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diff --git a/27569-h/27569-h.htm b/27569-h/27569-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10a7fa4 --- /dev/null +++ b/27569-h/27569-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5432 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, by Patrick Braybrooke</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 15%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + color: #BDBDBD; +} + +hr.hr2 { + width: 10%; + margin-top: 2.5em; + margin-bottom: 2.5em; + clear: both; + color: #BDBDBD; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 95%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: #C0C0C0; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-align: center;} + +.caption {font-variant: small-caps; text-align: center; margin-top: .5em;} + +.image {text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1em;} + +.poem { + font-size: 96%; + padding-top: 1em; + padding-bottom: 1em; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem span.i0 {margin-left: 0em;} + +.poem span.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + +.block {margin: auto; text-align: center; width: 20em;} + +h3.chapter2 {font-size: 130%; font-variant: small-caps; padding-bottom: 1em;} + +.dropcap { + float: left; + font-size: 310%; + line-height: 77%; + padding-right: 2px; + padding-bottom: 1px; +} + +.dropcap2 { + text-align: center; + font-size: 160%; +} + +.dropcap3 { + text-align: center; + font-size: 140%; +} + + +.quotem { + font-size: 200%; + float: left; + line-height: 77% +} + +.tnote { + border-style: double; + border-width: 6px; + padding: 2em; + background: #FFFFFF; + text-align: left; + margin-left: 16%; + margin-right: 16%; + font-size: 95%; + border-color: #000000; +} + +.sc {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.upper {text-transform: uppercase;} + +table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} + +.tdr {text-align: right; padding-right: .5em;} + +.tdl {text-align: left;} + +.minispace {margin-bottom: 1em;} + +.microspace {margin-bottom: .5em;} + +.nanospace {padding-bottom: .25em;} + +.border2 { + border-style: solid; + border-width: 2px; + background: #FFFFFF; + border-color: #000000; + margin: auto; +} + +.under {text-decoration: underline;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +ins {text-decoration: none;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} +// --> +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, by Patrick +Braybrooke</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Gilbert Keith Chesterton</p> +<p>Author: Patrick Braybrooke</p> +<p>Release Date: December 19, 2008 [eBook #27569]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by David Clarke, Meredith Bach,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="tnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3> +<br /> +An English transliteration of the Greek word can be viewed by <ins title="like this" style="border-bottom: thin dotted black;">hovering</ins> the mouse over the word.<br /> +<br /> +A small number of spelling and punctuation errors have been corrected. A full list can be found at the end of the text. +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1><small>GILBERT KEITH</small><br /> +CHESTERTON</h1> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="under"> +<h3><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></h3> +</div> + +<h4>ODDMENTS<br /> +SUGGESTIVE FRAGMENTS</h4> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="image"> +<img src="images/ifrontis.jpg" width="379" height="569" alt="G. K. CHESTERTON +Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Speaight Ltd., London" title="" /> +</div> +<div class="caption"><i>G. K. CHESTERTON</i> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Speaight Ltd., London</i></div> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="image"><img src="images/iborder.jpg" width="367" height="595" alt="" title="" /></div> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="border2" style="width: 550px; height: 500px;"> +<br /> +<h1><small>GILBERT KEITH</small><br /> +CHESTERTON</h1> + +<h2>By PATRICK BRAYBROOKE</h2> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<h2><small>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</small><br /> +ARTHUR F. THORN</h2> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<h3>LONDON, MCMXXII<br /> +THE CHELSEA PUBLISHING COMPANY<br /> +16 Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea</h3> +</div> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<hr /> +<h4><i>Printed at<br /> +THE CURWEN PRESS<br /> +Plaistow, E. 13</i></h4> +<hr /> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<h2 style="margin-bottom: 1.5em; font-size: 200%;"><i>Preface</i></h2> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">t</span> is certain that up to a point in the evolution of Self<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span> +most people find life quite exciting and thrilling. But when +middle age arrives, often prematurely, they forget the thrill +and excitements; they become obsessed by certain other lesser +things that are deficient in any kind of Cosmic Vitality. The +thrill goes out of life: a light dies down and flickers fitfully; +existence goes on at a low ebb—something has been lost. +From this numbed condition is born much of the blind +anguish of life.</p> + +<p>It is one of the tragedies of human existence that the divine +sense of wonder is eventually destroyed by inexcusable routine +and more or less mechanical living. Mental abandon, the +exercise of fancy and imagination, the function of creative +thought—all these things are squeezed out of the consciousness +of man until his primitive enjoyment of the mystical part +of life is affected in a very serious way.</p> + +<p>Nothing could be more useful, therefore, than to write a +book about a man who has done more than any other living +writer to stimulate and preserve the primitive sense of wonder +and joy in human life. Gilbert Keith Chesterton has never +lost mental contact with the cosmic simplicity of human +existence. He knows, as well as anybody has ever known, +that the life of man goes wrong simply because we are too +lazy to be pleased with simple, fundamental things.</p> + +<p>We grow up in our feverish, artificial civilization, believing +that the real, satisfying things are complex and difficult to +obtain. Our lives become unnaturally stressed and tormented +by the pitiless and incessant struggle for social conditions which +are, at best, second-rate and ultimately disappointing.</p> + +<p>G. K. Chesterton would restore the primitive joys of +wonder and childlike delight in simple things. His ideal is +the <i>real</i>, not the merely impossible. Unlike most would-be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> +saviours of the race, he seeks not to merge a new humanity +into a brand new glittering civilization. He would have us +awaken once more to the ancient mysteries and eternal truths. +He would have us turn back in order to progress.</p> + +<p>Science makes us proud, but it does not make us happy. +Efficiency makes us slaves—we have forgotten the truth +about freedom. Success is our narcotic deity, and weans more +men into despair than failure; for, as G.K.C. has said, +'Nothing fails like Success.' We have yet to rediscover the +spiritual health that comes with a clear recognition of the +part that life cannot be great until it is lived madly and wildly. +We have to learn all over again that grass really is green, and +the sky, at times, very blue indeed.</p> + + +<div class="right"><span style="margin-right: 12em;">ARTHUR F. THORN</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="padding-right: 6em;">(<i>Author of 'Richard Jefferies'</i>),</span><br /> +<span style="padding-right: 4em;"><i>Assistant-Director of Studies,</i></span><br /> +<span style="padding-right: 2em;"><i>London School of Journalism.</i></span></div> + + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<hr /> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="image"><img src="images/i_authorn.png" width="229" height="55" alt="Author's Note" title="" /></div> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">his</span> book is the outcome of many and repeated requests<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span> +to the author to write it. While realizing the +difficulties involved, he feels that the opportunities he +has enjoyed give him at least some qualifications for the task, +for not only is he a kinsman of Mr. Chesterton, but also has +spent much time in his company.</p> + +<p>The book aims to be a popular study of the Writer and the +Man. It is dedicated to lovers of the works of G.K.C. and to +the wider public who wish to know about one of the most +brilliant minds of the day.</p> + + +<div class="right">PATRICK BRAYBROOKE.</div> + +<p><i>46 Russell Square, W.C. 1</i><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">1922.</span></p> + + +<hr /> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<h2><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>ontents</i></h2> +<div class="minispace"> </div> + +<div class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="3" summary="table of contents" style="width: 26em;"> +<tr><td class="tdl" style="width: 10%;">CHAPTER</td><td style="width: 80%;"> </td><td class="tdr" style="width: 10%;">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">I</td><td class="tdl">THE ESSAYIST</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_One">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">II</td><td class="tdl">DICKENS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Two">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">III</td><td class="tdl">THACKERAY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Three">29</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">IV</td><td class="tdl">BROWNING</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Four">42</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">V</td><td class="tdl">CHESTERTON AS HISTORIAN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Five">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VI</td><td class="tdl">THE POET</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Six">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VII</td><td class="tdl">THE PLAYWRIGHT</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Seven">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">VIII</td><td class="tdl">THE NOVELIST</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Eight">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">IX</td><td class="tdl">CHESTERTON ON DIVORCE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Nine">90</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">X</td><td class="tdl">'THE NEW JERUSALEM'</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Ten">96</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XI</td><td class="tdl">MR. CHESTERTON AT HOME</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Eleven">99</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XII</td><td class="tdl">HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Twelve">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XIII</td><td class="tdl">G.K.C. AND G.B.S.</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Thirteen">113</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr">XIV</td><td class="tdl">CONCLUSION</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Chapter_Fourteen">119</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<div class="minispace"> </div> + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_One" id="Chapter_One"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">O</span>ne</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">THE ESSAYIST</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">t</span> is extremely difficult in the somewhat limited space of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span> + +a chapter to give the full attention that should be given +to such a brilliant and original essayist (which is not always +an <i>ipso facto</i> of brilliant essayists) as Chesterton. Essayists +are of all men extremely elastic. Occasionally they are dull +and prosy, very often they are obscure, quite often they are +wearisome. The only criticism which applies adversely to +Chesterton as an essayist is that he is very often—and I +rather fear he likes being so—obscure. He is brilliant in an +original manner, he is original in a brilliant way; scarcely any +thought of his is not expressed in paradox. What is orthodox +to him is heresy to other people; what is heresy to him is +orthodox to other people; and the surprising fact is that he is +usually right when he is orthodox, and equally right when he +is heretical. An essayist naturally has points of view which he +expresses in a different way to a novelist. A novelist, if he +adheres to what a novel should be—that is, I think, a simple +tale—does not necessarily have a particular point of view when +he starts his book. An essayist, on the other hand, starts with +an idea and clothes it. Of course, Chesterton is not an +essayist in the really accepted manner of an essayist. He is +really more a brilliant exponent of an original point of view. +In other words, he essays to knock down opinions held by +other essayists, whether writers or politicians. It would be +manifestly absurd to praise Chesterton as being equal to +Hazlitt, or condemn him as being inferior to J.S. Mill. +Comparisons are usually odious, which is precisely the reason +so much use is made of them. In this case any comparison is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +not only odious; it is worse, it is merely futile, for the very +simple fact that there has been no essayist ever quite like +Chesterton, which is a compliment to him, because it proves +what every one who knows is assured, that he is unique.</p> + +<p>There are, of course, as is to be expected, people who do not +like his essays. The reason is not far to seek, as in everything +else people set up for themselves standards which they do not +like to see set aside. Consequently people who had read +Lamb, Hazlitt, Hume, and E.V. Lucas astutely thought +that no essayist could be such who did not adhere to the style +of one of these four. Therefore they were a little alarmed +and upset when there descended upon them a strange genius +who not only upset all the rules of essay writing, but was at +the same time acclaimed by all sections of the Press as one of +the finest essayists of the day.</p> + +<p>With the advent of Chesterton the essay received a shock. +It had to realize that it was a larger and wider thing than it +had been before. As it had been almost insular, so it became +international; as it had been almost theological in its orthodoxy, +so it became in its catholicity well-nigh heretical. Which +is the best possible definition of a heresy? It is the expanding +of orthodoxy or the lessening of it. Thus Chesterton was a +pioneer. He gave to the essay a new impetus—almost, we +might say, a 'sketch' form; it dealt with subjects not so much +in a dissertation as in a dissection. Having dissected one way +so that we are quite sure no other method would do, he calmly +dissects again in the opposite manner, leaving us gasping, and +finding that there really are two ways of looking at every +question—a thing we never realize till we think about it. +I have in this chapter taken five of Chesterton's most +characteristic books of essays, displaying the enormous depth +of his intellect, the vast range of subject, the unique use of +paradox. Of these five books I have again taken rather necessarily +at random subjects depicting the above Chestertonian +attributes, with an attempt to give some idea of what it really +means when we say that he is an essayist.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> + +<p>That Chesterton's book of essays, entitled 'Heretics,' +should have an introductory and a concluding chapter on the +importance of orthodoxy is exactly what we should expect +to find. There is a great deal of what is undeniably true in +this book; there is also, I venture to think, a good deal that +is undeniably untrue. I do not think it is unfair to say that +in some respects Chesterton allows his cleverness to lead +him to certain errors of judgment, and a certain levity in +dealing with matters that are to a number of people so sacred +that to reinterpret them is almost to blaspheme.</p> + +<p>I am thinking of the chapter in this book that is a reply +to Mr. McCabe, an ex-Roman Catholic, who, being a keen +logician, is now a rationalist. He accuses Chesterton of +joking with the things <i>de profundis</i>.</p> + +<p>Certain clergymen have also taken exception to Chesterton's +writings on the ground of this supposed levity. It is +merely that he sees that the Bible has humour, because it has +said that 'God laughed and winked.' I do not think he intends +to offend, but for many people any idea of humour in +the Bible is repugnant, and this view is not confined to +clergymen.</p> + +<p>In an absolutely charming chapter Chesterton writes +of the literature of the servant girl, which is really the +literature of Park Lane. It is the literature of Park Lane, for +the very obvious reason that it is probably never read there; but +the literature is about Park Lane, and is read by those who +may live as near it as Balham or Surbiton. What he contends, +and rightly, is that the general reader likes to hear +about an environment outside his own. It is inherent in us +that we always really want to be somewhere else; which is +fortunate, as it makes it certain that the world will never +come to an end through a universal contentment. It has +been said that contentment is the essence of perfection. +It is equally true that the essence of perfection is discontent, +a striving for something else. This, I think, Chesterton feels +when he says of the penny novelette that it is the literature<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +to 'teach a man to govern empires or look over the map of +mankind.'