+you know the old yarn about the Italian
+doctor on his way to Cambridge to debate
+some don there. On stopping to
+inquire directions of some pedestrians
+he was answered in Greek verse by
+Cambridge students disguised as workmen,
+whereupon he ordered the coachman
+to turn around and go back because
+said he, if the laborers are so learned,
+what must the dons be?...”</p>
+
+<p>When O’Grady said he had heard that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
+the difference between the two schools
+was that an Oxford man went around
+as though he owned the place, while a
+Cambridge man acted as though he
+didn’t give a damn who did, Chesterton
+retorted,</p>
+
+<p>“And both about equally obnoxious!”</p>
+
+<p>When the discussion turned to some
+well known Englishmen, Chesterton
+said,</p>
+
+<p>“If my description of Lord Beaverbrook
+was based on his journalistic
+methods I would have to call him a
+guttersnipe. I feel that Bertrand Russell
+is a disgrace to English literature,
+not only on account of his writings, but
+also because of his way of life.”</p>
+
+<p>“Masefield’s a fine fellow and a good
+writer,” said Chesterton in reply to another
+question, “but Ramsay MacDonald
+had to choose Masefield as Poet Laureate,
+there being no other poet so
+sympathetic to Labor. However, Yeats
+was by far our best poet. Yet hardly
+ever has the best poet been made laureate.
+There is too much politics in the
+appointment, just as is the case with
+the appointment of the Anglican bishops.
+One need only consider Barnes of
+Birmingham. The idea of calling York’s
+archbishop ‘by divine permission’ and
+Canterbury’s ‘by divine consent,’ has
+always seemed to me rather far-fetched.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span></p>
+
+<p>When reference was made to Rebecca
+West’s resigning from the “Bookman”
+because the editorial policy favored the
+New Humanists, Chesterton remarked,</p>
+
+<p>“How extremely foolish that is—as
+though that affected your contributions!”</p>
+
+<p>Asked about Lord Beaverbrook who
+had but recently died, Chesterton reflected,</p>
+
+<p>“Birkenhead has always been a
+puzzle to me because he was cynical and
+worldly ambitious, and yet, it must be
+confessed, overfond of his liquor. One
+expects such a weakness only from a
+poet or one who has the poetical imagination.”</p>
+
+<p>A comparison being made between
+certain types of Russian and English
+characters, Chesterton went on to say,</p>
+
+<p>“The Russians in their writings are
+always brooding over fate or some silly
+thing. For the most part the English
+gentry are fine, sensible fellows, although,
+of course, there are some
+bounders amongst them. You will now
+find not a few Catholics among them,
+although for many years the only Catholics
+were either English aristocrats or
+Irish paupers.”</p>
+
+<p>Asked if he found the Americans all
+very mad in the pursuit of money, he
+shook his head with a smile,</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span></p>
+
+<p>“Quite the contrary, I find the Americans
+less worshipful of money than
+my fellow English. However, I do prefer
+even our English gentry although
+mad about money, to some of your vulgar
+and blatant millionaires.”</p>
+
+<p>During a discussion of the Church
+and State, Chesterton remarked,</p>
+
+<p>“I read the other day of a western
+magistrate who sentenced a woman to
+go to Church for the next fifty Sundays.
+I wondered at the time whether
+that was consistent with the American
+doctrine of the separation of Church
+and State. Even though we have a
+state church in England, I do not think
+that an English judge would have given
+such a sentence.”</p>
+
+<p>In autographing a book just before
+the party broke up, Chesterton threw
+a lot of ink on the floor, but merely remarked,</p>
+
+<p>“I’m always cluttering up people’s
+carpets.”</p>
+
+<p>His hostess rather prim and proper,
+kept shoving ash-trays at him which he
+completely ignored and continued dropping
+ashes from his cigarettes all over
+the floor. But no one minded this little
+thoughtlessness of genius.</p>
+
+<p>As he put on his Inverness cape and
+black sombrero-like hat he shouted out
+in merry tones,</p>
+
+<p>“If anyone ever tries to tell me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>
+Catholicism is inconsistent with fun and
+play, I’ll say did you ever hear of the
+University of Notre Dame?”</p>
+
+<p>Before Chesterton left the University,
+Mr. William L. Piedmont had a
+pleasant chat with him. Asked what
+he thought of our great American
+sports, G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. answered,</p>
+
+<p>“I witnessed the Notre Dame-Navy
+game, and was much impressed by the
+popularity that your game of football
+enjoys. In my youth I played English
+football and even rounders which might
+be described as an English equivalent
+of baseball.”</p>
+
+<p>“I very gravely doubt if the nations
+are becoming closer and closer together,”
+declared Chesterton when the conversation
+touched the League of Nations.
+“Quite the contrary, I feel the
+various countries are becoming more
+national. An example would be in the
+literary fact that in my youth Thoreau,
+Hawthorne, Mark Twain and the rest
+were as widely known and read in
+Europe as in America, while today the
+strange and awful stuff of American
+writers is unknown abroad with very
+few exceptions. I attribute this to the
+fact that America has become so different
+and in Europe the news hasn’t
+gotten through yet as to what it’s all
+about in America.”</p>
+
+<p>On being asked if he thought the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>
+world (and especially, the United
+States) possessed any great thinkers,
+he replied humorously,</p>
+
+<p>“If there are any people in the world
+today who do think, witness my ‘Age
+of Unreason,’ I feel America can certainly
+claim some of them.”</p>
+
+<p>After confessing that he read very
+few novels, but mentioning the works
+of Sheila Kaye-Smith with approbation,
+he went on to say,</p>
+
+<p>“But I consider Rebecca West the
+most interesting woman writer, if for
+no other reason than because she is
+gradually becoming more respectable. I
+suppose (with a characteristic chuckle)
+that her marrying a banker is not really
+the cause of respectability, even though
+marrying a banker may be a sort of
+worldly parallel to being confirmed in
+grace!”</p>
+
+<p>Of the winner of the Nobel prize for
+literature, he said,</p>
+
+<p>“On the whole, I think Sinclair Lewis
+is the scourge of God—a calamity in
+some respects like the Great Fire of
+London. I do not believe that Mr.
+Lewis has enough sympathy with the
+Middle West people of whom he writes,
+nor has he the right slant on the people
+of Main Street—as I have observed
+them during my sojourn in America.
+I think it about time somebody made
+fun of the greasy optimism prevalent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
+in recent novels. Lewis has a good
+deal of righteous indignation, but what
+he lacks is the positive moral idea
+which should be found in the representative
+literature of every nation. I like
+Lewis when he is simply humorous like
+in “The Man Who Knew Coolidge,” but
+in general the bestowal of the prize is
+like giving a medal to a great scavenger.”</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived in Washington, D.&nbsp;C.
+to lecture at Trinity College, Chesterton
+gave Miss Syd Walsh an interesting and
+picturesque description of Notre Dame,</p>
+
+<p>“I think the faculty and students
+awfully jolly people and the campus
+itself a bit of medievalism with its constant
+stream of youths in bright colors
+pouring in and out of old stone buildings
+with gilded domes. As long as I
+live I will never forget their way of
+letting off fireworks before a big game
+and generally playing the goat in a
+cheery way.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span></p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<figure id="i_114" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img src="images/i_114.jpg" width="2258" height="3113" alt="">
+  <figcaption class="caption">
+    <p>FACSIMILE WRITING</p>
+    <p>of</p>
+    <p>MR. AND MRS. G.&nbsp;K. CHESTERTON</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<div>                                                                                                                                                                                                                           </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_TEN">CHAPTER TEN<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">CHESTERTON AND AMERICAN AUTHORS.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Recently there appeared a statement
+to the effect that although Chesterton
+had considerable popularity with the
+average American reader, our authors
+cared but little for the man and his
+work. Doubting such a sweeping statement,
+I wrote to various men of letters
+who would serve as a good cross-section
+of American literature, and their replies
+proved unusually illuminating.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course you may put me down as
+an admirer of Chesterton,” declares
+Channing Pollock, “though I recall surprisingly
+little of his work. I have
+read so much that, after fifty-six years,
+I begin to find recollections blurred.
+My admiration of Chesterton is founded
+on my impression of the man—of what
+he was and stood for; of his sincerity,
+courage, forthrightness and general
+altruism.”</p>
+
+<p>“As a boy of ten,” records Thomas
+O. Mabbott, “I read regularly copies of
+the ‘London Illustrated News’ to which
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. was a regular contributor. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
+am one of those people who, while not
+exactly a prodigy, developed very early
+and think very much more as I did
+when sixteen than most people seem to
+do. I often boast how little most writers
+influence my own thought but Chesterton
+is one of the few who did! I
+read much of his work as a very young
+man, and believe he is one of the very
+few authors who impressed me <em>profoundly</em>.
+I saw ‘Magic’ when it was
+given in New York during the war—a
+mark of devotion, surely, since I rarely
+went to a serious play. Incidentally I
+thought it <em>very</em> effective as an acted
+play.”</p>
+
+<p>Clement Wood first read “Heretics”
+and then “Orthodoxy,” and immediately
+obtained the impression that the author
+was “one of the world’s most alert and
+persuasively brilliant minds. He made
+the persons treated of real and significant
+to me for the first time. Thereafter
+I read most of his work. His novels
+are absolutely unique, I wouldn’t be
+without one, and of all, the ‘Napoleon
+of Notting Hill’ is the most precious—the
+glorious effort to revive medievalism
+today (which I am 100% against
+intellectually) won me forever. His
+Father Brown stories, in spite of the
+ever-present propaganda for Catholicism—which
+again I am against, but
+I believe that if religion persists, it will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
+either be Roman Catholic or the Quaker
+non-Christian (Religious Society of
+Friends) non-evangelical faith—I regard
+as by all odds the greatest detective
+stories ever written. Poe and Doyle
+are forerunners, and then G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+whose every word is a work of art.
+I have memorized the plots of nearly
+all and the wording of many of his
+memorable openings. His ‘Peacock
+Trees,’ ‘Club of Queen Trades,’ rank
+as highly.</p>
+
+<p>“The play ‘Magic’ is immortal and
+weighs more to me than all Shaw!”</p>
+
+<p>“You may certainly enroll me as one
+of his admirers,” affirms Donald Ogden
+Stewart. “Although I do not recall the
+name of the first book of his which I
+read, I do remember, however, that it
+was while I was in my senior year at
+Yale, and that it had such an influence
+on me that I immediately proceeded to
+read every one of his books that I could
+lay my hands on.”</p>
+
+<p>Henry Hazlitt first encountered
+Chesterton’s writings in 1916 and “was
+quickly carried away by his stylistic
+brilliance. My admiration, I must confess,
+was not sustained at its original
+level, but it most certainly never deserted
+me. I never met him personally,
+but I heard him debate with Clarence
+Darrow, and was impressed by his immense<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
+superiority over his antagonist,
+and by his charm as a man.”</p>
+
+<p>William Thomas Walsh first heard
+about G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. when he was a student
+at Yale in 1909: “I think it was Professor
+Chauncey B. Tinker who recommended
+him in class that year, and I
+seem to remember that William Lyon
+Phelps was also a Chesterton enthusiast
+at that early period. The book that
+helped and influenced me most was
+‘The Everlasting Man.’ I liked it so
+well that I bought three copies, intending
+to lend them to as many people as
+possible, for I thought the whole world
+should drink at that fountain of wisdom.
