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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 *** |