</p> + +<p>Rudyard Kipling finds a warm spot in Chesterton's heart, +but he is a little too militaristic, which is exactly what he +is not. Kipling loves soldiers, which is no real reason why +he should be disliked as a militarist. Many a servant girl loves +a score of soldiers, she may even write odes to her pet sergeant, +but she is not necessarily a militarist. Rudyard Kipling +likes soldiers and writes of them. He does not, as Chesterton +lays to his charge, 'worship militarism.' He accuses Kipling +of a want of patriotism, which is about as absurd as accusing +Chesterton of a love of politics. But when he says that +Kipling only knows England as a place, he is on safe ground, +because England is something that is not bound by the confines +of space.</p> + +<p>Not being exactly a champion of Kipling, Chesterton +turns to a different kind of man, George Moore, and has +nothing to say for him beyond that he writes endless personal +confessions, which most people do if there are those who +will read them. But not only this, poor George Moore +'doesn't understand the Roman Catholic Church, he doesn't +understand Thackeray, he misunderstands Stevenson, he has +no understanding of Christianity.' It is, in fact, a hopeless +case, but it is also possible that Chesterton has not troubled +to understand George Moore.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bernard Shaw is, so Chesterton contends, a really +horrible eugenist, because he wants to get a super-man who, +having more than two legs, will be a vastly superior person +to a man. Chesterton loves men. He tells us why St. Peter +was used to found the Church upon. It was because he 'was +a shuffler, a coward, and a snob—in a word, a man.' Even +the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Councils of Trent have +failed to find a better reason for the founding of the Church. +It is a defence of the fallibility of the Church, the practical +nature of that Body, an organization founded by a Man who +had Divine powers in a unique way and was God.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> + +<p>Presumably, then, the mistake of Shaw is that instead of +trying to improve man he wishes to invent a kind of demi-god.</p> + +<p>Chesterton has a great deal to say for Christmas; in fact, +he has no sympathy for those superior beings who find +Christmas out of date. Even Swinburne and Shelley have +attacked Christianity in the grounds of its melancholy, +showing a lamentable forgetfulness that this religion was +born at a time that had always been a season of joy. Chesterton +is annoyed with them, and is sure that Swinburne did not +hang up his socks on Christmas Eve, nor did Shelley. I +wonder whether Chesterton hangs up his socks on the eve +of Christmas?</p> + +<p>'Heretics' is a book that deals with a great number of +subjects universal in their scope. The writing is at times too +paradoxical, leading to obscurity of thought. There are splendid +passages in this book, which is, when all is said, brilliantly +original, even if at times a little puzzling.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>'Orthodoxy' is, I think, one of the most important of +Chesterton's books. The lasting importance of a book depends +not so much on its literary qualities or on its popularity, but +rather on the theme handled.</p> + +<p>There are really two central themes handled in this book. +One is of Fairyland, the other is of the defence of Christianity; +not that it is either true or false, but that it is rational, or the +most shuffle-headed nonsense ever set to delude the human +race. The method of apology that Chesterton takes is one that +would cause the average theological student to turn white +with fear.</p> + +<p>The theological colleges, excellent as they are in endeavouring +to train efficient laymen into equally efficient +priests, usually assume that the best way to know about +Christianity is to study Christian books. It is the worst way, +because these books are naturally biased in favour of it. It is +better to study any religion by seeing what the attackers have +to say against it. Then a personal judgment can be formed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p> + +<p>This is, I feel, the method that Chesterton adopts in his +deep and original treatise, 'Orthodoxy,' which is more than +an essay and less than a theological work.</p> + +<p>The Chestertonian contention is that philosophers like +Schopenhauer and Nietzsche have embarked on the suicide +of thought, and that a later disciple to this self-destruction +is Bernard Shaw.</p> + +<p>In the same way these pseudo philosophers have attacked +the Christian religion, 'tearing the soul of Christ into silly +strips labelled altruism and egoism. They are alike puzzled +by His insane magnificance and His insane meekness.'</p> + +<p>As I have said, the method to realize the worth of Christianity +is to read all the attacks on it. This is what Chesterton +does. In doing so he discovers that these attacks are the one +thing that demonstrate the strength of Christianity. Because +the attackers reject it upon reasons that are contradictory to +each other. Thus some complain that it is a gloomy religion; +others go to the opposite extreme and accuse it of pointing to +a state of perpetual chocolate cream; yet again it is attacked +on grounds of effeminancy, it is upbraided as being fond of +a sickly sentimentalism.</p> + +<p>Thus it is attacked on opposite grounds at once. It is +condemned for being pessimistic, it is blamed for being +optimistic. From this position Chesterton deduces that it is +the only rational religion, because it steers between the Scylla +of pessimism and avoids the Charybdis of a facile optimism. +Regarding presumably the early Church she has also kept from +extremes. She has ignored the easy path of heresy, she has adhered +to the adventurous road of orthodoxy. She has avoided +the Arian materialism by dropping a Greek Iota; she has not +succumbed to Eastern influences, which would have made her +forget she was the Church on earth as well as in heaven. With +tremendous commonsense she has remained rational and +chosen the middle course, which was one of the cardinal +virtues of the ancient Greek philosophers.</p> + +<p>The Christian religion is, then, rational because attacked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> +along irrational grounds; the Church is also reasonable because +she has not been swayed by the attraction of heresy nor listened +to the glib fallacies of those who always want to make her +something more or something less.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>The other and lesser contention of the book is the wisdom +of the land of the Fairies. This is, Chesterton feels, the land +where is found the philosophy of the nursery that is expressed +in fairy tales—tales that every grown-up should read at +Christmas.</p> + +<p>Fairyland is for Chesterton the sunny land of commonsense. +It is more, it is a place that has a very definite religion; +it is, in fact, really the child's land of Christ. Take the +lesson of Cinderella, says Chesterton; it is really the teaching +of the Prayer Book that the humble shall be exalted, because +humility is worthy of exaltation.</p> + +<p>Or the Sleeping Beauty. Is it not the significance of how +love can bridge time? The prince would have been there to +wake the princess had she slept a thousand instead of a +hundred years.</p> + +<p>Yet again the land of the Fairies is the abode of reason. +If Jack is the son of a miller, then a miller is the father of +Jack. It is no good in Fairyland trying to prove that two and +two do not make four, but it is quite possible to imagine that +the witch really did turn the unlucky prince into a pig. After +all, such a procedure is not a monopoly of the fairies. Lesser +persons than princes have been turned into pigs, not by the +wand of a witch, but by the wand of good or bad fortune.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>'Orthodoxy' is probably the sanest book that Chesterton +has ever written. It is, I venture to think, the work that +will gain for him immortality. It is a book on the greatest +of themes, the reasonableness of the Christian religion. +There have been many books written to attack the Christian +religion, equally many to defend it, but Chesterton has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +made his apology for the religion on original grounds—the +contradictories of the detractors of it. 'Orthodoxy' goes alone +with Christ into the mountain, and the eager multitudes +receive the real philosophy of Chesterton.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>The child who has eaten too much jam and feels that too +much of a good thing is a truism is rather like the philosopher +who, having studied everything, comes to the sad conviction +that there is something wrong with the world. The child +finds that large quantities of jam are a delusion; the philosopher +discovers that the world is even more wrong than he +thought it was.</p> + +<p>Sitting in his study, Chesterton, looking out on the garden +which is the world, discovers that there is something wrong +with it, and it is caused by the machinations of the 1,500 +odd millions of people who, like ants, crawl about its surface. +'What's wrong with the World?' is the result, and a very +entertaining book it is. Like many other sociological treatises +it leaves us still convinced that the world is wrong, because +we don't know what we really want.</p> + +<p>The pessimist is convinced that the world is a bad place, +the optimist is sure that it can be good. That is the point of +the book. Chesterton has his own ideas of what is wrong, and +he says so with astonishing paradox.</p> + +<p>When this book was written, Feminism was demanding +votes, and, not getting them at once, became naughty, and +tied itself to the House of Commons or pushed policemen over. +Chesterton devotes a large section of this book to demanding +what is the mistake of Feminism.</p> + +<p>'The Feminists probably agree that womanhood is under +shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. I want to destroy +this tyranny. They (the Feminists) want to destroy womanhood.' +They do this by attempting to drive women into +the world and turn them away from the home. This is +what is wrong with the woman's world: they have it that +the home is narrow, that the world is wide. The converse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> +is the truth: woman is the star of the home. It is a pity +if she has to make chains—significant word—at Cradley +Heath.</p> + +<p>Education is not for Chesterton an unqualified success; +there is a mistake about it somewhere. In fact, there is 'no +such thing as education.' Education is not an object, it +is a 'transmission' or an 'inheritance.' It means that a +certain standard of conduct is passed on from generation to +generation. The keynote of education for Chesterton is +undoubtedly dogma, and dogma is certainly the result of a +narrowing tendency.</p> + +<p>At this present time there is a controversy about the use of +our public schools. Whenever a harassed editor in Fleet +Street cannot think what to put in those two spare columns, +he works up a 'stunt' on the use or otherwise of the public +schools. This is always exciting, as the public schools hardly +ever see the controversy, being blissfully immersed in the +military strategy of Hannibal or the political intrigues of the +Caesars. Thus the controversy is conducted by those who +generally think that commerce is superior to Greek, money-grubbing +to good manners.</p> + +<p>Even Chesterton must say something about these schools +that are the backbone of England. Unfortunately he thinks +that they are weakening the country, that the headmasters +'are teaching only the narrowest of manners.' But the public +schools 'manufacture gentlemen; they are factories for +the making of aristocrats.' If he is right, the more of these +schools there are the better it is for the country.</p> + +<p>It is well that he is not averse to Greek. In these days the +classics are looked upon as waste of time. Political economy +and profiteering are more useful. As he says, a man of the +type of Carnegie would die in a Greek city. I am not sure +whether this is not unfair. The real use of Greek is that it +teaches culture. There is use in Plato's philosophy; it is quite +as useful as the knowledge acquired that results in peers +made, not born. I don't think Chesterton understands the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +public schools at all well; they are both bad and good, but +at least they are very English.</p> + +<p>He hasn't a great deal to say for Imperialism. Imperialism +is a very difficult ethic; it is not easy to say whether it +is a selfish or an unselfish policy.</p> + +<p>Thus we may quite conceivably pat ourselves on the back +and say that, as English rule is good for natives, it is only right +that we should keep India; but we might find that an equally +good and more popular reason for doing so would be to +prevent any one else having her. Thus our Imperial policy +is a little selfish and a little unselfish.</p> + +<p>For Chesterton, Imperialism is something that is both +weak and perilous. It is really, he contends, a false idealism +which tends to try and make people locally discontented, +contented with pseudo visions of distant realms where the +cities are of gold, where blue skies are never hidden by yellow +fog. But is it a false idealism? If it is, it is that conception +which has made men leave their homes in England to build +up the Imperial Empire which is the daughter of the Great +Imperial Island. The vision may not be always useful, but +Imperialism has done much to make England and Empire +synonymous.</p> + +<p>Business is, according to Chesterton, a nasty thing that +will not wait. It hates leisure, it has no use for brotherhood, +it is one of the things that is wrong in the world—not, of +course, that business is wrong in itself, but the method. Thus +he disagrees that if a soap factory cannot be run on brotherhood +lines the brotherhood must be scrapped. He would +have the converse to be better.</p> + +<p>He contends that it is better to be without soap than +without society. As a matter of fact, society without soap +would be an abomination. Society without any brotherhood +would soon cease to be a society at all. Utopia is a little soap, +a little society, with a flavouring of brotherhood in each.</p> + +<p>Another and obviously good reason that the world is +wrong is that it is only half finished. This is a matter for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +extreme optimism; it is the one great thing that makes it +certain that the world will be found all right if it comes to +an end. That is, if it delays long enough for the Irish +question to be settled.</p> + +<p>This is what Chesterton contends in this fine book, that +reforms are not reforms at all, rather the same things dressed +up in other clothes. Values are set up on false standards. +Women in trying to become emancipated are likely to become +slaves; the fear of the past is given over to a too delicate introspection +of the probable vices and virtues of generations +not yet born.</p> + +<p>Imperialism is liable to a false idealism, drawing men from +Seven Dials to find Utopia in Brixton. The public schools +are weakening the country in some respects. Education is +not education at all; in fact, we really must start the wrong +world over again. I don't quite see where Chesterton proposes +we are to start, or exactly how, whether backwards or +forwards. Perhaps, as in 'Orthodoxy,' the middle course is +the happy and safe one.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>'Tremendous Trifles' is a Chestertonian philosophy of +the importance and interest of small things. It is a remarkable +thing that we never see the things that we daily gaze upon. +Chesterton finds scope for all kinds of subjects in this book, +from a 'Piece of Chalk' to 'A Dragon's Grandmother.' +Provided we believe in dragons, there is good reason to +suppose that they have grandmothers. It is not so easy to +write a good essay on the subject. Chesterton does so with +great skill, and it makes it quite certain to be so intellectual +as to hate fairies is a piteous condition.</p> + +<p>What he brings out in this particular essay is that what +modern intellectualism has done is to make 'the hero extraordinary, +the tale ordinary,' whereas the fairy tale makes +'the hero ordinary, the tale extraordinary.'</p> + +<p>In this book of short essays it is only possible to take a few, +but care has been taken to attempt to show the enormous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +versatility of Chesterton's mind. It has been said quite +wrongly that Chesterton cannot describe pathos. This is +certainly untrue. He can so admirably describe humour that +he cannot help knowing the pathetic, which is often so akin +to humour. I am not sure that this ability to describe the +melancholy is not to be seen in one of these essays that +narrates how he travelled in a train in which there was a +dead man whose end he never knew.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there is nothing more interesting than turning out +one's pockets—all sorts of long forgotten mementoes cause a +lump in the throat or a gleam in the eye; but it is very annoying, +on arriving at a station where tickets are collected, to find +everything that relates to your past twenty years of life and +be unable to find the ticket that makes you a legitimate rider +on the iron way. This is what Chesterton describes in a +delightful essay.