+I soon discovered, however, that
+some people loved the book and others
+hated it just as fervently. This was
+to be expected, perhaps, about anything
+so profoundly Christian in its perceptions.
+In fact, I began to entertain an
+almost superstitious notion that the
+book had a practical value apart from
+literary considerations, in what St. Ignatius,
+following St. John, called the
+Discernment of Spirits. The various
+agnostics and pagans to whom I lent the
+book usually kept it a long while, and
+finally returned it saying apologetically
+that they had never found time to read
+it, though I knew that every one of
+them had read several other books in
+the interim. Finally the three volumes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
+disappeared completely from my life.
+It was partly my fault, for I have a bad
+habit of lending books, and forgetting
+to whom: and as the number of people
+who have to be reminded to return
+books is apparently very large, I have
+lost the best part of my library in consequence:
+for it is usually the book
+that one is enthusiastic about that one
+lends. But I can’t help thinking the
+Devil must have had a particular grudge
+against so true and so powerful a book,
+and has continued to hide all three of
+my volumes on the most obscure
+shelves of as many sons of Belial. Still,
+as good comes out of evil in the long
+run, it may be that the sons of these
+benighted individuals may inadvertently
+come upon them on rainy days, and
+in their innocence read and be enlightened.</p>
+
+<p>“In my biography of Philip the
+Second, I have had to differ with Chesterton’s
+interpretations of that most
+misunderstood gentleman. But when
+G.&nbsp;K. wrote his glorious ‘Lepanto,’ he
+was still partly deceived by the tradition
+that had so long dominated English
+letters, so far as Spain was concerned.
+It is the only mistake of importance I
+have ever noted in the work of that
+phenomenal man.”</p>
+
+<p>Hamlin Garland met him at the Savage
+Club in London, and several times<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
+in America: “As a matter of fact, I
+introduced him when he made his first
+address in New York City. I enjoyed
+his mystery stories much better than
+some of his more pretentious work.
+From my point of view he worked the
+paradoxes altogether too hard. He was
+a very singular and interesting character.”</p>
+
+<p>Waldo Frank remembers that when
+he was “in college and out of it, the
+essays of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. stimulated me, indeed.
+His critique of modern society,
+his destruction of its complacencies, his
+suggestive references to other values
+now absent, meant a good deal to me.”</p>
+
+<p>Myles Connolly feels that Chesterton
+“will not, try as I will, come under the
+head of remembrance. He seems vividly
+contemporary, vitally alive. It’s a
+worn-out form of tribute, I know, but
+there’s none greater and I will say it:
+he lives. The stuff of immortality was
+so strong in him that beside his memory
+as the world calls it, it is we who
+are dead.</p>
+
+<p>“Napoleon said that no man became
+a writer unless he were a defeatist.
+When life was too tall and strong for a
+man, he quit, and in his pen he found
+corroboration and consolation. That is
+not, we are aware, altogether so. Although
+it is true most men who write
+are running away. But with Chesterton<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
+writing was not running away; it
+was running to—running to reality, to
+truth. Writing was life with him: it
+was his breathing, his talk, his laughter,
+his self. It might be said that
+those who don’t like Chesterton don’t
+like the truth. It might ever more accurately
+be said that those who don’t
+like Chesterton, don’t like life. That
+superabundance of his, that hugeness
+of his, is too much for them. They
+crawl; he dances (albeit like the mountains
+of Scripture). They pick-peck;
+he waves that tremendous sword. They
+count those corroded little pennies; he
+empties that fabulous purse of his on
+the world. He was an extravagant man;
+extravagant of his riches, his light, his
+life. It is this shining extravagance
+that blinds the crawlers and pick-peckers
+and misers. It is a glory too much for
+them. A few words of ‘Thoreau’ are, I
+think, to the point. ‘I fear,’ writes the
+Concord ascetic, ‘lest my expression
+may not be <em>extra-vagrant</em> enough, may
+not wander far enough beyond the narrow
+limits of my daily experience, so as
+to be adequate to the truth of which I
+have been convinced ... I desire to
+speak somewhere without bounds; like
+a man in a waking moment to men in
+their waking moments; for I am convinced
+I cannot exaggerate enough even
+to lay the foundation of a true expression.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
+Who that has heard a strain of
+music feared then lest he should speak
+extravagantly any more forever?’</p>
+
+<p>“To Chesterton such words as ‘tremendous’
+and ‘splendid’ and ‘enormous’
+and ‘shattering’ were of common use.
+(In fact, it was he who made such
+words popular.) These words came
+naturally to him because (and he would
+be the last to admit it) he himself lived
+these words; such words only could
+express his vitality and significance.
+He was a giant. There is no other way
+of saying it. Except, perhaps, to say
+he still is.”</p>
+
+<p>James Branch Cabell “enjoyed all the
+work of Chesterton’s early and middle
+period. I admit that of his publications
+during, let us say vaguely, more recent
+years, I prefer to say nothing, out of
+loyalty to a person that has given me a
+vast amount of pleasure. I write this
+after verifying the fact that his earlier
+books when I re-read them, can still do
+this.”</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed I am a warm admirer of
+Chesterton,” affirms Rabbi Stephen S.
+Wise. “Apart from his delightful wit
+and his genius in many directions, he
+was a great religionist. He as a Catholic,
+I as a Jew, could see eye to eye
+with each other, and he might have
+added, ‘particularly seeing that you are
+cross-eyed;’ but I deeply respected him.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
+When Hitlerism came, he was one of
+the first to speak out with all the directness
+and frankness of a great and
+unabashed spirit.”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Alexis Carrel well remembers
+that “Heretics” was the first Chesterton
+book that he read almost a quarter
+of a century ago,</p>
+
+<p>“The extreme clarity and brilliance of
+his style impressed me greatly. The
+train of his thought appeared to me as
+strong, flexible, and shining as a steel
+blade, and as merciless.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_ELEVEN">CHAPTER ELEVEN<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">B</a><br>
+
+<span class="subhead">THE AUTHOR VISITS TOP MEADOW</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>In a delightful villa, called Top
+Meadow, in Beaconsfield, a small town
+of Buckinghamshire, about forty minutes
+on the train from London, lives,
+and has lived for some ten years, Gilbert
+Keith Chesterton with his charming
+wife. Chesterton, a huge man,
+possesses the frankness and enthusiasm
+of a boy, with unkept curly blond hair,
+blue eyes, shaggy reddish brown moustache,
+an exceedingly pleasant and attractive
+smile, wearing clothes in a
+somewhat careless and negligent manner.
+Although clear and resonant, his
+voice is not as powerful as one would
+be led to expect for a man of his size.
+He possesses the little mannerism of
+twirling the ends of his moustache
+every now and then. He would make
+a joke with true Twainian seriousness
+upon his face, but unlike the great
+American such feigned seriousness becomes
+too much for him, and he bursts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
+out in peals of Gargantuan laughter
+that often renders him speechless for a
+few seconds. At other times the idea of
+something funny will cause him to
+laugh most heartily before he has had
+a chance to express it in words.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">B</a> This entire chapter was read, corrected, and
+approved in its present shape, by Chesterton
+himself a short time before his death.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>In a little hallway, Chesterton introduced
+me to his wife, and then led the
+way into the living room, a tremendous
+chamber fully a hundred feet long, low-ceilinged
+and surrounded on all sides
+by shelves bulging and overflowing
+with books of every description, a massive
+fire-place built of large stones that
+must have come from the bed of a nearby
+brook, and a number of what proved
+to be exceedingly comfortable chairs
+grouped around the empty fire-place;
+for it was midsummer.</p>
+
+<p>As we sat down before the fire-place,
+Chesterton said he was vastly amused
+over a delegation from America that
+had called on him the day before.</p>
+
+<p>“They were making a tour of Europe
+for the express purpose of unearthing
+everything they could about Browning.
+They called on me because I have once
+written a book on the poet. It was a
+grave mistake on their part to think
+that because a man has written a book
+on a particular subject in the dim and
+distant past, he therefore knows everything
+about that subject. At the time
+of writing the book, I probably was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
+little more up on Robert Browning than
+the average person, but all my superior
+knowledge has slipped from me long
+ago.”</p>
+
+<p>The question of modern youth came
+up for discussion.</p>
+
+<p>“Young people today have the idea
+that old timers are landmarks. I hope
+I do not fill as much space as Saint
+Paul’s, but at least I am a Victorian ruin
+dating from the year 1874. The last
+time I was in New York I noticed that
+the landscape was always changing.
+When a baby is born he just has time
+to look at the skyscrapers a week or so
+before they are pulled down. Pulling
+down New York seems to be the local
+industry. A baby goes out in his perambulator
+and his home is pulled down
+before he gets back.”</p>
+
+<p>“What do you think of the young
+people today, Mr. Chesterton?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” he replied, “their chief trouble
+is they don’t want to admit that old
+people really do know the modern movement
+because we are able to compare
+it with movements of the past. But the
+young people know nothing else but the
+present. The result is that they do not
+give modern conditions much thought.
+For instance, if we had moving sidewalks
+today, the young people would
+take it for granted, the old ones alone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
+could compare them with the stationary
+sidewalks.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think that much change has
+taken place in the last fifty years,” I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“We cannot grasp the tremendous
+change that has taken place since 1874,
+my birth year. Your country used not
+to pay much attention to culture. When
+Matthew Arnold began his lecture
+series in America, he was worried about
+what the American papers would say of
+him for his criticism of certain phases
+of American culture which he had
+handled rather severely, but was relieved
+to find that the papers had large
+headlines reading,</p>
+
+<p>“‘Matthew Arnold has side whiskers.’
+But today you have a very high regard
+for culture in your country.”</p>
+
+<p>“What literary people did you meet
+in America, Mr. Chesterton?”</p>
+
+<p>“Among others I met Robert Cortes
+Holliday, and Sinclair Lewis,” he replied.
+“I found Lewis a pleasant fellow.
+He was anxious to learn about the
+conditions in England. That man, I
+think, has considerable genius. I met
+‘A.&nbsp;E.’ George Russell, also when I was
+at Yale. He was completely wrapped up
+in giving his lectures on agriculture to
+you Americans.”</p>
+
+<p>“What does he think of our country?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span></p>
+
+<p>“He has a semi-humorous, rather
+critical, attitude towards you. He
+won’t write anything much in praise
+or anything particularly hostile.”<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">C</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">C</a> This prophesy of Chesterton’s proved to be
+correct.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>“What American cities especially appealed
+to you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Baltimore I found exceedingly
+charming,” answered Chesterton.
+“There is a quaint atmosphere about
+the place that is hard to describe. Saint
+Louis I also liked, a most pleasant cultured
+city.”</p>
+
+<p>“I once heard you lecture in Saint
+Louis, Mr. Chesterton,” I remarked,
+“and I agree with what you said about
+the underdog:</p>
+
+<p>“‘When the very poor man gets
+angry and ‘bites,’ everyone, even the
+social workers, treat him as though he
+were a mad dog. Has he not the right
+to get deliberately angry, the same as
+anybody else? Once I debated with
+Clarence Darrow, and when I talked to
+him after the lecture, he seemed to
+have sympathy for the poor man, the
+underdog, who was goaded on to do
+things, by saying that he was mad.
+Why cannot people give the underdog
+credit for biting when he wants to, instead
+of contending that he is just the
+same as a mad dog on a rampage?’”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span></p>
+
+<p>When Galsworthy became the topic
+of conversation, Chesterton remarked,</p>
+
+<p>“Galsworthy always reminds me of
+the solicitor of an old English family.
+I cannot altogether feel that he reflects
+modern England. He lays too much
+stress upon a college education. He
+believes that a man not blessed with a
+college education might at any time
+murder his mother. Galsworthy also
+lacks the sweet balance of humor, only
+a rather limited amount of humor
+breathes forth from his works. Like
+Darrow he, too, holds to the belief that
+the underdog is always mad if he causes
+the slightest trouble.</p>
+
+<p>“Again Galsworthy never seems to
+write with set purpose, while I am one
+of those people who believe that you’ve
+got to be dominated by your moral
+slant. I’m no ‘art-for-art’s-sake’ man.
+I am quite incapable of talking or writing
+about Dutch gardens or the game
+of chess, but if I did, I have no doubt
+that what I say or write about them
+would be colored by my view of the
+cosmos.”</p>
+
+<p>When the question of pessimism
+came up, I mentioned that the week
+before I had had the pleasure of dining
+with A.&nbsp;E. Housman at Cambridge<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">D</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
+who facetiously told me that he was
+often compared to Hardy because both
+their names began with an “H”.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">D</a> See “An Evening with A.&nbsp;E. Housman,” by
+Cyril Clemens, 1937.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>“That is all the basis critics often
+have for forming comparisons,” replied
+Chesterton with a smile, “but in this
+case there is a measure of truth in the
+comparison. Both undoubtedly have a
+certain amount of pessimism. Poet
+Housman’s, however, has the tang of
+the fresh air about it, whereas Hardy’s
+seems somewhat unpleasant.”</p>
+
+<p>And to illustrate his point, Chesterton
+quoted from “A Shropshire Lad,”</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“Oh many a peer of England brews</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Livelier liquor than the Muse,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And malt does more than Milton can</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To justify God’s ways to man.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For fellows whom it hurts to think:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Look into the pewter pot</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To see the world as the world’s not.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>A little later we went to the small
+dining room which was a few steps
+higher than, and was separated by a
+heavy silk curtain from, the living
+room. At a massive oaken table we
+sat down to a delicious tea.</p>
+
+<p>When I asked Mrs. Chesterton what
+was the national dish of England, she
+promptly replied,</p>
+
+<p>“Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,
+undoubtedly.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span></p>
+
+<p>“Fried eggs and bacon is my favorite
+dish,” spoke up Chesterton.</p>
+
+<p>I then asked the author what would
+be his choice if he had to go on a desert
+island and could take but one book
+along.</p>
+
+<p>“It would depend upon the circumstances,”
+he replied. “If I were a politician
+who wanted to impress his constituents,
+I would take Plato or Aristotle.
+But the real test would be with
+people who had no chance to show off
+before their friends or their constituents.
+In that case I feel certain that
+everyone would take Thomas’ ‘Guide to
+Practical Shipbuilding’ so that they
+could get away from the island as
+quickly as possible. And then if they
+should be allowed to take a second book
+it would be the most exciting detective
+story within reach. But if I could only
+take one book to a desert isle and was
+not in a particular hurry to get off, I
+would without the slightest hesitation
+put ‘Pickwick Papers’ in my handbag.”</p>
+
+<p>The talk switched to the Russian situation.
+Chesterton thinks that Lenin
+was of the mad Russian type, just such
+a type as Tolstoy,</p>
+
+<p>“But Trotsky is at once both more
+commercial and cunning; he is the typical
+Russian or German Jew.”</p>
+
+<p>The Chestertons own a pert little
+Scotch terrier named Quoodle. “I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
+named him Quoodle,” explained Chesterton,
+“after the hero of one of my
+early, but alas forgotten, novels, in the
+hope that unwary visitors like you
+would ask about the origin of the name
+and I would have a good excuse to talk
+about my novel! But when only the
+family is present we shorten the name
+to Quo: a handy name and one that can
+be yelled to the top of the lungs.”</p>
+
+<p>Among the other delectable viands
+that Mrs. Chesterton’s bounty provided
+were some cakes made out of the white
+of eggs, that caused me to say,</p>
+
+<p>“These cakes put me in mind of some
+period of English Literature.”</p>
+
+<p>“They remind me, rather,” responded
+Chesterton with a hearty laugh, “of
+icebergs and I wish that I was sitting
+on a large one just now. (It was an
+extremely hot August afternoon.) But
+if we must compare them to some
+period of English literature they remind
+me of the rococo period, the age of Horace
+Walpole, in particular of some of
+the decorations of his home ‘Strawberry
+Hill’.”</p>
+
+<p>Tea over, Chesterton suggested going
+to see his garden. After putting on an
+enormous sombrero, and taking in his
+hand something like a small axe, but
+which proved to be a walking stick
+which his Polish friend, Roman Dyboski,
+had given him, he led the way<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
+through a French window out into a
+tidy little garden. We sat on camp
+chairs in a pleasant spot. Chesterton’s
+one seemed somewhat frail, shaking a
+little, and to make matters worse, the
+cat Stanley Baldwin came along and
+fell sound asleep right under his master’s
+chair! If anything had happened
+to the chair, Baldwin would have
+awakened in cat heaven!</p>
+
+<p>The conversation turned on the rather
+whimsical subject of chairs.</p>
+
+<p>“H.&nbsp;G. Wells in one of his books,” remarked
+Chesterton, “has written several
+pages on the subject of chairs.
+Some non-materialists might very well
+contend there is no such a thing as a
+chair. They would argue that since
+there are all kinds and varieties of
+chairs, when you use the word ‘chair’
+you cannot have any particular one in
+mind: therefore the word is only abstract
+and hence has no equivalent in
+actuality!”</p>
+
+<p>When I wondered if anything had
+ever been written on the subject of
+shoes, Chesterton answered that his
+friend Hilaire Belloc had done an exceedingly
+entertaining essay on the
+subject, “Belloc makes the point that
+the kind of shoes a man wears and how
+he keeps them, is a better indication of
+his character, than any other piece of
+apparel.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span></p>
+
+<p>Chesterton told of a literary club
+which had lately given a fancy dressed
+ball for its members, and that he went
+as Doctor Samuel Johnson. When I
+asked who Mrs. Chesterton went as, he
+replied with a merry twinkle in his eye,</p>
+
+<p>“My wife went dressed as one of the
+characters in a novel that I am going
+to write in the near future! You see
+that I devise ways and means to advertise
+both my old novels and my new
+ones!”</p>
+
+<p>The subject of Rome and Mussolini
+came up, and when I expressed admiration
+for “The Resurrection of Rome,”
+he snapped,</p>
+
+<p>“I think it was a pretty bad book.”</p>
+
+<p>At my disagreement, a look of mild
+surprise appeared on Chesterton’s face,</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” explained he, “it was written
+just after a stay in Rome, and I think
+that I made the fatal mistake of reading
+the book too soon after it was written.
+That should never be done by any
+author. The longer after the writing
+that I wait to read one of my books, the
+better it seems.”</p>
+
+<p>When I mentioned that Mussolini had
+told me how much he had enjoyed reading
+“The Man Who Was Thursday,”
+and had found it exceedingly funny,
+Chesterton answered,</p>
+
+<p>“Does anyone find my books funny?
+It pleases me to hear that, for at times<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
+I fear that my humorous works are
+taken seriously and my serious ones humorously.
+I also had an audience with
+Mussolini. He did not act in a high
+and mighty manner at all, but showed
+a genuine interest in England and
+asked me numerous questions about the
+country. He was indeed a jolly card.”</p>
+
+<p>“In what language did you carry on
+your conversation,” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“We spoke in French,” replied Chesterton,
+“and when leaving I said, ‘I
+hope you excused my poor French,
+Your Excellency.’ To which Mussolini
+answered, ‘That’s all right; you speak
+French about as well as I speak English’.”</p>
+
+<p>After a moment’s pause Chesterton
+reflected, “I don’t suppose that was
+much of a compliment for my French,
+because at that time Mussolini knew
+practically no English.”</p>
+
+<p>“When do you do most of your writing,
+Mr. Chesterton?”</p>
+
+<p>“Whenever I get a chance, I do not
+care much for the typewriter and I find
+pen or pencil much too tedious, for I
+am a rather slow writer. At present I
+do a considerable amount of dictating.
+I can compose just as readily this way.”</p>
+
+<p>One of the last questions I asked my
+host was his opinion of Mark Twain,</p>
+
+<p>“I have always admired the genius
+of Mark Twain which may truly be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
+called gigantic. Mark Twain dealt so
+much with the gigantic exaggeration
+of imagination; the skyscrapers of literature.
+He was the greatest master of
+the tall story who has ever lived and
+was also, what is more important, a
+thoroughly sincere man.”</p>
+
+<p>As the cab to take me to my London
+train was announced, Chesterton graciously
+inscribed his “History of England”
+in the following fashion,</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+“Greetings to the Mark Twain Society<br>
+from an Innocent at Home<br>
+G.&nbsp;K. Chesterton<br>
+Known as the Unjumping Frog of<br>
+Bucks County.”<br>
+
+and Mrs. Chesterton added,<br>
+“And from Frances Chesterton<br>
+Wife of the Innocent.”
+</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_TWELVE">CHAPTER TWELVE<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">FATHER BROWN.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Once in telling his creator what delight
+Father Brown had given him, the
+author asked if the spiritual detective
+was a real person.</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed he is,” answered Chesterton.