</p> + +<p>One day, so Chesterton tells us in the 'Riddle of the +Ivy,' he happened to be leaving Battersea, and being asked +where he was going, calmly replied to 'Battersea.' Which +is really to say that we find our way to Brixton more eagerly +by way of Singapore than by way of Kennington. In a few +words, it is what we mean when we say, as every traveller +says at times, 'Home, sweet home.' I fancy this is what Mr. +Chesterton means. It is a beautiful thought—a fine love of the +home, a strange understanding of the wish of the traveller +who once more wishes to see the old cottage before he +journeys 'across the Bar.'</p> + +<p>The sight of chained convicts being taken to a prison +causes Chesterton to essay on the 'filthy torture' of our +prisons, the whole system of which is a 'relic of sin.' Perhaps +he is right! But is it that the prisons are wrong, or is +it that society makes criminals? After all, convicts are chained +that they shall not endure a worse penalty for attempted +escape. At present prisons are as necessary to the State as +milk is to a baby; the thing against them is that they turn +criminal men into criminal devils.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p> + +<p>At his home in Beaconsfield, Chesterton has a wonderful +toy theatre. He writes in this book a sketch about it. +This toy theatre has a certain philosophy. 'It can produce +large events in a small space; it could represent the earthquake +in Jamaica or the Day of Judgment.' We must take +Chesterton's word for it. I am not convinced that the toy +theatre of Chesterton has added to philosophy; I don't think +it has made any remarkable contribution to thought, nor is +it, as he claims, more interesting and better than a West-end +theatre; but I do believe that in having amused a few +hundred children it has a place in the Book of Life—perhaps +near the name of Santa Claus.</p> + +<p>While it is true that 'Tremendous Trifles' is not nearly +as important as some of the Chesterton books, it is true to +say that it is a remarkably pleasant book about small things +that are really tremendous when we come to study them.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>'The Defendant' is, as the title suggests, a defence of all +kinds of things that are usually attacked by other people.</p> + +<p>It takes a brave man to defend 'penny dreadfuls.' Chesterton +assumes this rôle. He defends them on their remarkable +powers of imagination. One has only to study +Sexton Blake to discover the intricate psychology of that +wondrous personality who can solve the foulest murder or +unravel stories that the divorce courts would quail before.</p> + +<p>There is something to be said for the skeleton so long as he +doesn't come out of his cupboard. Chesterton defends skeletons. +'The truth is that man's horror of the skeleton is not +horror of death at all; it is that the skeleton reminds him that +his appearance is shamelessly grotesque.' But he sees no +objection to this at all. After all, he says, the frog and the +hippopotamus are happy. Why, then, should man dislike it +that his anatomy without flesh is inelegant?</p> + +<p>It is to be expected that Chesterton would write a defence +of baby worship, because they are so 'very serious and in consequence +very happy.' 'The humorous look of children is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the +Cosmos together.' Probably we are all agreed that the +defence of baby worship is a desirable thing; possibly it is the +only point upon which there is universal agreement with +Chesterton.</p> + +<p>'The Defendant' is a series of papers that are light, but +conceal a depth of thought behind them. They demonstrate +that there is something to be said for everything which may +be a slight solution of the eternal problem that theological +professors are paid to try and discover, the problem of evil. +It may be that there is really no such thing, but it would be +disastrous to these professors to discover this, so the dear old +problem goes on from year to year.</p> + +<p>As an essayist, Chesterton is never dull: the philosophy +contained in his essays is not prosy. The only fault is that he is +at times so clever that it is a little difficult to know what he +means. But this really does not matter, as a shrewd critic of +one of his books made it public through the Press that +Chesterton did not know himself what he meant. But I +wonder if he did really know?</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Two" id="Chapter_Two"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">T</span>wo</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">DICKENS</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">f</span> there is fault to be found in Chesterton's masterly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +study of Charles Dickens it lies in the fact that in parts of +the book the meaning is not always clear, or, rather, it is not +always so at a first reading. Whether this may be justly +termed a fault depends largely upon what the reader of a +critical study demands.</p> + +<p>If he desires that he shall read Chesterton superficially and +yet understand, he will be doomed to disappointment. +Perhaps of all writers Chesterton must be read with the head +between the hands, with a fierce determination that the +meaning veiled in brilliant paradox shall be sought out.</p> + +<p>He is not only a keen critic, he is also a deliberate commentator. +The difference is fundamental. The commentator +builds upon the foundation the critic has erected; he does +not merely state what he thinks about a book or character, +rather he explains the criticism already made.</p> + +<p>This is the method adopted with regard to Dickens. +Chesterton has written a commentary on the soul of Dickens, +he has not in any strict sense written a biography; this was not +necessary; the difficulty of Dickens lies in the interpretation +of his work; his life, though having a great influence on his +writings, has been written so often that Chesterton has refrained +from building on 'another's foundation.' In a word, +it is an intensely original work, far more than our critic's +companion book on Browning.</p> + +<p>As was Browning born to a world in the throes of the +aftermath of the French Revolution, so was Dickens. +Chesterton lays great stress on the youth of Dickens; it is only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> +right that he should do this; the early life of Dickens was +probably responsible for the wonderful genius of his art. The +blacking factory that nearly killed the physical Dickens gave +birth to the literary Dickens. Dickens was, in fact, born at the +psychological moment, which is not to say that we are born at +the unpsychological moment, but that Dickens was born at a +time that allowed his natural powers to be used to the best +advantage.</p> + +<p>Chesterton feels this strongly. 'The background of the +Dickens era was just that background that was eminently +suitable to him'; it was a background that needed a Dickens +as much as the pagan world, with all its Greek philosophies, +had needed a Christ.</p> + +<p>He begins his study of Dickens with a keen survey of the +Dickens <a name="period" id="period">period.</a> 'It was,' he says, 'a world that encouraged +anybody to anything. And in England and literature its +living expression was Dickens. It is useless for us to attempt +to imagine Dickens and his life unless we are able to imagine +his confidence in common men.'</p> + +<p>It is this supreme confidence in common men that was the +keynote to the wonderful power of Dickens in making +characters from those who were in a world sense undistinguished. +On this position Chesterton lays great stress. It was +this, he thinks, that made him an optimist. It was the same +position that made Browning an optimist. It is the disbelief +in the Divine image in Man that makes the cynic and the +pessimist.</p> + +<p>Swift hated men because they were capable of better things +but would not realize it. Dickens knew men were kings, +though ordinary men; the result was that he loved humanity. +It is a queer point of psychology that with the same wish two +such minds as Swift and Dickens came to the extremes of the +emotions of love and hate.</p> + +<p>In some ways Dickens was more than a maker of books, +he was a maker of worlds; he tried to make 'not only a book +but a cosmos.' This may be a curious and obscure kind of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +clericalism that popularly expresses itself as an effort to run +with the hare and follow with the hounds, but is really an +heroic attempt to see both sides of the question, and is not +a cheap pandering after popularity.</p> + +<p>Many critics have disliked Dickens because of this tendency +of universalism, a tendency liable to intrude on minds +of a giant intellect and a ready sympathy. Chesterton does +not think that Dickens was right in this attitude of universalism, +and says so with, I think, a certain amount of cheap +disdain. 'He was inclined to be a literary Whiteley, a +universal provider.' Really Dickens wanted to have a say +about everything, in which he is strangely like Chesterton.</p> + +<p>The result of this was a result that meant the greatest +value: it meant and was 'David Copperfield.' The book was +for Chesterton a classic, and it was so because it was an +autobiography. It is in this work that Dickens makes his +defence of the rather exaggerated situations in some of his +books, for in this book Dickens proves that his greatest +romance is based on the experiences of his own life. 'David +Copperfield is the great answer of a romancer to the realists. +David says in effect, "What! you say that the Dickens +tales are too purple really to have happened. Why, this is +what happened to me, and it seemed the most purple of all. +You say that the Dickens heroes are too handsome and +triumphant! Why, no prince or paladin in Ariosto was ever +so handsome and triumphant as the head boy seemed to me +walking before me in the sun. You say the Dickens villains +are too black. Why, there was no ink in the Devil's inkstand +black enough for my own stepfather when I had to +live in the same house with him."'</p> + +<p>This is the point that Chesterton brings out so well. The +Dickens characters are not overdrawn because, though they +move between book covers, their originals have moved on +the face of the earth; they have moved with Dickens and he +has made them his own. His brilliant apology for this alleged +'overdrawing' is one of the most effective replies ever penned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +to superior Dickens detractors. It is effective because it is +true; it is true because it is obvious that Dickens created that +which lay hidden in his own mind, the misery of his factory +days.</p> + +<p>It is, I think, with this view in mind that Chesterton pays +so much attention to that period of Dickens' life which he +spent in the blacking factory, with its crude noise, its blatant +vulgarity, its vile language that left the small boy Dickens' +sick, but with a sickness that discovered his literary genius. +The factory was the germ that made the great writer. +Chesterton is a true critic of Dickens because he has this +somewhat singular insight of seeing the importance of the +early miseries of Dickens' life with regard to their influence +on his literary output and his queerly favoured delineation of +common folks, the sort of people we always meet but hardly +ever talk about because we are foolish enough to think +them ordinary.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It is from the account of the early life of Dickens that +Chesterton gently leads us to the birth of the immortal Mr. +Pickwick, that supreme Englishman who is a byword +amongst even those who scarcely know Dickens. The birth +pangs of the advent of Pickwick was a sharp quarrel 'that +did no good to Dickens, and was one of those which occurred +far too frequently in his life.'</p> + +<p>Without any hesitation for Chesterton, 'Pickwick Papers' +is Dickens' finest achievement, which is a pleasant enough +problem if we happen to remember that he also wrote 'David +Copperfield.' Possibly it is really unfair to compare them. +'Pickwick Papers' is not in the strict sense a novel; 'David +Copperfield' is a novel even if it is an autobiography. At any +rate Pickwick was a fairy, and as fairies are pretty elastic he +probably was in that category of beings, but he was even more +a royal fairy, none other than the 'fairy prince.'</p> + +<p>In Pickwick, Dickens made a great discovery, which was +that he could write ordinary stuff like the 'Sketches by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +Boz,' and also could produce Mr. Pickwick and write +'David Copperfield,' which was to say that Dickens discovered +he had a good chance of being the Shakespeare of +literature.</p> + +<p>'It is in "Pickwick Papers" that Dickens became a +mythologist rather than a novelist; he dealt with men who +were gods.' That is, no doubt, that they became household +gods; in other words, as familiar as the characters of Shakespeare.</p> + +<p>There is one tremendous outstanding characteristic of +Dickens which Chesterton brings out with considerable +force. It is that above all things Dickens created characters. +It is almost as if the setting of his books were on a stage where +the environment changes but the essentials of the characters +remain unchanged.</p> + +<p>The story is almost subordinated to the drawing of the +principal character; it is almost a modern idea of the psychoanalytical +kind of novel that our young novelists love to draw. +But still there is the great difference that the characters of +Dickens pursue there own way regardless of the trend of +events round them.</p> + +<p>Naturally the modern novel is inferior to some of Dickens' +works, but they do not deserve the hard things Chesterton +says about them. Thus he remarks in passing that the +modern novel is 'devoted to the bewilderment of a weak +young clerk who cannot decide which woman he wants to +marry or which new religion he believes in; we still give +this knock-kneed cad the name of hero.'</p> + +<p>This is, I think, unfair. The modern novel is very often still +a good healthy love tale; the hero is more often than not a +gentleman who has not the brains to be a cad; his trouble +about marriage is that he wants to marry the right woman +to their mutual well being; he is neither a cad nor a hero, but +an ordinary Englishman whom we need not walk half a mile +to see; he usually marries a girl who can be seen in any +suburb or at any church bazaar. I have dwelt on this at some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +length, as Chesterton has a tendency to despise modern +novelists while being one himself.</p> + +<p>At this period, when 'Pickwick' had once and for all +brought fame to Dickens, it will be interesting to see why +Dickens attained the enormous popularity he did. He was, +our critic thinks, a 'great event not only in literature but +also in history.'</p> + +<p>He considers that Dickens was popular in a sense that +we of the twentieth century cannot understand. In fact, he +goes so far as to say that there are no really popular authors +to-day.</p> + +<p>This is probably not entirely true. When we say an author +is popular we do not mean that necessarily, as Chesterton +seems to suggest, he is a 'best seller'; rather we call him +popular in the sense that a large number of people find pleasure +in reading him, even if the subject is not a pleasant one. +Dickens was popular in a different way: he was read by a +public who wished his story might never end. They not only +loved his books, they loved his characters even more. No +matter that there might be five sub-stories running alongside +of the main one, the central character retained the public +affection. His characters were known outside their particular +stories, and not only that, this was by no means confined to +the principal ones.</p> + +<p>They were known, as Chesterton points out, as Sherlock +Holmes is known to-day. But even so there is again a difference. +People do not speak of the minor characters of +Conan Doyle's tales as they do, for instance, of Smike.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It is now convenient to turn to the Christmas literature +of Dickens. I am convinced that Chesterton has very +badly misconstrued the character of Scrooge, that delightful +person whose one virtue was consistency.</p> + +<p>Above everything, Scrooge was consistent; he hated +Christmas as we hate anything that does not agree with our +temperament. Merry Christmas was nonsense to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +because he did not know how to be merry. He was a cold, +cynical bachelor, and at that, so far, was perfectly within the +law, moral and legal.</p> + +<p>But Chesterton, by rather an unfortunate attempt to be too +original, has turned him into a filthy hypocrite who needed no +appearances of spirits whatever; for he says of Scrooge, 'He +is only a crusty old bachelor, and had, I strongly suspect, +given away turkeys secretly all his life.'</p> + +<p>When Chesterton says that Scrooge gave away turkeys +secretly all his life it is merely saying that the whole attitude +of Scrooge to life was a silly and unmeaning pose, which +makes him ridiculous, and robs the 'Christmas Carol' of all +its real worth, that of the miraculous conversion of Scrooge.</p> + +<p>But, then, the actual story does not mean much for Chesterton: +'the repentance of Scrooge is highly improbable.' If it +is true that Scrooge really did give away turkeys secretly, then +it is quite obvious that Scrooge never did repent; he was past +it. But I fancy that Chesterton has erred badly here; he has +attempted without success to put a secret meaning into a +simple and beautiful story.