+“His name is Father John O’Connor and
+he lives in Bradford, Yorkshire.”</p>
+
+<p>“‘Trent’s Last Case’ had recently
+appeared,” Father O’Connor himself
+writes the author, “and Chesterton full
+of admiration for E.&nbsp;C. Bentley, was
+humbly envious, longing to add to the
+small (as it was then) crop of detective
+stories. He also was bitten with costume
+drama and would without provocation
+‘lurk’ by the jamb of a doorway
+with cloak-and-sword (he had a sword-stick)
+as it were in wait for the Duke
+of Guise. He had a column the next
+week in ‘The Daily News,’ relating how
+the forest-keepers of Ilkley apprehended
+him for making passes at the local
+trees, but released him on learning that
+he was a guest of a Justice of the
+Peace.</p>
+
+<p>“Many a glorious day we had together<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
+under that hospitable roof of
+Francis Steinthal and his ever gracious
+wife. Chesterton himself tells how two
+young men that first evening, after I
+had gone home, wondered how a sheltered
+existence like mine could ever
+take part in the rude, naughty world as
+it stood, and how this gave the first
+push off to the Father Brown series.
+Disguise is mingled with description—I
+did carry a specially large and cheap
+umbrella—had quite a habit of brown-paper
+parcels—and the episode of the
+sapphire cross—(in America, a diamond
+cross, of course) has this relation to
+sordid fact, that I was still vain in having
+bought five sapphires for five shillings
+in an obscure pawnshop in Bradford.
+Many years later, in Bradford
+again, some duffer introduced me as
+Father Brown to two international
+crooks who were playing themselves
+into the book-trade, and they both disappeared,
+leaving no trace, within
+twenty-four hours!”</p>
+
+<p>Father O’Connor never forgot the
+day that he spent with the two Chesterton
+brothers at St. John’s, Ilkley,
+and has often wondered since if anyone
+ever had a better chance to observe
+their mental difference and their deep
+attachment at such close quarters as he
+did that day. Cecil was a Church of
+England Conservative Fabian Socialist,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>
+Gilbert was almost an official Liberal,
+and at that time writing for “The Daily
+News.” Cecil had already, in “The
+Fabian Review,” battered daylight
+through the Liberal Party in many a
+large hole. This can be seen in his
+“Gladstonian Ghosts.” From lunch till
+tea and from tea till dinner, Cecil stood
+his ground, and Gilbert must have
+walked many miles around the large
+dining table trying to reply to his
+brother’s arguments.</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton gave the author his own
+version of how he first conceived the
+idea for the famous character,</p>
+
+<p>“While at tea with Father O’Connor
+the conversation turned to philosophical
+and moral channels, and I mentioned
+with considerable timidity, a certain
+rather sordid question of vice and crime,
+which I intended to discuss in a future
+essay. I was vastly astonished to find
+that the priest not only had a thorough
+working knowledge of the subject but
+was able to furnish me with further
+facts of an almost sensational nature.</p>
+
+<p>“Some days later Father O’Connor
+and I took dinner with two Cambridge
+undergraduates. When the priest left
+the room, the young men remarked on
+what a thoroughly charming and cultivated
+person he was despite the fact
+that in his cloistered existence he knew
+so little of the world. One of them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>
+remarked, ‘It’s a very beautiful thing
+to be innocent and ignorant, but I think
+it’s a much finer thing not to be afraid
+of knowledge.’</p>
+
+<p>“The complete and crushing irony of
+the remark so touched my imagination
+that there was born in my mind the
+idea of a priest who should appear to
+know nothing, but as a matter of fact,
+knows more about crime than the criminals
+themselves. The point of him
+(Father Brown) was to appear pointless;
+and one might say that his conspicuous
+quality was in NOT being conspicuous.
+I have always thought that
+the most appropriate compliment ever
+paid my famous detective priest came
+from the lips of a charming Catholic
+lady who remarked, ‘I am very fond of
+that ‘officious little loafer’.”</p>
+
+<p>The prototype of one of the Father
+Brown characters, Hesketh Pearson,
+writes the author,</p>
+
+<p>“I greatly enjoyed the Father Brown
+stories, and remember his telling me
+that he had described me in one of
+them, though I cannot remember which.
+My last meeting with him was not altogether
+a pleasant one because he
+started it by asking,</p>
+
+<p>“‘Why, are you not a Catholic? All
+the best writers of today are Catholics<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
+and you are much too clever to be anything
+else!’</p>
+
+<p>“I was forced to explain my view of
+God, which was not his, and this disagreement
+cast a slight shade over the
+subsequent conversation—though I am
+sure he was much too kindly a soul to
+let it affect his feelings towards me,
+which were always most cordial. He
+was extremely generous to me at two
+crucial moments in my life, and I shall
+always remember him with gratitude,
+admiration and affection.”</p>
+
+<p>Rafael Sabatini’s first acquaintance
+with Chesterton’s work “was made
+through Father Brown, and I don’t
+know that I cared more for any of his
+creations. He was, we all know, one of
+three contemporaries to whom allusion
+was commonly made by their triple initials:
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. in his case. The other
+two, G.&nbsp;B.&nbsp;S. (George Bernard Shaw
+and Clement K. Shorter). One day that
+perverse genius, T.&nbsp;W.&nbsp;H. Crossland (of
+whom little may have been known in
+the States) was in my study chatting
+with me in his usual disgruntled fashion.
+The conversation turned on
+Shorter. Whilst he talked he scribbled
+on a British Museum reading room
+ticket, which he left carelessly on my
+table. After he had gone I looked at
+the ticket and found on it scribbled the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
+following quatrain, which has remained
+hitherto unpublished,</p>
+
+<p>
+‘G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;S.<br>
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.<br>
+G.&nbsp;B.&nbsp;S.<br>
+N.&nbsp;B.&nbsp;G.’”
+</p>
+
+<p>G.&nbsp;B. Stern has “received intense
+pleasure from a good deal of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+One of my most treasured books is a
+first edition of ‘The Napoleon of Notting
+Hill’ which excited me wildly when
+I first read it, some time in my teens.
+I was born in Holland Park, and used
+to be sent as a child for daily walks all
+over Campden Hill and up and down
+through ‘Napoleon’ kingdom, so that
+it had a strong local interest as well as
+its romantic appeal. I think, therefore,
+this remains the favorite of his works,
+together with ‘Lepanto,’ ‘The Secret
+People,’ and two or three of the other
+poems; but I also greatly enjoy and
+have re-read several times the Father
+Brown stories and ‘The Flying Inn.’
+Also I was present at the very first performance
+in London of the play,
+‘Magic,’ which seemed to me even then
+inspired with those queer colored bursts
+of truth which were so peculiarly Chesterton.”</p>
+
+<p>The late Mr. S.&nbsp;S. Van Dine, author
+of “The ‘Canary’ Murder Case” and “The
+Philo Vance Murder Case,” wrote the
+author, “I am very glad to be included<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
+as one of America’s admirers of G.&nbsp;K.
+C.’s Father Brown series. Father Brown
+has long been a favorite with me.”</p>
+
+<p>And Mary Roberts Rinehart, “Of
+course I was a great admirer of the
+Father Brown stories, and was naturally
+pleased that Mr. Chesterton liked
+my own work. In a way we formed a
+sort of mutual admiration society.”</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton and I wrote a detective
+story together,” recalls Sir Max Pemberton.
+“I opened the mystery—he
+closed it, most ably, of course. I can’t
+remember what it was about, but I am
+sure he brought the villain to justice.</p>
+
+<p>“He was a truly great figure—a
+worthy successor to the immortal Doctor
+Johnson. Both had rare gifts, of
+literature and Faith.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_THIRTEEN">CHAPTER THIRTEEN<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">SOME APPRAISALS.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Chesterton was one of the great and
+dynamic forces during the time he
+lived,” declares Ralph Adams Cram.
+“I ‘fell for him’ many years ago when
+almost by accident I found and read
+‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill.’ That
+settled the case for me, and after that
+I was, so to speak, his intellectual and
+spiritual slave. Of all his books it seems
+to me this, together with ‘The Man Who
+Was Thursday,’ ‘The Bell and the
+Cross,’ ‘The Flying Inn’ and ‘The Victorian
+Age of English Literature’ are
+those for which I care most. This may
+seem a curious selection, but in most of
+these he makes his points through indirection,
+and in some ways this seems
+to me a more powerful method of conveying
+his ideas and inspiring the public
+than the more explicit works, the
+object of which is very obvious. This
+is not to disparage anything he ever did—except,
+perhaps, the Father Brown
+Mystery stories, which seem to me
+rather unworthy of him, though even
+these serve to show the immense<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
+breadth of his interest, his knowledge,
+and his literary ability.”</p>
+
+<p>The late W.&nbsp;B. Yeats wrote the author
+that he found Chesterton “a kindly
+and generous man of whom I constantly
+heard from friends, but as far as I can
+recollect I only met him socially twice,
+once at a Club dinner and once for tea
+at a country house. So much of my
+life has always been spent in Ireland
+that I know comparatively little of the
+English celebrities. I don’t want to
+write about his works: I have read
+very little of it, and to write even of
+that little would open up great questions
+I don’t want to come to any decision
+about in my present ignorance
+(which is likely to endure).”</p>
+
+<p>In his “Autobiography,” Chesterton
+states that he had some talk about
+poetry and property with Yeats at the
+Dublin Art Club, “a most exhilarating
+evening.” Yeats asked Chesterton to
+debate at the Abbey Theatre, defending
+property on its more purely political
+side, against an able leader of Liberty
+Hall, the famous stronghold of Labor
+politics in Dublin, Robert Johnson, who
+was exceedingly popular with the proletarian
+Irish.</p>
+
+<p>“That passage from G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s ‘Autobiography’
+is correct so far as I can
+remember,” wrote Yeats in a second
+letter. “It was a time when the English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
+Government was stopping discussion
+and we kept discussion open at the
+Abbey Theatre when it had stopped
+elsewhere, by getting people to speak
+on the conservative side and letting
+debate develop as it likes afterwards.
+Johnson who replied to Chesterton was
+at that time the most important Irish
+labour leader: he is still very important.
+He was in the Irish Senate for
+some years, Bernard Shaw lectured
+either the week after or the week before
+Chesterton. Both men were brilliant,
+Chesterton taking the line that the
+possession of small properties was essential
+to liberty, Johnson putting the
+Trades Union point of view that it was
+more important for the workman to
+spend his money on his children than
+to save it.”</p>
+
+<p>Cuthbert Wright’s only personal connection
+with Chesterton was to have
+been mentioned in one of his last books,
+“The Well and the Shadows”: “Some
+year ago I had published a review of
+G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.’s ‘Catholic Church and Conversion,’
+in which I drew attention to
+what I considered a stylistic defect, his
+mania for alliteration. He seems to
+have remembered it during the intervening
+years, and doing me the honor
+to couple my name with that of Mr.
+T.&nbsp;S. Eliot wrote as follows,</p>
+
+<p>“‘It must be a terrible strain on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>
+presence of mind to be always ready
+with a synonym. I can imagine Mr. T.&nbsp;S.
+Eliot just stopping himself in time and
+saying, ‘Waste not, require not.’ I like
+to think of Mr. Cuthbert Wright having
+the self-control to cry, ‘Time and fluctuation
+wait for no man.’ I can imagine
+his delicate accent when speaking of a
+pig in a receptacle or of bats in the
+campanile.”</p>
+
+<p>Professor Roman Dyboski of Krakow,
+Poland, was first drawn to Chesterton
+when he read some articles in
+the “Illustrated London News,” and
+some passages from his historical
+poem, “The Ballad of the White
+Horse.” The professor suggested his
+advanced students making a special
+study on the author, and the result was
+two Polish books on G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. Soon
+translations of Chesterton’s works became
+fairly numerous in Poland. His
+play “Magic” had several successful
+runs on Polish stages, and the Polish
+Radio popularized “The Man Who Was
+Thursday” in a dramatic version.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after his visit to Poland
+early in 1927, Chesterton sent Dr.
+Dyboski an introduction to a collective
+volume of studies by Polish scholars
+written to commemorate the Seventh
+Hundred Anniversary of the death of
+St. Francis of Assisi, and the services
+of the Franciscans to civilization.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span></p>
+
+<p>On July 7, 1927, Chesterton spoke
+on Poland at the Essex Hall in the
+Strand. Crowds of his admirers were
+present; the late Cardinal Bourne himself
+appeared on the platform; the
+Polish Ambassador took the chair;
+Hilaire Belloc moved the vote of thanks
+which was seconded by Dyboski. The
+first part of the address struck all present
+as the most illuminating English
+opinion that had ever been expressed
+on Poland,</p>
+
+<p>“I am to speak on Poland, a country
+very unfamiliar to the average English
+person. In order to facilitate approach
+to the subject, let me begin by saying
+that Poland is Poland. This is the
+kind of statement which, when I make
+it, is of course called a paradox (Laughter).
+Yet what I wish to express is
+something quite plain and simple.
+Those of you who have studied medieval
+history, may remember the ancient
+kingdom of Bohemia—situated, according
+to Shakespeare, by the sea-side—now
+you hear much of Czechoslovakia,
+unknown to you before. Again,
+those of you who are old enough to remember
+the World War, will recall the
+fervent admiration which we all felt for
+the heroism of the Servian nation: now
+we often hear the name of Yugoslavia,
+which we never heard in those days.
+As for Poland, she is now known by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
+same name which she bore through
+centuries, when she was a great power
+in Europe, and by which our fathers
+knew her to exist in those days when
+she had disappeared from the map, yet
+continued to live as a nation and to
+struggle for freedom. That is why I
+begin by saying that Poland is Poland,
+and submit that as a fundamental fact
+for you to consider before we go further.”</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to imagine more eloquent
+and emphatic words of recognition
+for the continuity of Poland’s national
+tradition through eight centuries
+of recorded independent existence,
+through a century and more of division
+and captivity, and into the dawn of reunion
+and regained liberty. Chesterton,
+who in these words as well as in various
+poems and essays, always acknowledged
+in Poland one of the corner-stones of
+the historical structure of European
+civilization, remained a faithful friend
+of Poland to his death.</p>
+
+<p>“Grey Beards at Play,” a book of
+poems in the Mark Twain tradition
+with G.&nbsp;K.’s own illustrations, first impressed
+the philosopher L.&nbsp;E. Gilson.
+But the book which remains with him
+as the most stimulating is “Orthodoxy,”
+“When it came out I hailed it as the
+best piece of apologetic the century had
+produced. In a sense all his later works<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
+are a variation on the same theme. I
+was interested in the biography of the
+conversion of a well known American
+financial expert whose conversion was
+brought about by reading in succession
+Chesterton’s ‘Orthodoxy,’ Fulton
+Sheen’s ‘God and the Intelligence,’ and
+Karl Adams’ ‘Spirit of Catholicism.’ I
+don’t wonder they would convert the
+Devil if he had a sense of humor, and
+open mind, and could pray for grace!”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilson believes that Chesterton
+will not really be fully appreciated before
+a century or two. The book of his
+which he likes best is “St. Thomas
+Aquinas:” “I consider it as being without
+possible comparison the best book
+ever written on St. Thomas. Nothing
+short of genius can account for such an
+achievement. Everybody will no doubt
+admit that it is a ‘clever’ book, but the
+few readers who have spent twenty or
+thirty years in studying St. Thomas
+Aquinas, and who, perhaps, have themselves
+published two or three volumes
+on the subject, cannot fail to perceive
+that the so-called ‘wit’ of Chesterton
+has put their scholarship to shame. He
+has guessed all that which we had tried
+to demonstrate, and he has said all that
+which they were more or less clumsily
+attempting to express in academic formulas.
+Chesterton was one of the deepest
+thinkers who ever existed; he was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
+deep because he was right; and he could
+not help being right; but he could not
+either help being modest and charitable,
+so he left it to those who could understand
+him to know that he was right,
+and deep; to the others, he apologized
+for being right, and he made up for
+being deep by being witty. That is all
+they can see of him.”</p>
+
+<p>Eileen Duggan gives the opinion of a
+New Zealander,</p>
+
+<p>“One of the innumerable society
+diarists who writes for a hobby recorded
+an anecdote that illustrates Chesterton’s
+complete absorption in a subject.
+He had been given, rather foolishly, a
+little gold period chair, and as he made
+his points, it slowly crashed beneath
+him. He rose just in time and sinking
+into another chair that someone put behind
+him, began at the word he had
+last spoken. It was evident to all that
+he had barely noticed the incident
+rather than that he had decided to
+ignore it.</p>
+
+<p>“A New Zealander who heard him
+lecture relates that his appearance after
+a long delay caused the Chairman to
+express relief that he had not been
+knocked down by a tramcar. G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.
+rose calmly and thanked him for his
+solicitude, ‘but,’ said he, ‘Mr. Chairman,
+had I met a tramcar it would have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span>
+a great and, if, I may say so, an equal
+encounter.’”</p>
+
+<p>“His journalistic training,” continues
+Miss Duggan, “had taught him simplification
+and the author of those penetrating
+studies on Dickens and Browning
+would put his points on Distributism
+so that they could be understood by
+the man in the street. A sacrifice
+seemed worthless to Chesterton, unless
+it were voluntary and not State-imposed;
+in Distributism, then, he saw
+the solution of the world’s problems, the
+answer for soul and for body of its ills.</p>
+
+<p>“It has been charged that he was the
+enemy of Jewry, but his hand was
+against only a small and powerful
+Oligarchy within it which, he claimed,
+harmed the poor Jew of the ghetto
+more than the Gentile and, commenting
+on the anti-Jewish excesses which have
+outraged the world, he said that he had
+now to defend the Jews against Hitler.
+It will be remembered that he struck
+at all internal abuses and certain lines
+of his were arrowheads in the national
+flesh. These for instance, on postwar
+corruption drew blood,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentdq">“‘Oh, they that fought for England,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Following a fallen star,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Alas, alas for England!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They have their graves afar.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">But they that rule in England</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In stately conclave met,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Alas, alas for England!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They have no graves as yet.’</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“He was a Little Englander; partly,
+one suspects, as a reaction from Kiplingism:
+but in an age of peace he was
+a defender of just wars. He inveighed
+against those who blamed the older
+generation in 1914 when they decided
+that war was the only honorable solution
+and later he said that a universal
+peace, founded on a universal panic,
+raised the point as to whether the supreme
+moral state will be found when
+everybody is too frightened to fight;
+and dying, but undefeated, he repeated
+as a creed, ‘Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy—responsible
+forms of rule—have
+collapsed under plutocracy, which
+is irresponsible rule. And this has
+come upon us because we departed from
+the old morality in three essential
+points. First, we supported notions
+against known, old customs; secondly,
+we made the state top-heavy with a
+new and secretive tyranny of will; and
+third, we forgot that there is no faith
+in freedom without faith in free-will.
+Materialism brings with it a servile
+fatalism—because nothing, as Dante
+said, else than ‘the generosity of God
+could give to man after all ordinary,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
+orderly gifts, the noblest of all things
+which is——liberty.’”</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton examined and scrutinized
+the conscience of England as he did his
+own, but only a fool would deny that
+from York to Cornwall he loved his
+country with a Little Englander’s passion!</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_FOURTEEN">CHAPTER FOURTEEN<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">THE POET</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not a few of his readers feel that
+Chesterton’s chief bid to fame is his
+poetry. Alfred Noyes, for instance,
+writes the author,</p>
+
+<p>“Chesterton led one of the most
+original lives of his day in Europe. It
+is well to remember this when it is
+suggested that men who avail themselves
+of the rich experiences of the
+centuries are merely echoes of the past.
+The true originality does not consist in
+inventing ideas that have no relation to
+truth and no roots in reality, but in the
+discovery and unveiling of something
+that has always been there, though we
+may hitherto have lacked the eyes to
+see it, or the power to express and interpret
+it. Chesterton had an expert
+gift for making one see things in all
+their original miscellaneousness, as
+things that really <em>are</em>, and yet—<em>cannot</em>
+be, or give any rational account of
+themselves. Many years ago in a poem
+on the death of Francis Thompson, I
+wrote of the overwhelming mystery
+that there should be a single grain of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>
+dust in existence, the sheer impossibility
+of it on any rational ground, and
+how the smallest atom defied exploration
+and ultimately asserted a superrational
+origin.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentdq">“‘I am ... yet cannot be, ...!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Chesterton tosses out his thoughts
+in a glorious liberality; but I am proud
+to think that this line unconsciously
+found its way into two of Chesterton’s
+poems afterwards—‘The House of
+Christmas,’ where he speaks of ‘the
+things that cannot be, and that are,’
+and the splendid lyric ‘Second Childhood,’
+where he says,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentdq">“‘And stones still shine along the roads</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That are and cannot be!’</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“Like most men of genius he kept his
+own immortal childhood all his life; and
+it was in the matrix of it, the vision
+that ‘saw’ as a manifestation of something
+‘supernatural,’ ‘something that
+ultimately defied reason, not because it
+was merely difficult to understand, but
+because it rested on an eternal and absolute
+mystery (above and beyond the
+range of secondary causes) it was in
+this wonder at the abiding in the terrestrial
+that he made me feel the power
+of his faith,</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentdq">“‘When all my days are ending</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And I have no songs to sing</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I think I shall not be too old</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">To stare at everything,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As I stared once at a nursery door</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Or a tall tree and a swing—</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Strange crawling carpets of the grass</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Wide windows of the sky—’</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“One of the greatest of all his poems
+is the sonnet entitled ‘The Convert,’ in
+which he describes how, after he had
+‘bowed his head,’ he came out where
+the old world shone white, and heard
+‘myriads of tongues like autumn leaves,’
+‘not so loveable,’ but ‘strange and light,’
+in their whispering assumption that,
+among the old riddles and new creeds,
+he must now be taken as belonging to
+a dead past. He sees them singing—not
+harshly—‘but softly as men smile
+about the dead.’ And then comes this
+magnificent and soul-stirring challenge
+from the ‘dead man’,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentdq">“‘The sages have a hundred maps to give</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They rattle reason out through many a sieve</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That holds the soil, but lets the gold go free;</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And all these things are less than dust to me</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><em>Because my name is Lazarus, and I live!</em>’”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Francis B. Thornton, the authority
+on Gerard Manley Hopkins, first knew
+Chesterton through his drinking songs,
+“An admirable introduction; they were
+so much more than their title signifies,
+and they transported me to the happy
+age which preceded the Malvolios and
+their hatred of cakes and ale. To me
+Chesterton will always be the poet. He
+not only saw what other men looked at,
+he saw <em>through</em> as well, and it was this
+faculty which gave an angelic quality
+to his humor. He was like a bull in a
+china shop, but it was a papal bull enunciating
+principles in the midst of a
+wreck of fragile half-truth.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. J. Corson Miller “was introduced
+to the poetry of Chesterton by Mr.