</p> + +<p>'Chimes' is, for Chesterton, an attack on cant. It was a +story written by Dickens to protest against all he hated in the +nature of oppression. Dickens hated the vulgar cant that only +helps to bring self-advertisement: the ethic that the poor must +listen to the rich, not because the rich are the best law-givers, +but because society is at present so constituted that no other +method can be adopted.</p> + +<p>Dickens loved the attitude the poor always take to Christmas; +it is that attitude which is the proof that at its bedrock +humanity is extremely lovable. Chesterton is entirely in +agreement with Dickens on this matter. 'There is nothing,' +he says, 'upon which the poor are more criticized than on the +point of spending large sums on small feasts; there is nothing +in which they are more right.'</p> + +<p>Dickens did not in any way forget that the real spirit of +Christmas is to be found in the cheery group round the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +blazing fire. 'The Cricket on the Hearth' is a pleasant tale +about all that we associate with Christmas, that very thing +that has made Hearth and Christmas synonymous; yet +Chesterton considers this one of the weakest of the Dickens' +stories, which is a surprising criticism for a writer who +really loves Christmas as he does.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>In a later period of Dickens, Chesterton informs us of his +brief entry into the complex and exciting world that has its +headquarters in Fleet Street. For a short period Dickens +occupied the editorship of the <i>Daily News</i>, but the environment +was not a very congenial one. Dickens was unsettled +with that strange restlessness that seizes all literary men at +some time or other. This was the time that saw the publication +of 'Dombey and Son.' Chesterton thinks that the essential +genius found its most perfect expression in this work though +the treatment is grotesque. This book is almost, so our critic +thinks, 'a theological one: it attempts to distinguish between +the rough pagan devotion of the father and the gentler +Christian affection of the mother.'</p> + +<p>The grotesque manner of treatment of this work was as +natural as the employment of the grotesque by Browning. +Dickens must work in his own way, in the manner that +suited his inmost soul; he could not be made to write to order. +In a brilliant paradox Chesterton says of 'Dombey and Son': +the 'story of Florence Dombey is incredible, although it is +true,' which is what many people feel about Christianity. +'Dombey and Son' was the outlet for that curious psychology +of Dickens which could get the best out of a pathetic incident +by approaching it from a grotesque angle. It came, as Chesterton +points out in his own inimitable way, 'into the inner +chamber by coming down the chimney.' Which demonstrates +the ever nearness of pathos to humour, of the absurd to the +pathetic.</p> + +<p>It will not be out of place to refer at this time to some of the +defects with which people have charged Dickens. Chesterton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +does not agree with the critics on these points, but admits +that these charges have been levelled against Dickens. It +will be advisable to take one or two examples of these +alleged flaws.</p> + +<p>There is that most popular thing of which Dickens is +accused, that of exaggeration. Many people are quite incredulous +that there could ever have existed such a character +as Little Nell. Chesterton, however, thinks that Dickens +did know a girl of this nature, and that Little Nell was based +on her. Little Nell is not really more improbable than 'Eric,' +the famous hero of Dean Farrar, and he was certainly based +on a living boy.</p> + +<p>People who live in these enlightened days are piously +shocked at the amount of drinking described by Dickens. +Well-bred and garrulous ladies have shuddered at the scenes +described, and have declared that Dickens was at least fond +of the Bacchanalian element. So he was, but the reason was +not that he loved hard drinking, but that, as our critic +brings out, drinking was the symbol of hospitality as roast +beef is the symbol of a Sunday in a thousand English rectories. +As Dickens described the social life of England he could not +leave out its most characteristic feature and shudder in pious +horror that the red wine dyed old England a merry crimson.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It would be no doubt an exaggeration to call Dickens a +socialist. What he saw was that there was a mass of beings +that was called humanity, that the two ends of the political pole +were indifferent to this mass. The party to which a man gave +his allegiance did not matter as long as that party worked for +man's ultimate good. Chesterton is quite sure that Dickens +was not a socialist; he was not the kind that ranted at street +corners and dined in secret at the Ritz, nor was he of the kind +who said all men are equal but I am a little better. He was +a socialist in the sense that he hated oppression of any kind.</p> + +<p>'Hard Times' strikes a note that is a little short of being +harsh. The reason that Dickens may have exaggerated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> +Bounderby is that he really disliked him. The Dickensian +characters undoubtedly suffered from their delineator's likes +and dislikes.</p> + +<p>About this time Dickens wrote a book that was unique +for him; it was a book that dealt with the French Revolution, +and was called 'The Tale of Two Cities.' Chesterton does +not think that Dickens really understood this gigantic upheaval; +in fact, he says his attitude to it was quite a mistaken +one. Even, thinks our critic, Carlyle didn't know what it +meant. Both see it as a bloody riot, both are mistaken. The +reason that Carlyle and Dickens didn't know all about it was +that they had the good fortune to be Englishmen; a very good +supposition that Chesterton has still something to learn of +that Revolution.</p> + +<p>After all, the main point of 'The Tale of Two Cities' is +the exquisite pathos of it. Whether its attitude to the French +Revolution is absolutely accurate does not matter very much +for the reader who is not a keen historical student.</p> + +<p>With 'Hard Times' and 'A Tale of Two Cities' Dickens +has struck a graver note. This is peculiarly emphasized in +'Great Expectations.' This story is 'characterized by a +consistency and quietude of individuality which is rare in +Dickens.' It is really a book with a moral—that life in the +limelight is not always synonymous with getting the best out +of it. Really, the hero behaves in a sneakish manner. Probably +Dickens doesn't like him, and the writer is still on the stern +side.</p> + +<p>In 1864, so Chesterton tells us, Dickens was in a merrier +mood, and published 'Our Mutual Friend,' a book that has, +as our critic says, 'a thoroughly human hero and a thoroughly +human villain.' This work is 'a satire dealing with +the whims and pleasures of the leisured class.' But this is by +no means a monopoly of the so-called idle rich: the hardworking +middle and poorer classes have whims and pleasures +in a like manner, but have not so much opportunity in indulging +in them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> + +<p>As I have indicated, the story is not the principal part of the +Dickens' literature; it is the drawing of characters to which he +pays so much attention. It will not be out of place at this +time to see what our critic has to say with regard to this +tendency of Dickens. It is an essential of Dickens, and is +therefore of vast import to any critique on him.</p> + +<p>The essence of Dickens, for Chesterton, is that he makes +kings out of common men: those folks who are the ordinary +people of this strange, fascinating world, those who have no +special claim to a place in the stars, those who, when they +die, do not have two lines in any but a local paper, those who +are common but are never commonplace.</p> + +<p>There is a vast difference between the common and the +commonplace, as Chesterton points out. Death is common to +all, yet it is never commonplace; it is in its very essence a +grand and noble thing, because it is a proof of our common +humanity; it gives the lie that the Pope is of more importance +than the dustman; it makes the busy editor equal to the +newsboy shouting the papers under his office windows.</p> + +<p>The common man is he who does not receive any special +distinction: universities do not compete to do him honour, his +name is but mentioned in a small <a name="cricle" id="cricle">circle.</a> These are those of +whom Dickens wrote. 'It is,' says Chesterton, 'in private +life that we find the great characters. They are too great to +get into the public world.' They are people who are natural—natural +in a sense that the holders of high office never can be. +Dickens could only write of natural people, so he wrote of +common men: 'You will find him adrift as an impecunious +commercial traveller like Micawber; you will find him but +one of a batch of silly clerks like Swiveller; you will find him +as an unsuccessful actor like Crumples; you will find him as +an unsuccessful doctor like Sawyer; you will always find the +rich and reeking personality where Dickens found it among +the poor.'</p> + +<p>Not only were the characters Dickens chose common men, +they were also 'great fools,' because Chesterton will have us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +believe that a man can be entirely great while he is entirely +foolish. It is no doubt in the spiritual sense so admirably +expressed in the Pauline Epistles, where 'foolish in the eyes +of the world but wise before God' is a condition that is of +merit.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Toots is great because he is foolish.' He is great +because he has a soul that glorifies his weak and foolish body, +not that he is great because, <i>ipso facto</i>, he is foolish.</p> + +<p>There is a great and permanent value in the writings of +Dickens. I cannot do better than quote our critic: 'If we +are to look for lessons, here at least are the last and deepest +lessons of Dickens. It is in our own daily life that we are to +look for the portents and the prodigies. This is the truth, not +merely of the fixed figures of our life, the wife, the husband, +the fool that fills the day. Every day we neglect Tootses and +Swivellers, Guppys and Joblings, Simmerys and Flashers. +This is the real gospel of Dickens, the inexhaustible opportunities +offered by the liberty and variety of man. It is when +we pass our own private gate and open our own secret door +that we step into the land of the giants.'</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It will now be convenient to consider the question of the +attitude of our critic to the 'Mystery of Edwin Drood,' that +tale that has produced one of those literary mysteries that are +so dear to a number of folks of the kind who would be +disappointed were the problem to be finally solved. 'The +Mystery of Edwin Drood' was cut short by the sudden +death that fell upon Dickens on a warm June night some +half century ago.</p> + +<p>For Chesterton the book 'might have proved to be the +most ambitious that Dickens ever planned.' It is non-Dickensian +in the sense that its value depends entirely on a +story. The workmanship is very fine. The book was purely +and simply a detective story. 'Bleak House' was the nearest +approach to its style, but the mystery there was easy to +unravel. It was as though Dickens wished in 'Edwin Drood'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +to make one last 'splendid and staggering' appearance before +the curtain rang down, not to be rung up again until the last +Easter morning.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' says Chesterton, 'there were many other Dickenses, +'an industrious Dickens, a public spirited Dickens, but the +last one (that is Edwin Drood) was the great one. The wild +epitaph of Mrs. Sapsea, "Canst thou do likewise?" should be +the serious epitaph of Dickens.'</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It is more than fifty years since Dickens died. What is the +future of Dickens likely to be? At least, Chesterton has no +doubt of the permanent influence of Dickens; he is as sure of +immortality as is Shakespeare. The kings of the earth die, yet +their works remain; the princes pass on but are not entirely +forgotten; writers write and in their turn sleep; but there is +that to which in every age we inscribe the word Immortal. +It is enough to say that Dickens is immortal because he is +Dickens. There is a further reason, that he proved what all the +world had been saying, that common humanity is a holy +thing. To quote Chesterton: 'He did for the world what +the world could not do for itself.' Dickens' creation was +poetry—it dealt with the elementals; it is therefore permanent.</p> + +<p>In final words he says, 'We shall not be further troubled +with the little artists who found Dickens too sane for their +sorrows and too clear for their delights. But we have a long +way to travel before we get back to what Dickens meant; and +the passage is a long, rambling English road, a twisting road +such as Mr. Pickwick travelled.'</p> + +<p>'But the road leads to eternity, because the inn is at the +end of the road, and at that inn is a goodly company of +common men who are immortal because Dickens made +them. Here we shall meet Dickens and all his characters, +and when we shall drink again it shall be from great flagons +in the tavern at the end of the world.'</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>What, then, is the essential part of Chesterton's study of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +Charles Dickens? It is certainly not a biography; it is for +all practical purposes a keen study of what Dickens was, +what he wrote, why he wrote as he did, why he has a place +in literature no one else has.</p> + +<p>There are faults in the book—it would be a poor book if it +had none. At times I think Chesterton allows his genius to +overcome his critical judgment. Particularly is this so in his +strange misconstruction of the character of Scrooge. But +this merely demonstrates yet once more that Dickens, like +Christ, is unique, because no one has ever completely understood +him.</p> + +<p>The book is a tribute by a great writer to a greater writer, +by a great man to a great man, by a complex personality to a +complex personality; above all it is a tribute by a lover of the +things of the 'doorstep' to a writer who has made the doorstep +and the street the road to heaven, because the beings +who pass along have been made immortal.</p> + +<p>When the critics of Dickens meet at the inn there will +be none more worthy of a place close to the Master Writer +than Chesterton.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Three" id="Chapter_Three"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">T</span>hree</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">THACKERAY</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">here</span> are no doubt thousands of people who would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +be annoyed to be thought the reverse of well read who +nevertheless know Thackeray only as a name. They +know that he was a really great English novelist—they may +even know that he lived as a contemporary of Dickens—but +they do not know a line of any of his works.</p> + +<p>In lesser manner Dickens is unknown to very many people +of the present day who could tell you intelligently of every +modern book that is produced. The reason is, I think, one that +is not so generally thought of as might be expected.</p> + +<p>It is often said that Thackeray and Dickens are out of date, +that they have had their day, that this era of tube trains and +other abominations cannot fall into the background of +lumbering stage coaches.</p> + +<p>This is, I think, a profound and grave error. It is an error +because it presupposes that human interest changes with the +advent of different means of transport: that Squeers is no +longer of interest because he would now travel to Yorkshire +by the Great Northern Railway and would have lunch in a +luncheon car instead of inside a four-horse stage coach.</p> + +<p>The fundamental reason that modern people do not read +these great authors is that they are not encouraged to do so. +The very best way to instil a love of Thackeray into the +modern world is to make the modern world read just so +much of him that its voracious appetite is sharpened to wish +for more.</p> + +<p>In an altogether admirable series of the masters of literature +Thackeray finds a place, and treatment of him is left<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +to Chesterton, who writes a fine introductory 'Biography' +and then takes picked passages from his writings. This is, +I think, the most useful means possible of popularizing an +author. It requires a good deal of pluck in these days to sit +down and steadily pursue a way through a long book of +Thackeray unless it has been proved, by the perusal of a +selected passage, that riches in the book warrant the act of +courage in beginning the work.</p> + +<p>In this chapter it will be convenient to pay special attention +to the introduction that is so ably contributed by Chesterton. +It will only be possible to refer to the passages he has selected +from Thackeray, and the reader must judge of the merit of +the choosing. It is one of the hardest things possible to choose +representative passages from a great writer. Shall he choose +those that display the literary qualities of the writer, shall he +choose those which depict his powers of drama, shall he select +those which bring out the humour of the writer, shall he pick +at random and let the passage stand or fall on its own merits? +These are questions that must be faced in a work of the +nature of Chesterton's Thackeray. What the method has been +will, I hope, be clear at the end of this chapter.