+William Rose Benet who dilated on the
+vigor and splendor of ‘The Ballad of the
+White Horse.’ I read that magnificent
+work, and thereafter read all the verse
+that G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. produced. I am a great
+admirer of his poetical work. I admire
+his flexible sonnets, with their vast
+sweep of thought, and radiant vision.
+His various lyrics, love, nature, and religious
+lyrics, are all excellent; his religious
+poetry is sublime. His well<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
+known lyric, ‘The Donkey,’ with its
+superb last two lines, or couplet, is unforgettable.
+His ‘Queen of the Seven
+Swords’—his second last, if not his last,
+published volume of verse, bears in my
+humble opinion, the breadth and fire of
+eternal life. His was, indeed, a great
+spirit: no toadying, or cavilling; no
+smirking or masking, but strong and
+free, with the strength of the clean
+West wind, he put his thoughts and
+opinions and visions in books and papers,
+and let the seeds of his ideas fall
+where they would, with results be what
+they might. His many-sided genius is
+well known: political and social economist;
+poet, historian, novelist, short-story
+writer, artist and cartoonist,
+playwright—hardly any field in art and
+literature can be mentioned—without
+his having touched it in some manner
+and left his mark, too.”</p>
+
+<p>Prof. Joseph J. Reilly holds that
+Chesterton will be best remembered for
+his poetry,</p>
+
+<p>“The initial book I read was ‘Varied
+Types.’ My first reaction was one of
+delight in Chesterton’s brilliance, my
+second a realization that his views were
+colored so decidedly by his personality
+that one could not hope to get a genuinely
+objective appraisal from him.
+This has always seemed to me an element
+of strength and of weakness and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
+ever since I have turned to Chesterton’s
+criticism most largely for the unusual
+flashes of insight which he shows than
+for any completely balanced judgment.
+In one sense he is like a delicious dessert:
+it is not the main part of a dinner
+but no dinner would be satisfying without
+it.</p>
+
+<p>“My next acquaintance was with his
+‘Orthodoxy’ which I found full of wisdom,
+insight, and inspiration. As I
+went on, I sometimes grew a little
+weary of his paradoxes but changed my
+mind when I happened one day upon his
+statement that to him paradox was
+‘truth standing on its head.’</p>
+
+<p>“After reading his volume of poems
+through several times and thinking him
+over for many months preparatory to
+writing an article on Chesterton as
+poet, I came to the conclusion to which
+I still cling that Chesterton’s best claim
+to the attention of our great-grand-children
+will be based on his poetry.”</p>
+
+<p>John Gould Fletcher considers “Lepanto”
+is Chesterton’s finest poem,
+“next to that superb ‘Ballad of the
+White Horse’—too long for most people,
+I fancy, but absolutely characteristic
+of his great, generous, simple, and
+manly nature.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not learn to like his poetry because
+of a parent or teacher. From my
+earliest years I have always read all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>
+the poets I could lay my hands on; and
+in later years, I have continued the
+practice. I read ‘Lepanto’ and the
+‘Ballad’ some time back in 1912 as I
+recall, during my early years in London—read
+them and liked them. As regards
+the American poets, I should say
+that it was particularly marked in the
+case of Vachel Lindsay.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am on record,” declares Clement
+Wood, “that he is the greatest poet of
+his generation. I well remember when
+‘Lepanto’ was recited to Vachel Lindsay
+by Floyd Dell; but Lindsay missed
+the rhythm which was ballad measure—seven
+beats to the line. Lindsay was
+influenced by Chesterton’s ballad measure
+which he re-used in the ‘Congo’ and
+other poems—but as four beats to the
+line.</p>
+
+<p>“‘The Ballad of the White Horse’ is
+the greatest of all modern ballads, possibly
+the greatest of all ballads,—more
+sustainedly memorable, glorious
+throughout. Many of the shorter pieces,
+too, have my warmest admiration.”</p>
+
+<p>“The story of my reading ‘The Battle
+of Lepanto’ on the shore of Lake Michigan
+to Vachel Lindsay is true,” declares
+Floyd Dell. “Note the echo of
+‘Lepanto’ in ‘General William Booth,’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentdq">“‘Dim drums throbbing in the hills half heard</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Booth enters boldly with his big brass drum.’</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="in0">“Booth was the first poem in Vachel’s
+new style, and followed my chanting
+recitation of the poem—which (my way
+of reading it) was in turn based on
+Yeats’ theories of how poetry should
+be read. Vachel had an unparalleled
+mental possession of the folk tunes (so
+to speak) of American speech—camp-meetings,
+soap-box, tramp, farmer,
+Negro, and so on—but they never broke
+through into his own verse until after
+he had heard the theory of Yeats and
+the poem of Chesterton.”</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Caldecot Chubb feels that
+Chesterton has been an important influence
+in the shaping of a brilliant
+American poet, “I realize that discussing
+influences is dangerous and that
+most people like to think of genius as
+bursting into the world full grown like
+Medusa from the forehead of Jove. But
+quite the opposite is usually true and
+most men of genius are but the latest—not
+the last link—in an unending chain.
+They receive, they use, they pass along.
+And anyone who will compare ‘The
+Ballad of the White Horse’ with ‘The
+Drug Shop, or Endymion in Edmonstoun,’
+written by Stephen Vincent Benet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
+when he was less than twenty years old,
+will realize that Benet obtained more
+than a handful of his poetic implements
+from Chesterton. This is a paradox in
+itself, that the gusty panegyrist of the
+days following the decline of Rome
+should make an important contribution
+to so native and so American a voice.”</p>
+
+<p>No better way to end this chapter
+than with what Stephen Vincent Benet
+writes the author,</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you for sending me your
+Chapter on Chesterton’s poetry which
+I have read with much interest. I have
+always greatly admired both ‘Lepanto’
+and the ‘Ballad of the White Horse’ and
+I still re-read them.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_FIFTEEN">CHAPTER FIFTEEN<br>
+
+<span class="subhead">CHESTERTON THE MAN</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Chesterton possessed one of the most
+likeable characters of contemporary
+literary men. There is usually something
+or other that mars the characters
+of most, but who would have Chesterton
+different? Even his faults are beloved:
+his weight, his tardiness, his absentmindedness,
+his slovenly manner of
+dressing, his sometimes careless way
+of eating and drinking. In short he can
+almost be described as Falstaff without
+his moral grossness.</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton lived for many years in a
+flat overlooking the beautiful Battersea
+Park, where Mrs. Lillian Curt would
+often see him strolling in deep thought.
+His wife Frances—a dainty little lady,
+clever and level-headed and most devoted
+to her husband—would sometimes
+get anxious when he was long
+overdue for meals. Then quickly donning
+her outdoor garments she would
+anxiously start off to find him, remarking,
+“I am off to seek my Mighty
+Atom.” The reference being to Marie<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
+Corelli’s “The Mighty Atom” which had
+but recently appeared.</p>
+
+<p>“I knew G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C.,” writes A. Hamilton
+Gibbs, “when I was in process of
+becoming an undergraduate at Oxford.
+Being so grotesquely fat that he
+couldn’t dress himself he used to appear
+in socks at breakfast, eat hugely, and
+then go out into the garden with a pad
+of paper and a packet of cigarettes. In
+the course of a couple of hours there
+would be a ring of cigarettes on the
+grass around him and when the wind
+blew away his pages, he would scream
+for help with a series of epigrams
+which I am sure found their way into
+his later pages. Whenever he went
+from the country to London there was
+always a little black bag in his hand.
+In the bag was a bottle of wine, and in
+the station refreshment room he would
+order a cup of tea and a wine glass.
+Many times I’ve seen him taking alternate
+sips of tea and wine between
+mouths of a penny bun!”</p>
+
+<p>Whenever he visited Glasgow, Chesterton
+stayed with Professor Phillimore
+who occupied the Greek chair at Glasgow
+University. Phillimore entertained
+many literary people in Glasgow,
+Hilaire Belloc, Thomas Hardy, Galsworthy,
+and so forth. Usually disengaged
+in the mornings, the visitors were
+often brought to the Annam Gallery to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
+be entertained by looking at paintings
+and etchings. Mr. Annam had the opportunity
+of making photographic portraits
+of Chesterton in 1912, when the
+latter was at his bulkiest. He seemed
+much interested in his striking appearance
+and in his likeness to Dr. Johnson.
+He wore a dark grey highland cloak and
+a tiny Homburg hat. As he was leaving
+the studio a small boy stopped and
+stared at the great man. G.&nbsp;K. noticed
+the youngster’s interest and puffed
+himself out to his very biggest for his
+benefit. Nothing was said, of course,
+but the pose was obvious. In the course
+of conversation he made various references
+to his appearance.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hugh C. Riviere remembers
+Chesterton as a school boy at St. Paul’s,
+a tall slim youth who even then had
+the feeling of the romance of weapons
+that runs through so much of his work.
+He went to stay with Mr. and Mrs.
+Riviere after his marriage when his
+wife was ill in bed and unable to see to
+his packing. The result was that he
+arrived <em>with nothing</em> but an old revolver
+bought on the way, and his favorite
+sword-stick with an ivory-handle!</p>
+
+<p>The Sunday after the Great War had
+commenced Riviere was staying the
+week-end at a house a few miles from
+Beaconsfield, and walked over to see
+the Chestertons. They were in a very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
+national state of excitement and emotion,
+as all were on such a day. His
+first thought was, what could he do to
+help his country,</p>
+
+<p>“I couldn’t wield a sword as I can’t
+lift my right arm above my shoulder.
+I should be no use in cavalry, no horse
+could carry me.” Then with a sudden
+hopefulness and that humor that was
+so often directed against himself, “I
+might possibly form part of a barricade.”</p>
+
+<p>The Chestertons, his brother Cecil,
+and his friend W.&nbsp;C. Worsdell, all belonged
+to a debating society known as
+“I.&nbsp;D.&nbsp;K.” (I Don’t Know). In the
+earlier period G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. attended the
+meetings pretty regularly but later on
+rarely, being, as his wife declared, “too
+busy.” One of the earliest meetings
+was at the Chiswick house, of his wife’s
+family, the Bloggs. At the end of the
+discussion Chesterton remarked in his
+usual jocular style,</p>
+
+<p>“We’re in a complete fog!”</p>
+
+<p>But more than once he declared that
+the speeches of the I Don’t Knows were
+much cleverer than those heard in the
+House of Commons. At one meeting
+Chesterton could not find a chair, so he
+was obliged to squat on the floor, and
+he dropped down with a thud that shook
+the whole house!</p>
+
+<p>One year the Chestertons were coming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
+back from Bromley after a delightful
+afternoon spent at E.&nbsp;W. Fordham’s
+house where the guests had produced
+some plays written by their host—one
+of them an exceedingly clever and
+amusing take-off of G.&nbsp;K.&nbsp;C. himself
+which the original had greeted with
+continuous chuckles and gurgles of
+laughter. Having returned with them
+year after year from this show and
+knowing his habit, Riviere remarked,</p>
+
+<p>“Aren’t you going to have the usual
+cigar, Gilbert?”</p>
+
+<p>“I was not going to have a cigar and
+I <em>don’t</em> want a cigar, but if it’s a case of
+a holy ritual here goes,” he answered
+characteristically with a chuckle as he
+took out a cigar and commenced smoking.</p>
+
+<p>While visiting Columbus, Ohio, to lecture,
+Chesterton had a friendly discussion
+with Professor Joseph Alexander
+Leighton and Dr. T.&nbsp;C. Mendenhall, the
+noted physicist—on the question whether
+veridical communications from the
+dead were received by living persons.
+Dr. Mendenhall contended that some at
+least of these communications were
+genuine, and therefore established the
+reality of life after death. Leighton
+took the role of skeptic, contending that
+when, as in some undoubted cases, bits
+of information, quotations, etcetera, had
+been received through mediums, they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
+probably were due to subconscious memories,
+and that in other cases their apparent
+supernormal character was probably
+the result of coincidence. Chesterton
+agreed to the genuineness of the
+communications, but took the view that
+they were transmitted by bad spirits
+and that it was spiritually unhealthy
+for living persons to have any kind of
+traffic with them.</p>
+
+<p>No one could condemn a thing in
+fewer words than Chesterton. Speaking
+about that much discussed book of
+other days, Renan’s “Life of Christ,”
+he said to his friends Desmond Gleeson
+and George Boyle,</p>
+
+<p>“I remember reading it while I was
+standing in the queque waiting to see
+‘Charlie’s Aunt.’ But it is so obvious
+which is the better farce, for ‘Charlie’s
+Aunt’ is still running.”</p>
+
+<p>The old English advertisement of
+“Charlie’s Aunt” always had a picture
+of the old woman getting along at top
+speed, with the words, “still running.”</p>
+
+<p>Father Cyril Martindale did not meet
+Chesterton very often, but he felt that
+he knew him well all the same, “this
+was because despite his shyness, or I
+should say modesty, he <em>let</em> you know
+him, and intercepted no barriers. This
+modesty was again seen in his dealings
+with young men. It never occurred to
+him that they could have nothing interesting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
+or useful to say, or that he
+was called upon to act the oracle.</p>
+
+<p>“And this simplicity could again, I
+think, be seen in what people called his
+paradoxes. He always insisted that
+that was not what they were, but sheer
+statements of the obvious. To him, it
+was life as ordinarily lived that seemed
+‘paradoxical’—it was amazing to him
+that men could think the things they
+did, especially as doing so issued into
+so uncomfortable as well as, too often,
+so wicked a life.</p>
+
+<p>“Sometimes the constant appearance
+of the word ‘wild’ in his writings irritated
+me. He had a vivid and active
+imagination, so that he saw all sorts
+of connections and illustrations that
+others did not: but his mind in reality
+worked in a very orderly way. I think
+the explanation may be this—he constantly
+described himself as ‘lazy’ and
+I expect that by temperament he was.
+He always put down the rapidity of his
+brother’s conversion with the tardiness
+of his own, at sheer laziness on his
+part. Now had he let himself go to
+laziness, he would have been letting his
+mind, too, go ‘wild.’ But he did neither.
+Very likely he used the word in a
+slightly different sense from the one
+in which I used it: he felt it as the opposite
+of ‘smug’ and so forth. It remains
+that I think he had to conquer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
+a real tendency to laziness, and so, to
+letting his mind just hop about in a
+(to me) ‘wild’ and disorderly way.</p>
+
+<p>“I think he died in some ways a
+broken-hearted man. There were no
+signs of the world having learnt anything
+that was good, even from its sufferings:
+all the more noticeable was his
+peace and serenity in God; and this is
+why I do not hesitate to say that I
+think there was to be discerned in him
+<em>real holiness</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>Father (now Monsignor) John
+O’Connor known to fame as Father
+Brown, recollects that on Sunday, July
+30th, 1922, he had “the immense happiness
+of receiving Chesterton into the
+Church. Mrs. Chesterton was present,
+profoundly moved, and Dom Ignatius
+Rice, O.&nbsp;S.&nbsp;B., in the chapel of the Railway
+Hotel at Beaconsfield, the first
+public church in town. I remembered
+his lines written years before,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentsq">‘Prince: Bayard would have smashed his sword</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To see the sort of Knights you dub.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Will someone take me to a pub?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is <em>that</em> the last of them? O Lord!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Will someone take me to a pub?’</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“In 1925 Mrs. Chesterton followed
+him into the Church on the Feast of All
+Saints. They almost at once began to
+sponsor the erection of a permanent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
+church near the railway station. And
+now it is being enlarged as a memorial
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>“Gilbert Chesterton and I were wont
+to call down Mark Twain’s name in
+benediction and to wish there were
+more like him, whether in his own
+States or any others. I recall many of
+our delighted exchanges on Mark the
+deathless. I was once thrilled to give
+him a patiche out of something he had
+not read,</p>
+
+<p>‘Buck Fanshaw’s Funeral.’</p>
+
+<p>“That he had not read it was to me
+a miracle. He had read everything I
+ever heard of that Mark Twain had
+written.”</p>
+
+<p>Patrick Braybrooke saw his cousin
+Chesterton for the last time at Beaconsfield.
+“It was a hot afternoon in summer
+and in the sweet garden at his
+home he recited poetry, made up verses,
+discussed American hotels, and came
+to the conclusion that Stevenson was
+the bravest man who ever wrote.”</p>
+
+<p>One morning not long afterwards as
+he was sitting in the refreshment room
+of a London underground, Braybrooke
+picked up casually enough a newspaper.
+“I saw some words and my world
+seemed to fall into pieces. For I read
+SUDDEN DEATH OF G. K. CHESTERTON.
+It seemed like the end of an
+era of literary greatness in every way.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
+But I was glad he did not have a long
+illness—a long drawn-out anti-climax
+was not for him. When his time came
+he went home quickly, almost as
+though like one of the Stevenson characters—hit
+by an arrow. He went home
+and the Catholic Church which he loved
+so well took care of his soul and in the
+little Church at Beaconsfield to the
+subdued mutters of the Mass we said
+our last farewell.”</p>
+
+<p>Chesterton died on June 14, 1936,
+and was buried in the graveyard of the
+Beaconsfield Catholic Church. Just
+recently the Republic of Ireland has
+given a great bell for the Chesterton
+Memorial Church thus inscribed.</p>
+
+<p>“Presented to the parish of Beaconsfield
+by friends and admirers of Gilbert
+Keith Chesterton, to ring the call to
+faith, which he so chivalrously answered
+in song, in word, and in example,
+to the glory of God and of England.”</p>
+
+<p>Walter de la Mare penned a memorial
+quatrain to his life-long friend,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indentq">“Knight of the Holy Ghost, he goes his way,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Wisdom his motley, Truth his loving jest;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The mills of Satan keep his lance in play,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Pity and Innocence his heart at rest.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter section index">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak gesperrt bold" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class="index">
+<colgroup>
+<col style="width: 40%;">
+<col style="width: 25%;">
+<col style="width: 35%;">
+</colgroup>
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td></td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td class="tdr">Page</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Adams, James Truslow, meets Chesterton</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Adams, Karl</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Aristotle</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Armstrong, Prof. A.&nbsp;J., entertains C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Arnold, Matthew</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Autobiography</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Ballad of the White Horse”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Baltimore, liked by Chesterton</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Barnes, Bishop E.&nbsp;W.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Barr, Robert</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Barrie, James M.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Beaverbrook, Lord</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Belloc, Hilaire</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">First meets Chesterton</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Quoted</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Benet, Stephen Vincent</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_162">162–3</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Benet, William R.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Bentley, E.&nbsp;C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr">Iff., <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Bierce, Ambrose</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Biography for Beginners”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Birkenhead, Lord</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Blackwood, Algernon</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Blatchford, Robt. complimented by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21–3</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Blessed Virgin</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_89">89–90</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Blogg, Frances, marries C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Boer War, opposed by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19–20</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Borden, Lucille</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Boswell</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Bourne, Francis Cardinal</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Braybrooke, Patrick, at C.’s funeral</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_172">172–3</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Bridges, Horace J., debates with C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_68">68</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Brown, Edw. tells of C.’s Welsh lecture</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_49">49–52</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl">Browning, Robert</td>
+  <td class="tdr" colspan="2"><a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_125">125–6</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Cabell, James Branch</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Carrell, R. Alexis, on C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Cecil, Lord</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Cecil, Lord David</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>Cambridge</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Canadian Authors’ Society, toasted by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Catholic Church, C. joins</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Chamberlain, Joseph</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Chesterton, Cecil, brother</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138–9</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Chesterton, G.&nbsp;K.</td>
+  <td></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Chubb, T.&nbsp;C., describes C. at Yale</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_92">92–7</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Clarke, Isabel C., entertains C. in Rome</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_35">35–6</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Clemens, Samuel L. (Mark Twain)</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Praised by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Cobbett, William</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_97">97–8</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Columbus, Ohio, C. visits</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Connolly, Myles, impressions of C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Convert, The,” poem by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Cram, Ralph Adams</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a> ff., <a href="#Page_144">144</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Dante</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Darrow, C., debates with C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_66">66</a> ff., <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">de la Mare, Walter, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32–3</a>, quoted</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">de Castro, Adolphe, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Dickens, Charles, admired by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Pickwick Papers,” C.’s favorite</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Distributism</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Drinkwater, John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Drood, Edwin</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27–7</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Doyle, Conan</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Dudley, Owen F., meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Duggan, Eileen</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_151">151</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Dyboski, Roman</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Eliot, T.&nbsp;S.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Everlasting Man”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Falstaff</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Father Brown</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Fletcher, James Gould</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_160">160–1</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Flying Inn, The”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Fordham, E.&nbsp;W., boyhood friend</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_4">4</a> ff., <a href="#Page_168">168</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">France, Anatole</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Frank, Waldo, admires C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Frankau, Gilbert, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Galsworthy, John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>discussed by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Garland, Hamlin, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">George Fifth, King, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Gibbs, A. Hamilton, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Gibbs, Sir Philip, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20">20–1</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Gill, Eric, C.’s friend</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Gilson, L.&nbsp;E.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_149">149</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“G.&nbsp;K.’s Weekly”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Glasgow, C. lectures in</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">visits</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_165">165–6</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” praised by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Gordon, Charles W., describes C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Graham, Cunninghame</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Graham, Kenneth, compared to C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Greybeards at Play,” C.’s first book</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Guedalla, Philip, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31">31–2</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Gwynn, S., recalls C.’s first book</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hamilton, Cosmo, debates with C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_62">62</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hammond, J.&nbsp;L.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_18">18–9</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hardy, Thomas</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Harris, Frank</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hawthorne</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Henry Eighth, King</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hereford, Oliver, quoted</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hazlitt, Henry</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Heine</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Heretics”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hilton, James, writes C. as a boy</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hirst, F.&nbsp;W., edits Speaker with C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“History of England”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Holliday, Robert Cortes, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Hollis, Christopher, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Holy Ghost</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Housman, A.&nbsp;E.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">quoted by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_129">129–130</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Huxley, Aldous, admired by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“History of England”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Jackson, Holbrook, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41">41–45</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Jacobs, W.&nbsp;W., meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">James, Henry</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>Joan of Arc, C. speaks on</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl">Johnson, Dr. Samuel</td>