</p> + +<p>It was Thackeray's expressed wish that there should be no +biography written of him, a position that might indicate +extreme modesty, colossal conceit, or distinct cowardice. +Whatever the reason, it has not been entirely obeyed, and +rightly. A man of the power of Thackeray cannot live without +the world being in some way better; it is only good that those +who never knew him in the flesh should at least know him +in a book. It is not enough that, as Chesterton points out, he +'was of all novelists the most autobiographical,' which is not +to say that he wrote unending personal confessions with a +very large I, but rather that his books were drawn from the +experiences of his life, a field that is productive of the richest +literary worth.</p> + +<p>Thackeray was born, we are told, in the year 1811, so that +he was a year old when the world received two babies who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +were like ten thousand other babies, except that they happened +to be Browning and Dickens. It was the time when +the world trembled, because that mighty soldier Napoleon +stood with arms folded, waiting to strike, it knew not where. +It was the time when military genius reached its height, +a height that could be only brought low by one thing, and +that was an English General with a long nose and a cocked +hat.</p> + +<p>Although Thackeray was born in Calcutta, he was as +English as he could possibly be. But he did not forget his +Eastern beginning. 'A certain vague cosmological quality +was always mixed with his experience, and it was his favourite +boast that he had seen men and cities like Ulysses.' Which is +to say that he had not only seen the world, he had felt it; if he +had not seen a one-eyed giant, he had at least seen a two-eyed +Hindu.</p> + +<p>His early life followed the ordinary life of a thousand other +boys born of Anglo-Indian parents; that was, he went to +school, where 'a girl broke his heart and a boy broke his nose,' +and he discovered that the nose took longer to mend.</p> + +<p>At Cambridge, Chesterton tells us, Thackeray found that +it was a quite easy thing to sit down and play cards and lose +£1,500 in an evening, a fact that very probably was more +useful to him than twenty degrees. Trinity College was the +Thackeray College: it has had no more famous son. It was +said that Thackeray could order a dinner in every language +in Europe, which is to say he could have dined in comfort +in any restaurant in Soho.</p> + +<p>From Cambridge, we learn, he made his way to the Bar, +and at the same time wrote articles in the hope that some +editor might keep them from the waste-paper basket. Chesterton +tells us an interesting legend that about this time Thackeray +offered to illustrate the books of Dickens. The offer was +declined, which he thinks was 'a good thing for Dickens' +books and a good thing for Thackeray's.' Whether Thackeray +ever really did meet Dickens does not matter much; it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +at least picturesque; 'it affects the imagination as much as +the meeting with Napoleon.'</p> + +<p>There has always been what is for Chesterton a silly +discussion—a controversy as to whether Thackeray was a +cynic. This was because he happened to write first about +villains, then about heroes; villains are always more interesting +than heroes, and not infrequently are much better +mannered. A cynic is a person who doesn't take the trouble +to find the motives for things, or he takes it for granted that +the motives are never disinterested ones. To say that Thackeray +was a cynic because he drew a large number of villains +is as untrue as to say Swift was a cynic because he wrote +satire. Thackeray wrote about villains because he wished to +also write about heroes; Swift was satirical because he had the +intelligence to see that his contemporaries were fools when +they might have been wise. The cynics are the people of +to-day who write books which attribute low motives to +every one, which turn love into lust, which care not what +is written so long as it can be made certain that there is +nothing in the world which has not a hidden meaning.</p> + +<p>The first appearance of Thackeray in literature was in +'Fraser's Magazine,' under the pseudo name of Michael +Angelo Titmarsh. It is on these unimportant papers that +Chesterton thinks was based the attack on Thackeray for +being a cynic.</p> + +<p>In passing, it is not necessary to say more than that +Thackeray's marriage ended in a horrible manner: Mrs. +Thackeray was sent to an asylum. 'I would do it over +again,' said Thackeray; which was a 'fine thing to say.' It +was really carrying out 'for better or worse,' which often +enough really means for better only.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It will now be well at once to plunge into the very heart +of Thackeray, that heart which beat beneath the huge, gaunt +frame. The two books which have made his name famous, and +what Chesterton thinks of them, must be now gone into.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> + +<p>'The Book of Snobs' was one of those literary rarities +that has genius in its very name. No one probably really thinks +himself a snob; every one likes to read of one. Thackeray +brought snobbishness to a classic. There had been books of +scoundrels, there had been books of heroes, there had been +books of nincompoops, now there was a book of those people +who abound in every community, and who are snobs.</p> + +<p>'This work was much needed and very admirably done. +The solemn philosophic framework, the idea of treating +snobbishness as a science, was original and sound; for snobbishness +is indeed a disease in our Society.'</p> + +<p>Unfortunately Chesterton is not nearly hard enough on +snobbishness. Were it a disease, it might be excusable as being +at times unavoidable; it is nothing of the sort, it is a deliberate +thing that undermines society more than anything; it is +entirely spontaneous, and flourishes in every community, +from the Church to the Jockey Club.</p> + +<p>'Aristocracy does not have snobs any more than democracy'; +but this 'Thackeray was too restrained and early Victorian +to see.' There are at the present day a great number of people +who will not see that Bolshevism is as snobbish as Suburbia, +that the poor man in the Park Lodge is as much a snob as his +master, who only knows the county folks. Snobbery is not +the monopoly of any one set; even also is it, as Thackeray +says,'a mean admiration' that thinks it is better to be a +'made' peer than an honest gardener.</p> + +<p>'The true source of snobs in England was the refusal to +take one side or the other in the crisis of the French Revolution.'</p> + +<p>The title of 'Vanity Fair' was an inspiration. It gives +the ideas of the disharmonies that can be found in any market +place in any English market town on any English market +day. It brings out 'the irrelevancy of Thackeray.' A good +motto for the book is, for Chesterton, that attributed to +Cardinal Newman: 'Evil always fails by overleaping its aim +and good by falling short of it.' Our critic feels that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +critics have been unfair to Thackeray with respect to their +denouncement of the character of Amelia Sedley as being +much too soft, whereas Chesterton thinks she was really a +fool, which is the logical outcome of being the reverse of hard.</p> + +<p>But Amelia was soft in a very delightful way. She was +'open to all emotions as they came'—in fact, she was a fool +who was wise because she has retained her power of happiness, +while the hard Rebecca has arrived at hell, 'the hell of having +all outward forces open, but all receptive organs closed.'</p> + +<p>It is necessary again to refer to the charge of cynicism that +is levelled against Thackeray. The mistake is, as our critic +points out, 'taking a vague word and applying it precisely.' It +all depends upon what cynicism really means. 'If it means a +war on comfort, then Thackeray was, to his eternal credit, +a cynic'; 'if it means a war on virtue, then Thackeray, to his +eternal honour, was the reverse of a cynic.' His object is to +show that silly goodness is better than clever vice. As I have +indicated, the long and the short of the matter is that Thackeray +created a lot of villains, and has therefore been called a +cynic by those who don't even know what the word means, +or that there is a literary blessedness in the making of villains +to bring out the more excellent virtues of the heroes.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>From these two monumental works that were original in +every way and might almost be called propaganda, Thackeray +passed on to a novel which bore the name of 'Pendennis.' +It was 'a novel with nothing else but a hero, only that the +hero is not very heroic,' which makes him all the more +interesting, for it makes him all the more human.</p> + +<p>But Pendennis is more than a man—he is a type or symbol. +He is 'the old mystical tragedian of the Middle Ages, Everyman.' +It is an epic, because it celebrates the universal man +with all his glorious failings and glorious virtues. The love +of Pendennis for Miss Fotheringay is a different thing to +the ordinary love of man for woman; it is rather the love +that is in every man for every woman. This is what I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +Chesterton means when he says 'it is the veritable Divine +disease, which seems a part of the very health of youth.'</p> + +<p>The Everyman of the Middle Ages was a symbol of what +man really was. Chesterton feels that every outside force +that came to Everyman had to be abnormal—for instance, +'Death had to be bony'—so he contends in 'Pendennis' that +the shapes that intrude on the life of Arthur Pendennis have +aggressive and allegorical influences.</p> + +<p>'Pendennis' is an epic because it celebrates not the strength +of man but his weakness. In the character of Major Pendennis, +Chesterton feels that Thackeray did a great work, +because he showed that the life of the so-called man of the +world is not the gay and careless one that fiction depicts. It +is the religious people who can afford to be careless. 'If you +want carelessness you must go to the martyrs.' The reason +is fairly obvious. The worldling has to be careful, as he wants +to remain in the world; the religious man, of whom the martyr +was the true prototype, can afford to be careless; he is not +necessarily careless of life, but he can put things at their +proper value. The martyr facing the lions in the Roman +arena knew what life really was; the worldly woman spending +her life trying to be in the company of titled people has no +real idea of the value of it. It is the religious people who +know the world; it is the worldly people who know nothing +of it.</p> + +<p>With the publication of 'Pendennis' the reputation of +Thackeray reached that position which is sought by all authors, +that of being able to write a book that should not, on publication, +be put to the indignity of being asked who the writer +was. Thackeray was now in the delightful position of being +well established, a position that very often results in careless +and poor work. It has been said with some truth that once +a writer is established he can write anything he likes. This is +to an extent true, and such work may even be published and +fairly popular, but he will find sooner or later that his +influence is on the wane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the 'Newcomes' Thackeray drew a character in +Colonel Newcome, to whom was given the highest of +literary honours, that of being spoken of apart from the +book—I mean in the way that people speak of Micawber +or Scrooge, almost unconsciously, without really having the +actual work in which the character appears in mind. Of +this book Chesterton says 'the public has largely forgotten +all the Newcomes except one, the Colonel who has taken his +place with Don Quixote, Sir Roger de Coverley, Uncle +Toby, and Mr. Pickwick.'</p> + +<p>Chesterton feels that Thackeray at times falls into the +trick common to many writers, that of repeating himself, a +trick that is natural, as it does seem in some ways that the +human mind, like history, is apt to move in circles. The +reason was that in some way Thackeray became tired of +Barnes Newcome; the result was that from being a convincing +villain he develops into a stereotyped one, the type +who fires pistols into the air and is the squire's runaway son, +so often found at the Lyceum.</p> + +<p>If Thackeray 'sprawled' in the Newcomes he atones for +this in 'Esmond,' if any atonement is needed for sprawling, +which is probably only that Thackeray felt that there is +nothing so elastic and sprawling as a human person, whether +he be a villain or the reverse.</p> + +<p>For Chesterton, 'Esmond' is in the modern sense a work +of art, which is to say that it was a book that could be read +anywhere. 'It had no word that might not have been used +at the court of Queen Anne.' It is a highly romantic tale, +but it is a sad story. It is a great Queen Anne romance; but, +'there broods a peculiar conviction that Queen Anne is dead.' +The whole tale moves round a complicated situation in +which a young man loves a mother and her daughter, and +finally marries the mother. This work is, for Chesterton, +Thackeray's 'most difficult <a name="task" id="task"></a>task.' It is difficult for the reason +that the situation of the tale is placed between possibilities of +grace and possibilities even of indecency. It is not hard to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +write a graceful tale, it is easy to write a loose story; it is +extremely difficult to write a story that may by a stroke of +the pen be either beautiful or merely sordid. But Thackeray +manipulates the keys of the tale so that 'it moves like music,' +an extremely apt metaphor, where harmonies can be made +disharmonies by a single note.</p> + +<p>It is a strange fact that a sequel is seldom to be compared +to its forerunner: 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' is of a schoolboy +who is an eternal type; 'Tom Brown at Oxford' is a +poor book that does not in the least understand Oxford. The +fact is, I think, that an author cannot be inspired twice on the +same subject—the gods give but sparingly, their gifts do not +fall as the rains.</p> + +<p>The sequel to 'Esmond' that Thackeray wrote, 'The +Virginians,' is an 'inadequate sequel,' which is not to say that +it is a poor book, but rather that it is an unnecessary one. +Yet, as Chesterton says, 'Thackeray never struck a smarter +note than when, in "The Virginians," he created the terrible +little Yankee Countess of Castlewood.' In the same way as +'The Virginians' was a sequel to 'Esmond,' so 'Philip' was +a sequel (also an inadequate one) to the 'Newcomes.'</p> + +<p>It is strange that in two things at least Thackeray's life +followed the same course as Dickens. Both occupied the +editorial chair: Dickens that of the <i>Daily News</i>, Thackeray +that of the <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>. Both left unfinished works: +Dickens that of 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood,' Thackeray +that of 'Denis Duval.'</p> + +<p>Thackeray's last work, 'Lovell the Widower,' is 'a very +clever sketch, but as a novel is rather drawn out.' 'The +Roundabout Papers' make very pleasant reading. In one 'he +compares himself to a pagan conqueror driving in his chariot +up the Hill of Coru, with a slave behind him to remind him +that he is only mortal.' In 1863, suddenly, Thackeray died, +seven years before Dickens also passed away.</p> + +<p>Chesterton has in the space of a short introduction +given a very clear account of the chief characteristics of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +Thackeray's works; it is no easy matter to give in a few +lines the essence of a great novel, and Chesterton is not +always the most concise of writers. It will now be convenient +to take a few of the characteristics of Thackeray +and observe what he says of them.</p> + +<p>At once he is aware of the fact that there is no writer +from whom it is more difficult to make extracts than from +Thackeray. The reason is that Thackeray worked by +'diffuseness of style.' If he wished to be satirical about a +character he was not so directly; rather he worked his way +to the inside of the character, got to know all about it, and +then began to be satirical. This is what Chesterton feels +about the matter; it is no doubt the fairest way of being +satirical and the most effective. Many people and writers are +satirical without first of all demonstrating upon what grounds +they have the right to be so. Satire is a wholly laudable thing +if it is directed in a fair minded manner, but if it is only an +excuse for bitter cynicism it is altogether contemptible. Thus +he says of the Thackerean treatment of 'Vanity Fair,' 'he +was attacking "Vanity Fair" from the inside.' It comes to +this: if you want to make an extract from Thackeray +you must dive about all over the place to make apparent +irrelevancy become relevancy.</p> + +<p>If the use of the grotesque was a strength of Browning +(as Chesterton contends against other critics), so in the case of +Thackeray that which some critics have held to be a weakness—I +mean his 'irrelevancy'—is for our critic a strength. +It was a strength, because it was 'a very delicate and even +cunning literary approach.' It is the perfect art of Thackeray +to get the right situation, not by an assumption of it, but by +so approaching it that there is no way out, which is arriving +at the situation by the fairest means possible.