+  <td class="tdr" colspan="2"><a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Chesterton dressed as</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Kaye-Smith, Sheila, praised by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Kernahan, Coulson, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25–6–7</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Kingsmill, Hugh, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Kipling, Rudyard</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Knox, John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Lane, John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Lenin</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Lepanto,” poem by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Lewis, Sinclair</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_112">112–3</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Lindsay, Vachel</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Liverpool, C. lectures in</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Locke, John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Lodge, Sir Oliver</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Lowdnes, Mrs. Marie Belloc, meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Mabbott, T.&nbsp;O., praises C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_115">115–6</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">MacDonald, George</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">MacDonald, Ramsay</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Magic,” play by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_116">116–7</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Man Who Was Thursday”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Praised by James Hilton</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Admired by Mussolini</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Martindale, Cyril C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_167">167–171</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Masefield, John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Masterman, Charles</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">May, J. Lewis</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Megroz, Rodolphe L., visits C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Miller, J. Corson</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Moore, Tom</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">More, Thomas</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Mussolini, Benito, visited by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134–5</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Napoleon, quoted</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl">“Napoleon of Notting Hill”</td>
+  <td class="tdr" colspan="2"><a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16–7</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>,
+  <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“New Jerusalem”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“New Witness”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>Notre Dame University, C. at</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_99">99–113</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Noyes, Alfred</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155–8</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">O’Connor, Father John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_137">137–140</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Receives Chesterton Into Church</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_171">171–2</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Oldershaw, J.&nbsp;L.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl">“Orthodoxy”</td>
+  <td class="tdr" colspan="2"><a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149–50</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Ould, Hermon, offers C. club presidency</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Oxford</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Patterson, Mrs. F.&nbsp;T., hears C. lecture</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_66">66</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Pearson, Hesketh</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140–1</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Pemberton, Sir Max</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Phelps, William Lyon</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Philip the Second, misinterpreted by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Pollock, Channing</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Poland</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_148">148</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Redfield, William C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Remarque, Enrique Maria, C. dislikes</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Rinehart, Mary Roberts</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Ripley, Clements, admires C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Riviere, Hugo C., paints C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_85">85–6</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Roberts, R. Ellis, hears C. lecture</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Robinson, E.&nbsp;A.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Rodin</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Rome, C. visits</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Rose, Sir Holland</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Roseberry, Lord</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Ruskin, John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Russell, Bertrand, C.’s opinion of</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Russell, George</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127–8</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Sabatini, Rafael</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_141">141–2</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Saint Januarius</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">St. Louis, Missouri, C. lectures</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_72">72–4</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Saint Paul’s School</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Saint Thomas Aquinas”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Scott, Walter</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Ivanhoe” reviewed by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Shaw, Bernard, C.’s book on</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl">Meets Chesterton</td>
+  <td class="tdr" colspan="2"><a href="#Page_75">75–6</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>Shorter, Clement K.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Sheen, Fulton</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Slade Art School, attended by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Speaker,” The</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_18">18–9</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Stevenson, Robert Louis, quoted</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Stewart, Bishop G.&nbsp;C., at C.’s lecture</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_68">68</a> ff.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Stewart, Donald Ogden, admires C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Strachey, Lytton, compared to C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Swinburne</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Tennyson</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Thackeray</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Thompson, Francis</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Thomas, Edward</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_2">2</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Thoreau</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">quoted</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Tinker, Chauncey B.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Titterton, W.&nbsp;R., C. writes</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81">81–3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Describes C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Tolstoy</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Trent’s Last Case,” by E.&nbsp;C. Bentley</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Trevelyan, George M.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Trotsky</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Van Dine, S.&nbsp;S., admires Father Brown</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Van Druten, John</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Varied Types”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Velasquez</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Victorian Age of English Literature”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Walker, Headmaster, discovers C.’s genius</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Walpole, Horace</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Walsh, William Thomas, describes C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118">118–9</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Watts, G.&nbsp;F., admired by C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">“Well and the Shadows”</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl">Wells, H.&nbsp;G.</td>
+  <td class="tdr" colspan="2"><a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79–80–81</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>,
+    <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">West, Rebecca</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Wise, Stephen S., admires C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Wood, Clement</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Wright, Cuthbert</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_146">146</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Wyndham, George</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="ifrst">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Yealy, Francis J., hears C. lecture</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Yeats, Elizabeth, at G.&nbsp;K.’s wedding</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr class="indx">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">Yeats, William B.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr class="isub1">
+  <td class="tdl" colspan="2">meets C.</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_145">145–6</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter section transnote">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
+
+<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made
+consistent when a predominant preference was found
+in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.</p>
+
+<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced
+quotation marks were remedied when the change was
+obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.</p>
+
+<p>Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of the pages that referenced them,
+have been sequentially alphabetized and placed
+below the paragraphs that reference them.</p>
+
+<p>The index was not checked for proper alphabetization
+or correct page references. The entry for
+“Chesterton, G. K.” has no page references (which makes
+sense, as the entire book is about him). Some entries
+that were misalphabetized have been moved to the correct
+places, but the Transcribers did not do this systematically.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_i">Page i</a>: “unanimity” was printed as “unanmity”;
+changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_12">Page 12</a>: “just ’ad” was printed as “just
+’as”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_13">Page 13</a>: The footnote anchor originally was
+placed at the end of the next paragraph, but was moved because the
+footnote refers to the person mentioned in the earlier paragraph.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_14">Page 14</a>: “pledged to wage eternal against”
+seems to be missing a word.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_30">Page 30</a>: “finding reasons for his” was
+printed as “finding seasons for his”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_31">Page 31</a>: “with insufficient impudence” was printed that way; perhaps it
+should be “sufficient”.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_38">Page 38</a>: “quiet chat” was printed as “quite
+chat”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_38">Page 38</a>: “I remember how Lord David
+Cecil when still a boy” was printed that way; “how” seems to be
+extraneous.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_40">Page 40</a>: “in phases as colorful” was printed
+that way.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_40">Page 40</a>: “points in phrases” was printed as
+“points in phases”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_41">Page 41</a>: Extraneous opening single quote
+removed just before “Do you happen to write poetry”.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_41">Page 41</a>: Missing closing quote mark added
+after “It was a quasi sonnet entitled ‘The Jewish Poet.’”</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_44">Page 44</a>: “sombrero” was printed as
+“comprero”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_48">Page 48</a>: “This he thought was very reasonable
+theory” was printed that way.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_49">Page 49</a>: The second occurrence of “Debates
+Union” was printed as “Debate’s Union”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_51">Page 51</a>: “Liberty: the Last Phase,” was
+printed as “Liberty: the Last Phrase,”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_57">Page 57</a>: Extraneous closing quote removed
+after “of life and experience.”</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_62">Page 62</a>: “he never forgot” was printed as “he
+never forget”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_88">Page 88</a>: “Cycle Valley” was printed that
+way.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_89">Page 89</a>: “it did before” was printed as “it
+did befire”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_90">Page 90</a>: “Thomas More” was printed as “Thomas
+Moore”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_94">Page 94</a>: “that varnished period” was printed
+that way.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_106">Page 106</a>: “It would not have mattered” was
+printed as “I would not have mattered”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_107">Page 107</a>: Extraneous closing quote removed
+after “condition did not prevail.”</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_108">Page 108</a>: “no other poet” was printed as “no
+other post”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_118">Page 118</a>: “just as fervently” was printed as
+“just as feverently”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_121">Page 121</a>: “It might ever more accurately”
+was printed that way; “ever” may be a typo for “even.”</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_122">Page 122</a>: “significance” was printed as
+“signifcance”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_139">Page 139</a>: “battered daylight” was printed as
+“bettered daylight”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_140">Page 140</a>: “knows more about crime” was
+printed as “know more about crime”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_146">Page 146</a>: “was essential” was printed as
+“was ensential”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_146">Page 146</a>: “debate develop as it likes” was
+printed as “debate develop as it like”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_146">Page 146</a>: “Some year ago” was printed that
+way.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_149">Page 149</a>: “Grey Beards at Play” was printed
+that way, but should be “Greybeards”.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_150">Page 150</a>: “I consider it as being” was
+printed as “I consider is as being”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_158">Page 158</a>: “Gerard Manley Hopkins” was
+printed as “Gerald Manley Hopkins”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_162">Page 162</a>: “Booth was the first poem” was
+printed as “Both was the first poem”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_171">Page 171</a>: The stanza of a poem is reproduced
+here as it was printed in the original book, but differs from
+reproductions of that stanza in most other sources. </p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_172">Page 172</a>: “patiche” probably should be
+“pastiche”.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_175">Page 175</a>: “Benet, Stephen Vincent” was
+printed as “Bent, Stephen Vincent”; changed here.</p>
+
+<p><a href="#Page_177">Page 177</a>: “edits Speaker” was printed as
+“edits speaker”; changed here.</p>
+
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75165 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
diff --git a/75165-h/images/cover.jpg b/75165-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..137ebf9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75165-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/75165-h/images/i_001.jpg b/75165-h/images/i_001.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..52f8bb3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75165-h/images/i_001.jpg
diff --git a/75165-h/images/i_114.jpg b/75165-h/images/i_114.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..45b273c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75165-h/images/i_114.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bccf172
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75165 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75165)