</p> + +<p>'No other novelist ever carried to such perfection as +Thackeray the art of saying a thing without saying it. Thus +he may say that a man drinks too much, yet it may be false +to say that he drinks.' What he did was not to say that a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +had arrived at such and such a state, but rather that things +must change. If, as Chesterton says, Miss Smith finds +marriage the reverse of the honeymoon, Thackeray does not +say that the marriage is a failure, but that joy cannot last for +ever; that if there are roses there are also thorns. It is an +admirable method, far better than saying a thing straight out. +It is better to tell a man who is a cad that there is such a +thing as being a gentleman, than to tell him he is a cad.</p> + +<p>In his later life Thackeray was inclined to imitate himself. +It is, I think, that the human brain is prone to move in circles. +In the case of Thackeray, as our critic points out, in later days +he used his rambling style, and, as was to be expected, he rather +lost himself. 'He did not merely get into a parenthesis, he +never got out of it,' which is to say that as Thackeray got +older he inherited the tendencies of old age.</p> + +<p>I have said earlier in this chapter that the charge against +Thackeray of cynicism was one that was founded on a false +premise. The charge that his irrelevancy was a weakness is +based on another false but popular premise, that the direct +method is always the best. It is usually the worst. It is the +worst in warfare, it is the worst in literature, but it is possibly +the best in literary criticism.</p> + +<p>Thackeray had another quality that has laid him open to +adverse criticism; that is, his 'perpetual reference to the +remote past.' This repeated reference to the past may be a +matter of conceit, or it may be that the influence of the past +is genuinely felt. The reason that, as Chesterton points out, +Thackeray referred so much to the remote past, was that he +wished it to be known that 'there was nothing new under +the sun'; not even, as our critic says, 'the sunstroke.' Chesterton +admits that at times Thackeray carried this tendency +to an excess; also Thackeray wanted to show that the oldest +thing in the world was its youth. Thus in writing of a +fashionable drawing-room in Mayfair, if he referred to some +classic, it was to 'remind people how many <i>débutantes</i> had +come out since the age of Horace.' It was quite a different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +thing to the pompous bishop quoting Greek at the squire's +house to show that his doctor's degree, though an honorary +one, had some classical learning behind it, or the small boy +translating Horace to avoid the headmaster's cane. In the +case of the bishop and the schoolboy, the use of the classics +is, on the one hand, pomposity; on the other, discretion. In +the case of Thackeray it was a reverence for the past, that +it was a very large part of the present.</p> + +<p>There are, then, roughly three main characteristics of +Thackeray: his irrelevancy, his rambling style, and his +frequent reference to the past. All these, Chesterton makes +it clear, are matters in which the strength of Thackeray lies. +Not that they are free always from exaggerations. Sometimes +Thackeray became lost in his irrelevancy, sometimes he +became almost unintelligible in his rambling style, now and +then his use of ancient quotation became irritating. 'Above +all things, Thackeray was receptive. The world imposed on +Thackeray, and Dickens imposed on the world.' But it +could not be put more truly than that Thackeray represents, in +that gigantic parody called genius, the spirit of the Englishman +in repose. 'This spirit is the idle embodiment of all of +us; by his weakness we shall fail, and by his enormous sanities +we shall endure.' This is the crux of the matter which +Chesterton brings out, that the weaknesses of Thackeray are +his strength. He loved liberty, not because it meant restraint +from law, but because he 'was a novelist'; he was open to +all the influences round him, not because he had no standpoint, +but because he could see merit in selection; he had +an open mind, but knew when to shut it.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>The passages selected from the various works have been +chosen with care. It was evidently by no means an easy task. +The passage chosen to show Colonel Newcome in the 'Cave +of Harmony' gives in one poignant incident his character; +the selection from 'Pendennis' does much the same. In +the passage from 'Esmond' the story of the duel is a fine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +selection; the chapter on 'Some Country Snobs' is an apt +choosing; the celebrated 'Essay on George IV' demonstrates +Thackeray in a very different mood. The 'Fall of Becky +Sharp,' taken from 'Vanity Fair,' has not been included +without forethought.</p> + +<p>Of Thackeray's poems, Chesterton has included the most +significant, and not without due 'The Cane-Bottomed +Chair' finds a prominent place.</p> + +<p>Enough has been said to show that Chesterton is not a +critic of Thackeray who has no discrimination in choosing +from his works. He knows what Thackeray was, wherein +lay his strength and weakness. He has added a worthy companion +to his fuller works on Browning and Dickens.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Four" id="Chapter_Four"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">F</span>our</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">BROWNING</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">t</span> will be convenient for our purpose to adhere as closely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +as possible to the order of Chesterton's book. It is a +hard task to do justice to Browning even in a long book; +the task is not simplified when, in a chapter, it is hoped to +give a criticism of an intricate criticism of Browning.</p> + +<p>There are two ways to approach such a task: The first is to +take the book as a whole and write a review of it, which is a +method liable to a superficiality; the second is to take such a +work chapter by chapter, and to piece the various criticisms +into an ordered whole. This I have attempted to do. I make +no attempt to criticize the method of Chesterton's approach +to Browning, or his combination of the effect of his life on +his work; rather I wish to take what the critic says and +comment on his remarks.</p> + +<p>There is undoubtedly a fundamental difference between +Browning and Dickens which is at once clear to any critic +of these two writers. Dickens was, as I have said in an +earlier chapter, born at the psychological moment. Browning +happened to be born early in the nineteenth century. I +cannot see that it would have mattered had he been born +at the beginning of the twentieth. His early life, unlike +Dickens, was normal, but it did not affect Browning adversely. +Had <a name="Dickens" id="Dickens">Dickens'</a> life been uneventful, I think it not +improbable that his literary output would have been commonplace +instead of, as nearly as possible, divine.</p> + +<p>There is no particular account of Browning's family, +which was probably a typical middle-class family, which is to +say that they were, like many thousands of their kind, lovers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +of the normal—a very good reason why later Browning should +have acquired a love for the grotesque, which many people +quite wrongly define as the abnormal.</p> + +<p>The grotesque is a queer psychological state of mind; the +abnormal is an extreme kind of individualism that is probably +insane, provided the opposite is sane.</p> + +<p>What is important, as Chesterton feels, is that we shall +get some account of Browning's home. It is in the home +that we can usually detect the embryo of future activity. +The germ, although sometimes hidden, is nevertheless there, +which is exactly why the commonplace home life of a genius, +before the public has discovered the fact, is interesting.</p> + +<p>To quote our critic: 'Browning was a thoroughly typical +Englishman of the middle class,' and he remained so through +his life.</p> + +<p>But this middle-class Englishman walking through the +streets of Camberwell, as the boys played in the gutters, was +Browning, not then the master poet of the Victorian Era, +but the young man who could 'pass a bookstall and find no +thrill in beholding on a placard the name of Shelley.'</p> + +<p>Browning found his early life in an age 'of inspired office +boys,' an age that emerged from the shadow of the French +Revolution, that extreme method of optimism which Chesterton +believes no Englishman can understand, not even +Carlyle himself. It was an optimism that was so, because it +held that man was worthy of liberty, which is to say that no +man is by his nature ever meant to be a slave.</p> + +<p>While Browning was living his daily life in Camberwell, +Dickens was existing in the blacking factory; yet again it +was an age of the beginning of intellectual giants.</p> + +<p>The Chestertonian standpoint with regard to the early +days of Browning is interesting. It is a ready acknowledgment +of the poetic instinct that was being slowly but surely nurtured +in the heart of the unknown young man of Camberwell.</p> + +<p>It is in this early period of his life that Browning attempts +what Chesterton rightly describes as the most difficult of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +literary propositions, that of writing a good political play. +This Browning essayed to do, and wrote 'Strafford,' a play +that dealt with that most controversial part of history, the +time when kings could be executed in Whitehall under the +shadow of their own Parliament.</p> + +<p>For our critic, Strafford was one of the greatest men ever +born with the sacred name of England on his brow. The play +was not a gigantic success, it was not a failure; it was, as was +to be expected, popular with a limited public, which is very +often one of the surest criterions of merit in a book or play. +The success of the play was sufficient to assure the public +that Browning had brains and, what was more unusual, +could put them to a good advantage.</p> + +<p>Browning became then 'a detached and eccentric personality +who had arisen on the outskirts; the world began to +be conscious of him at this time.'</p> + +<p>In 1840 our critic tells us 'Sordello' was published. It +was a poem that caused people to wonder whether it was +really deep, or merely pure nonsense, a distinction some +people cannot ever discover in regard to Browning.</p> + +<p>Of this poem, its unique reception by the literary world +lies in the fact 'that it was fashionable to boast of not understanding,' +which, as I have said, was an indication that it +might be termed extremely clever or extremely stupid. It +was not a poem, as has been held by some critics, that was a +piece of intellectual vanity. Browning was far too great a +man to stoop down to such mere banal conceit. The poem was +a very different thing. It was a creature created by the obscurity +of Browning's mind, which, as Chesterton thinks, was +the natural reaction for a genius, born in a villa street in +South London.</p> + +<p>What is the explanation of this poem? What is its meaning? +Wherein lies its soul? These are questions every lover of +Browning has constantly to ask. Our critic supplies an +answer, an answer that is original, and is, I think, true—the +poem is an epic on 'the horror of great darkness,' that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +darkness that strangely enough seems to attack the young +more frequently than the old.</p> + +<p>That which is levelled against Browning, his obscurity, is +a very bulwark protecting a subtle and clear mind. This is +specially so with a poet who probably of all men so lives in +his own poetic world that he forgets his ideas, though clear +to himself, are vague to the world occupied with conventionalities.</p> + +<p>The real difficulty of 'Sordello' lies in the fact that it is +written about an obscure piece of Italian history of which +Browning happened to have knowledge—the struggles of +mediæval Italy. This obscurity is not studied, as in the case +of academic distinction; it is natural. The obscurity of many +of the passages of St. John's Gospel is natural because the +mind of St. John dwelt on the 'depths,' as did Browning's +dwell on the grotesque. The result is the same. Each needs +an interpreter, each has an abundance of the richest philosophy, +each has an imprint of the Finger of God.</p> + +<p>With all the controversy it has caused, 'Sordello' has had +no great influence on Browningites; its name has passed into +almost contempt. Chesterton has done much to give the +true meaning of this strange work. With his next poem +Browning spoke with a voice that, as our critic says, proved +that he had found that he was not Robinson Crusoe, which +is to say that he had found that the world contained a great +number of people. Despite the 1,500 millions amongst +whom we 'live and move and have our being' we are apt to +think that we alone are important, which is not conceit but a +mere proposition demonstrating that man is a universe in +himself while being but an infinitesimal part of the universe.</p> + +<p>'Pippa Passes' is a poem which expresses a love of humanity; +it is an epic of unconscious influence which, no +doubt, Browning felt was the key to all that is best and noble +in human activity. 'The whole idea of the poem lies in the +fact that "Pippa Passes" is utterly remote from the grand +folk whose lives she troubles and transforms.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> + +<p>Browning's poetry in the poetical sense was now nearing +its zenith. The 'Dramatic Lyrics' were published in 1842, +possibly about the time that Dickens was returning from his +triumphant American tour. These showed, Chesterton +thinks, the two qualities most often denied to Browning, +passion and beauty. They are the contradiction to critics, other +than ours, who regard Browning as wholly a philosophic +poet, which is to say a poet who wrote poetry not for its own +sake but for purely utilitarian purpose; not that poetry of the +emotions is not useful—it is on a different plane.</p> + +<p>The poems were those that 'represent the arrival of the +real Browning of literary history'; for in these he discovered +what was, for Chesterton, Browning's finest achievement, +his dramatic lyrical poems.</p> + +<p>Critics have said that Browning's poetry lacks passion and +the most poignant emotion of human nature, love. Chesterton, +on the other hand, considers that Browning was the +finest love poet of the world. It is real love poetry, because +it talks about real people, not ideals; it does not muse of the +Prince Charming meeting the Fairy Princess, and forget the +devoted wife meeting her husband on the villa doorstep with +open arms and a nice dinner in the parlour. Sentiment must +be based on reality if it is to have worth. This is the strong +point, for our critic, of Browning's love poetry.</p> + +<p>The next work of importance that came from Browning's +pen was the 'Return of the Druses,' which shows Browning's +interest in the strange religions of the East, that queer phantastic +part of the world that gave birth to a Western religion +which has transformed the West, leaving the East to gaze afar +off. This poem is, for Chesterton, a psychological one. It is +an attempt to give an account of a human being; perhaps the +most difficult task in the world, because it can never hope to +solve all sides of the question. The central character of this +splendid poem is one 'Djubal,' a queer mixture of the +virtues of the Deity with the vices of Humanity. He is for +Browning the first of a series of characters on which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +displays his wonderful powers of apologizing for apparently +bad men.</p> + +<p>He attempted, to quote our critic, 'to seek out the sinners +whom even sinners cast out,' which Christ always did, and +which His Church does not always do.</p> + +<p>Again Browning turned his hand to writing plays, but he +was always a 'neglected dramatist' in the sense that he had +to push his plays; his plays did not push him.</p> + +<p>His next play, 'A Blot on the "Scutcheon,"' is chiefly +interesting, as it was the occasion of a quarrel between its +author and that most eccentric of theatrical personalities, +Macready. The quarrel was, our critic points out, a matter +of money. But Browning failed to see this; he was a man +of the world in his poems, but not in his life.</p> + +<p>It is interesting here to see what our critic says of Browning +about this period before we consider the question of his +marriage. 'There were people who called Browning a snob. +He was fond of wealth and fond of society; he admired them +as the child who comes in from the desert. He bore the same +relation to the snob that the righteous man bears to the +Pharisee—something frightfully close and similar and yet an +everlasting opposite.'</p> + +<p>It has been left for Chesterton to give the truest definition +of a Pharisee that has yet been penned, because it is exactly +what every man feels but has never expressed in so brilliant +a paradox.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>That Browning had faults Chesterton would be the last to +deny. Faults are as much a part of a great man as virtues. The +more pronounced the fault, the more exquisite is the virtue, +especially in a man of the character of Browning, a character +that had a certain 'uncontrollable brutality of speech,' together +with a profound and unaffected respect for other +people.</p> + +<p>Chesterton's chapter on Browning and his marriage is one +of the most homely chapters of the book; it gives the lie to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +those critics who have glibly said that he has no way in which +to reach our hearts or cause a lump in our throats.</p> + +<p>The very method of describing how a great man wooed a +great woman, how the two loved, married, and disagreed upon +certain matters, is one that has an essential appeal to the heart. +The exquisite description of the effect of the death of his wife +on Browning is pathetic by its very simplicity.</p> + +<p>It is enough to say that Browning's marriage was a successful +one, which is not to say that it was entirely free from +certain disagreements. The domestic relations of great writers +and poets have not always been of the rosiest. Swift did not +make an ideal marriage—at least, not on conventional lines. +Milton had a wife who utterly misunderstood that her +husband was a genius. Dickens was not blessed with matrimonial +bliss. Shelley found faith in one woman hard.</p> + +<p>But Browning and his wife had no disagreements on their +life interests. They were both poets, though of a different +calibre. What they really did not see eye to eye upon was +something which the human race is still much divided about. +This great point of difference was with regard to spiritualism. +Browning did not dislike spiritualism; he disliked spiritualists. +The difference is tremendous. Unfortunately many of the +interpreters of spiritualism have degraded it into a kind of +blatant necromancy which is in no way dignified or useful. +It is entirely opposed to proper psychic research.</p> + +<p>Miss Barrett had been an invalid. Therefore Browning +feared that spiritualism might have a really bad effect on his +wife. 'He was sensible to put a stop to it.'</p> + +<p>The theory, on the other hand, held by other critics of +Browning than Chesterton was that his dislike of spiritualism +was fostered by a direct disbelief in immortality, which is as +absurd a statement as is possible to make. Spiritualism and +Immortality have no necessary connection whatever, though +to a certain extent Spiritualism is presumed on the belief in +a future life.</p> + +<p>But this, as Chesterton points out, was not the reason for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +Browning's position; it was entirely that Browning thought +'if he had not interposed when she was becoming hysterical +she might have ended in a lunatic asylum.'</p> + +<p>As Browning spent so much of his life in Italy it will be +well to see what our critic considers he thought of that +country under the blue skies jutting on to the blue seas of +the Mediterranean.</p> + +<p>'Italy,' says Chesterton, 'to Browning and his wife, was +not by any means merely that sculptured and ornate sepulchre +that it is to so many of those cultured Englishmen who live in +Italy and despise it. To them it was a living nation, the type +and centre of the religion and politics of a continent, the +ancient and flaming heart of Western history, the very Europe +of Europe.'</p> + +<p>Browning's life in Italy was more or less uneventful. +It consisted of a conventional method—the meeting of +famous Englishmen visiting Italy, the writing of numerous +poems, the pleasant domestic life of a literary genius and his +wife.</p> + +<p>There was only one thing that could break it, and it came +in 1861. Mrs. Browning died. 'Alone in the room with +Browning. He, closing the door of that room behind him, +closed a door in himself, and none ever saw Browning upon +earth again but only a splendid surface.'</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>During his wife's life Browning had planned his great +work, that of the 'Ring and the Book.' In the meantime +came the death of his wife, and Browning moved on the +earth alone. Of this period of his life, shortly after the death +of Mrs. Browning, Chesterton gives us a clear picture. +'Browning liked social life, he liked the excitement of the +dinner, the exchange of opinions, the pleasant hospitality that +is so much a part of our life. He was a good talker because +he had something to say.'</p> + +<p>One of his chief faults, according to our critic, was prejudice. +Prejudice is probably an unconscious obeying of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +instinct; it may even be a warning. Yet it can be and often +is entirely unreasonable.</p> + +<p>Browning's prejudice was, Chesterton thinks, the type that +hated a thing it knew nothing about, a state of mind that is +comparatively harmless. What is dangerous is disliking a +thing when we know what it is. The prejudice of Browning +was synonymous with his profound contempt for certain +things of which he can only speak 'in pothouse words.'</p> + +<p>About this period Browning produced 'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangu, +Saviour of Society.' This is 'one of the most +picturesque of Browning's apologetic monologues.' It is +Browning's courageous attempt to allow Napoleon III to +speak for himself. Yet again Browning 'took in those sinners +whom even sinners cast out.'</p> + +<p>Two years later, we are told, Browning produced one of his +most characteristic works, 'Night-cap Country.' It is an +elegant poem of the sicklier side of the French Revolution +and the more sensual side of the French <a name="temp" id="temp"></a>temperament.</p> + +<p>This is the period in Browning's life when he produced +his most characteristic work. It was that time when he +was nearly middle aged, when the lamp of youth was just +flickering, and when the lamp of old age was about to be +lighted.</p> + +<p>Chesterton treats the whole of this period with a calm +straightforwardness that we are not accustomed to in his +writings. There is no doubt, I think, of all our critic's books, +that his work on Browning is the least Chestertonian, which +is not in any way to disparage it, but rather to state that the +book might have been written by any biographer who knew +Browning's works and had the sense to see that his characteristics +were such that many of his critics were unfair to +him. Chesterton will never allow for an instant that Browning +suffered from anything but an evident 'naturalness,' +which expressed itself in a rugged style, concealing charity +in an original grotesqueness of manner.</p> + +<p>It is now convenient to turn to Browning's greatest work,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +'The Ring and the Book,' and see what Chesterton has to +say about it.</p> + +<p>Rumour is really distorted truth, or rather very often +originates from a different standpoint being taken of the same +thing. Thus a man may say that another man is a good +fellow but borrows money too often; another may say of the +same man he is a good fellow but talks too much; a third that +he is a good fellow but would be better without a moustache. +The essential man is the same, but his three critics make +really a different person, or, at least, each sees him from a +different angle.</p> + +<p>As Chesterton so finely points out, the conception of 'The +Ring and the Book' is the studying of a single matter from +nine different standpoints. In successive monologues Browning +is endeavouring to depict the various strange ways a fact +gets itself presented to the world.</p> + +<p>Further, the work indicates the extraordinary lack of logic +used by those who would be ashamed to be denied the name +of dialectician. Probably, thinks Chesterton, very many +people do harm in their cause, not by want of propaganda, +but by the fallaciousness of their arguments for it.</p> + +<p>There have been critics who have denied to this work the +right of immortality. Chesterton is not one of these; rather he +contends such a criticism is a gross misunderstanding of the +work. For our critic the greatness of this poem is the very +point upon which it is attacked, that of environment. For +once and all Browning has demonstrated that there are riches +and depths in small things that are often denied to what we +think is greater.</p> + +<p>'It is an epic round a sordid police court case.' 'The +essence of "The Ring and the Book" is that it is the great +epic of the nineteenth century, because it is the great epic of +the importance of small things.' Browning says, 'I will show +you the relation of man to heaven by telling you a story out +of a dirty Italian book of criminal trials, from which I select +one of the meanest and most completely forgotten.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is then that Chesterton sees that this poem is more than +a mere poem; it is a natural acknowledgment of the monarchy +of small things, the same idea that made Dickens believe that +common men could be kings—that is, in the same category as +the Divine care of the hairs of the head. It gives the lie to +the rather popular fallacy that events are important by their +size. It is once more a position that the stone on the hillside +is as mighty as the mountain of which it is only a small part.</p> + +<p>Again, 'The Ring and the Book' is an embodiment of the +spiritual in the material, the good that can be contained in a +sordid story; it is the typical epic of our age, 'because it +expresses the richness of life by taking as a text a poor story. +It pays to existence the highest of all possible compliments, +the great compliment of selecting from it almost at random.'</p> + +<p>There is a second respect, he feels, which makes this poem +the epic of the age. It is that every man has a point of view. +And, what is more, every man probably has a different point +of view at least in something.</p> + +<p>'The Ring and the Book,' to sum up briefly why Chesterton +thinks so highly of it, is an epic; it is a national expression +of a characteristic love of small things, the germination +of great truths; it pays a compliment to humanity by +asserting the value of every opinion, it demonstrates that even +in so sordid a thing as a police court there is a spiritual spark; +in a word, it is an attempt to see God, not on the hill-tops or +in the valleys, but in the back streets teeming with common +men.</p> + +<p>It is now time to turn to two qualities of Browning that +are full of the deepest interest, and which are dealt with by +Chesterton with the greatest skill and judgment. These two +qualities may be described as Browning as a literary artist +and Browning as a philosopher. For our purpose it will be +useful to take Browning as a literary artist first and see what +was his position. Philosophy is usually in the nature of a +summing up. The philosophy of a poet is best looked at +when the poet has been studied; therefore it is best to follow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +Chesterton's order and take Browning's philosophical position +at the end of this chapter.</p> + +<p>He feels that in some ways the critics want Browning to +be poet and logician, and are rather cross when he is either. +They want him to be a poet and are annoyed that he is a +logician; they want him to be a logician and are annoyed +that he is a poet. The fact of the matter is he was probably +a poet!</p> + +<p>Chesterton is convinced that Browning was a literary +artist—that is to say, he was a symbolist. The wealth of +Browning's poetry depends on arrangement of language. It +is so with all great literature: it is not so much what is said +as how it is said, in what way the sentences are formed so +that the climax comes in the right place.</p> + +<p>For all practical purposes Browning was, our critic thinks, +a deliberate artist. The suggestion that Browning cared +nothing for form is for Chesterton a monstrous assertion. It +is as absurd as saying that Napoleon cared nothing for +feminine love or that Nero hated mushrooms. What +Browning did was always to fall into a different kind of form, +which is a totally different thing to saying he disregarded it.</p> + +<p>There is rather an assumption among a certain class of +critics that the artistic form is a quality that is finite. As a +matter of fact, it is infinite; it cannot be bound up with any +particular mode of expression; it is elastic, and so elastic that +certain critics cannot adjust their minds to such lucidity.</p> + +<p>There is, our critic feels, another suggestion—that if +Browning had a form, it was a bad one. This really does not +matter very much. Whether form in an artistic sense is good +or bad can only be determined by setting up a criterion; this +is not possible in the case of Browning, because, though he has +many forms, they are original ones, which render them +impervious to values of good and bad.</p> + +<p>Chesterton is naturally aware that Browning wrote a great +deal of bad poetry—every poet does. The way to take with +Browning's bad poetry is not to condemn him for it, but to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +say quite frankly this poem or that poem was a failure. It is +by his masterpieces that Browning must be judged.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, as he points out, the peculiar characteristic of +Browning's art lay in his use of the grotesque, which, as I +said at the beginning of this chapter, is a totally different +thing from the abnormal.</p> + +<p>In other words, Browning was rugged. It was as natural +for him to be rugged as for Ruskin to be polished, for Swift +to be cynical (in an optimistic sense), for Chesterton to be +paradoxical. Ruggedness is a form of beauty, but it is a beauty +that is quite different from the commonly accepted grounds. +A mountain is rugged and it is beautiful, a woman is beautiful; +but the two features of the aesthetic are quite different. It is +the same with poetry. There is (and Browning proved it) a +'beautifulness' in the rugged; it is a sense of being 'beautifully' +rugged.</p> + +<p>Enough has been said to make it quite clear that Browning +was a literary artist; but, as Chesterton contends, an original +one. He did not confine himself to any one form: his beauty +lay in the placing of the 'rugged' before his readers, the +method he used of employing the grotesque.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It is now an excellent time in which to look at Browning's +philosophy and Chesterton's interpretation of it.</p> + +<p>As it is perfectly true to say that every man has a point of +view, a position so admirably brought out by Browning in his +'Ring and the Book,' so it is also, I think, a truism that every +man has (not always consciously) a philosophy. A philosophy +is, after all, a point of view; it is not necessarily an abstract +academic position; nor is it always a well-defined attempt to +discover the ultimate purpose of things. It can be, and very +often is, a point of view really acquired by experience.</p> + +<p>Naturally a man of the intellect of Browning would have +a philosophy, and he had, as our critic points out, a very +definite one.</p> + +<p>In his quaint way Chesterton tells us 'Browning had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> +opinions as he had a dress suit or a vote for Parliament.' And +he had no hesitation in expressing these opinions. There was +no reason why he should; at least part of his philosophy, as I +have indicated, lay in his knowledge of the value of men's +opinions—yet again brought out in 'The Ring and the +Book.'</p> + +<p>He had, so we are told, two great theories of the universe: +the first, the hope that lies in man, imperfect as he is; the +second, a bold position that has offended many people but is +nevertheless at least a reasonable one, that God is in some way +imperfect; that is, in some obscure way He could be made +jealous.</p> + +<p>This is, no doubt, a highly unorthodox position. Yet it is +a position that thousands have felt does make it plainer (as it +did to Browning)—the necessity of the Crucifixion; it was a +pandering to Divine jealousy.</p> + +<p>These are, as Chesterton admits, great thoughts, and, as +such, are liable to be disliked by those Christians and others +who will not think and dislike any one else doing so.</p> + +<p>This strange theological position of Browning is, I think, +indicated in 'Saul.'</p> + +<p>Chesterton usually does not agree with the other critics +about most things, but he does at least agree in regard to the +fact that Browning was an optimist. His theory of the use of +men, though imperfect, is as good an argument for optimism +as could well be found. Browning's optimism was, as our +critic says, founded on experience, it was not a mere theory +that had nothing practical behind it.</p> + +<p>As I have said, Browning disliked Spiritualists; but that is +not, our critic thinks, the reason he wrote 'Sludge the +Medium.' What this poem showed was that Spiritualism +could be of use in spite of insincere mediums. It was in no +way an attack on the tenets of Spiritualism.</p> + +<p>The understanding of this poem gives the key to other +poems of Browning's, as 'Bishop Blougram's Apology,' and +some of the monologues in 'The Ring and the Book';<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +which is, that 'a man cannot help telling some truth, even +when he sets out to tell lies.'</p> + +<p>This may be the right interpretation of these poems, but +I think Browning really meant that there is an end somewhere +to lying; in other words, lying is negative and temporary; +truth is positive and eternal.</p> + +<p>The summing up of Browning's knaves cannot be better +expressed than by Chesterton. 'They are real somewhere. +We are talking to a garrulous and peevish sneak; we are +watching the play of his paltry features, his evasive eyes +and babbling lips. And suddenly the face begins to change and +harden, the eyes glare like the eyes of a mask, the whole face +of clay becomes a common mouthpiece, and the voice that +comes forth is the voice of God uttering his everlasting +soliloquy.'</p> + +<p>It is the essence of Browning; it is the certainty that +however far distant there is the face of God behind the +human features.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>If there is one characteristic about this study of Browning +it lies in the fact that it is a very clear exposition of a remarkable +poet. A man might take up the book knowing Browning +only as a name; he might well lay it down knowing what +Browning was, what he achieved, what his essence was. The +book is a masterly study—it lays claim to our sympathies; +and never more so than when our critic describes that +moment when Browning, alone in the room, saw his wife die.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Five" id="Chapter_Five"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">F</span>ive</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">CHESTERTON AS HISTORIAN</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">he</span> reason that Chesterton has written a history of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +England is that he says no member of the public has +ever done so before. This is a thing to be supremely +thankful for if true; but it is entirely untrue, for the very +obvious fact that history has never been written by any one +who is not a member of the public. Every historian is a +member of the public. Let him imagine he is not, let him +carry this imagination out to a logical conclusion, and he +will have a good chance of landing in a prison for failing +to pay the king's taxes.</p> + +<p>The very best people to write histories are historians, but +they will never deal with history in a popular way. This +Chesterton laments. He wants a history that shall be about +the things that never ordinarily get into history. If he is +told about the charters of the barons, he wishes to hear of +the charters of the carpenters. This, he thinks, would make +history popular, that word which is always used to denote +something rather slight and superficial. He exclaims that +the people are ignored, whereas the historian really would +not be one at all if he was guilty of this charge.</p> + +<p>The fact of the matter is, that the whole of the history of +England has been so misunderstood that Chesterton has +come to the rescue and has told us what really happened—in +fact, all we learnt at school was waste of time; poor Green +really wrote an anti-history of this country. The Romans +are not of the remote past; the whole of present-day England +is the remains of Rome, which is merely to say that our +civilization comes down from Rome, a statement that quite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +able historians have hinted at now and again. No one for +an instant is so foolish as to think that the chief remains of +the Romans consist of the few broken-up baths and villas +up and down the country, when a splendid high road stares +them in the face.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>Chesterton pays enormous attention to the Middle Ages. +They have, he thinks, been rather badly dealt with by +historians. Too much attention is, he contends, paid to the +time of the Stuarts onwards. Chesterton asks us to contemplate +history as we should if we had never learnt it +at school. It is, of course, true that we do not learn the +essentials of our country in our schooldays. It is of no real +importance that William conquered Harold in 1066, but it +is of vast importance to know how he behaved as a conqueror, +a fact seldom taught. But if we forgot all the history +we ever knew, we should not be able to appreciate Chesterton's +history, which aims to reconstruct all that we had +believed while pouring over Green in the fifth form.</p> + +<p>Chesterton covers so much ground in this book, his treatment +is so intricate, his method so full of various peculiar +contentions, that the only possible method in a chapter is to +take some of the more important points he touches upon and +try and discover what he feels about them. It will be well to +realize at once that however he may differ from recognized +historians, his history loses all its meaning unless the standard +historians are known fairly well.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>There are probably two tremendous turning points in +history—the one occurred at the moment that the fatal arrow +entered the eye of Harold at Senlac, the other when Henry +VIII set fire to the ecclesiastical faggots that ended in the +Reformation. That period which lay between them may +roughly be called the Middle Ages, which part of history +Chesterton thinks has been badly treated. Whether this is +so is a question that opens up a broader one: Has the history<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +of England ever received the attention it deserves? Has right +proportion been given to the most important events? Should +history be made popular in the modern sense of this much +misinterpreted word? These are questions to which no +adequate answer can be given in the space of a chapter, nor +is it within the scope of this book.</p> + +<p>Chesterton is very annoyed to find that to possess Norman +blood is, to many people, a hall mark of aristocracy: 'This +fashionable fancy misses what is best in the Normans.' What +he contends, and I think rightly, is that William was a +conqueror until he had conquered. Then England passed +out of his hands. He had wished it to be an autocracy; +instead, it developed into a monarchy—'William the Conqueror +became William the Conquered.' This is a line that +the ordinary historians do not appear to take, though I fancy +they imply it when they say that feudalism didn't exist in +the time of the Georges.</p> + +<p>Perhaps one of the most picturesque parts of history is that +time when men looked across the sea and saw in the far +distance a huge cross that seemed to beckon as the voices +later called to Joan of Arc. The Crusades were a time when +wars were holy because they were waged for a holy thing. +Six hundred years, so Chesterton tells us, had elapsed since +Christianity had arisen and covered the world like a dust-storm, +when there arose 'a copy and a contrary: the creed +of the Moslems'; in a sense Islam was 'like a Christian +heresy.' Historians, so he thinks, have not understood the +Crusades. They have taken them to be aristocratic expeditions +with a Cross as the prey instead of a deer, whereas +really they were 'unanimous risings.' 'The Holy Land was +much nearer to a plain man's house than Westminster, and +immeasurably nearer than Runnymede.' But I am not sure +that Chesterton has scored over the orthodox historians who +made a good deal out of the fact that Crusade had a close +affinity to <i>Crux</i>, which word meant a cross that was not +necessarily bound up with Calvary.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> + +<p>In dealing with the Middle Ages, he propounds the proposition +that the best way to understand history is to read +it backwards—that is, if we are to understand the Magna +Charta we must be on speaking terms with Mary. 'If we +really want to know what was strongest in the twelfth +century, it is no bad way to ask what remained of it in the +fourteenth.' This is a very excellent method, as it demonstrates +what were the historical events and what were the +mere local and temporary.</p> + +<p>Becket was one of those queer people of history who was +half a priest and half a statesman, and he had to deal with a +king who was half a king and half a tyrant. Every schoolboy +knows about Becket, and delights to read of the wild ride +to Canterbury, which began with the spilling of Becket's +brains and ended with the spilling of the King's blood by +his tomb.</p> + +<p>For Chesterton, Becket 'may have been too idealistic: +he wished to protect the Church as a sort of earthly paradise, +of which the rules might seem to him as paternal as those of +heaven, but might well seem to the king as capricious as those +of Fairyland.' The tremendously suggestive thing of the +whole story of Becket is that Henry II submitted to being +thrashed at Becket's tomb. It was like 'Cecil Rhodes submitting +to be horsewhipped by a Boer as an apology for +some indefensible death incidental to the Jameson Raid.' +Undoubtedly Chesterton has got at the kernel of the story +that made an Archbishop a saint (a rare occurrence) and an +English king a sportsman (a rarer occurrence).</p> + +<p>But clever as Chesterton is in regard to this particular +story, the ordinary schoolboy would do better to stick to the +common tale of Becket that came on the hasty words spoken +by a hasty king; he will better understand the significance of +the whipping of the king when he can read history back to +the days when kings could not only not be whipped, but +could whip whom they chose, and put men's eyes out when +they used them to shoot at the king's deer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> + +<p>A great part of the Middle Ages is concerned with the +French wars, those wars that staggered the English exchequer +and made the English kings leaders of armies. The reason +of these wars was, Chesterton tells us, the fact that Christianity +was a very local thing. It was more—it was a national +thing that was bound up with England. 'Men began to feel +that foreigners did not eat or drink like Christians,' which is +to say that the Englishman began his contempt for the foreigner +which has resulted in nearly all our wars, and has made the +Englishman abroad a supercilious creature, and has made the +English schoolboy put his tongue out at the French master.</p> + +<p>The French wars were something more than a national +hatred, they were a national dislike of foreigners, a dislike +that had its probable origin in the Tower of Babel. But this +was not the only reason of the incessant French wars—there +was a question of policy. France began to be a nation, and +'a true patriotic applause hailed the later victory of Agincourt.' +France had become something more than a nation; +it had become a religion, because it had as its figure a simple +girl who believed in voices, and took her part in the struggles +of a defeated country.</p> + +<p>Chesterton's chapter is a fine understanding of the French +wars; it is an amplification of the mere skeletons of ordinary +history, and as such is very valuable.</p> + +<p>From being a reasonable national dislike, the French wars +'gradually grew to be almost as much a scourge to England +as they were to France.' 'England was despoiled by her own +victories; luxury and poverty increased at the extremes of +society, and the balance of the better mediævalism was lost.' +It resulted in the revolt connected with Wat Tyler, a revolt +that 'was not only dramatic but was domestic'; it ended in +the death of Tyler and the intervention of the boy king, who, +in swaying the multitude that was a dangerous mob, 'gives +us a fleeting and final glimpse of the crowned sacramental +man of the Middle Ages.'</p> + +<p>From this period Chesterton tells us that a rather strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +thing happened—men began to fight for the crown. The Wars +of the Roses was the result. The English rose was then +the symbol of party, as ever since it has been the symbol of +an English summer.</p> + +<p>Chesterton makes no attempt to follow the difficult path +that the Wars of the Roses travel, from the military standpoint, +nor the adventures that followed the king-maker +Warwick and the warlike widow of Henry V, one Margaret. +There was, so he says, a moral difference in this +conflict that took the name of a Rose to fight for a Crown. +'Lancaster stood, as a whole, for the new notion of a king +propped by parliaments and powerful bishops; and York, +on the whole, for the remains of the older idea of a king who +permits nothing to come between him and his people. This is +everything of permanent political interest that could be traced +by counting all the bows of Barnet or all the lances of +Tewkesbury.'</p> + +<p>The time when the Middle Ages was drawing near to the +Tudors is interesting, because of the riddle of Richard III. +Chesterton's description of this strange king is full of fascination +if also it is full of truth: 'He was not an ogre shedding +rivers of blood, yet a crimson cloud cannot be dispelled from +his memory. Whether or not he was a good man, he was +apparently a good king, and even a popular one. He anticipated +the Renaissance in an abnormal enthusiasm for art and +music, and he seems to have held to the old paths of religion +and charity.'</p> + +<p>He was indeed, as Chesterton says, the last of the mediæval +kings, and he died hard; his blood flowed over an England +that did not know what loyalty was, a country that had +nobles who would fly from their king on the first sign of +danger; the Last Post of the old kings was sounding, and +Richard answered its challenge. His description of this +remarkable king is perhaps the best thing in the book, +and is certainly far better than the ordinary history that +attempts to give the character of a king in a couple of lines.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> + +<p>With the end of the mediæval kings we pass to a period +that is none other than the Renaissance, one of the most +important epochs in English history, 'that great dawn of a +more rational daylight which for so many made mediævalism +seem a mere darkness.'</p> + +<p>The character of Henry VIII is one that is a veritable +battleground. He is attacked because he found a variety of +wives pleasing; he is condoned as a young man who promised +to be a great king. There are, as Chesterton points out, +two great things that intruded into his reign: the one was +the difficulty of his marriages, the other was the question +of the monasteries. If Henry was a Bluebeard, he was such +because his wives were not a fortunate selection. 'He was +almost as unlucky in his wives as they were in their husband.' +But the one thing that Chesterton feels broke Henry's +honour was the question of his divorce. In doing this he +mistook the friendship of the Pope for something that would +make him go against the position of the Church. 'Henry +sought to lean upon the cushions of Leo and found he had +struck his arm upon the rock of <a name="rock" id="rock"></a>Peter.' The result was that +Henry finished with the Papacy in the pious hope that it +had done with him; Henry became head of the Church that +was national, and soon Wolsey fell, to die in a monastery at +Leicester.</p> + +<p>But this terrible king 'struck down the noblest of the +Humanists, Thomas More, who died the death of a saint, +gloriously jesting.' The question of the monasteries is one +that is solved by the simple statement that the King wanted +money and the monasteries supplied it. Is there any justification +for the crimes of Henry? For Chesterton 'it is unpractical +to discuss whether Froude finds any justification +for Henry's crimes in the desire to create a strong national +monarchy. For whether or not it was desired, it was not +created.'</p> + +<p>Chesterton in an original way has given a very clear +account of the difficulties of the reign of Henry VIII, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +reign that had perhaps more influence on English history +than any other, a reign that showed what the licence of an +English monarchy could do and, what is of more importance, +what it could not, a reign that showed that the fall of a great +man could be so precipitate that the significance of it could +not be felt at the time, a reign that showed that the Pope was +something more than the friend of the English throne—he +was in matters of Church discipline its checkmate. This was +the time that England trembled at the devilry of a king and +rejoiced at the sun of a new learning that was slowly dispelling +the fog of the Dark Ages.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It is usually assumed that Mary was a bad woman because +she burned people who were so unwise as not to be at least +officially Catholics. Historians have applied the word 'bloody' +to her, whereas the better word would be fanatic. 'Her +enemies were wrong about her character,' says Chesterton. +'She was in a limited sense a good woman.' If Chesterton +means she was a good Catholic he is right, if the burning of +heretics is a good thing for a Christian Church. But the +fortunate part of the whole affair was that not even burning +could restore the power of the Papacy in England in Mary's +time any more than the arrogance of the Roman Catholics +to-day can restore the Pope to London and unfrock the +Archbishop of Canterbury. Mary was a sincere fanatic, and +like most fanatics was an extremely ignorant woman; consequently +she could not see that the fire that burnt Cranmer +also burnt the last hope of England bowing to the Pope of +Rome. I cannot feel that Chesterton has in the least vindicated +the character of Mary.</p> + +<p>Historians are apt to think that the days of Queen Elizabeth +were those in which England first realized that she was +great. On the other hand, Chesterton is convinced that it is +in this period that 'she first realized that she was small.' The +business of the Armada was to her what Bannockburn was +to the Scots, or Majuba to the Boers—a victory that astonished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +the <a name="victors" id="victors"></a>victors. The fact of the matter was that Spain realized +after the battle that the victory does not always go to the big +battalions, which the present Kaiser is no doubt writing in +his 'Imperial' copybook to-day.</p> + +<p>The 'magnificance of the Elizabethan times has traces in +mediæval times and far fewer traces in modern times.' 'Her +critics indeed might reasonably say that in replacing the Virgin +Mary by the Virgin Queen, the English reformers merely +exchanged a true virgin for a false one.' If Elizabeth was +crafty it was because it was good she should be so. If she had +not been so, the history of England might have found Philip +of Spain on the English throne and Mary Queen of Scots a +worse menace in England, a menace that by the skill of +Elizabeth developed into a headless corpse. Had Elizabeth +had a different historical background, she might have been +a different Queen; but, as it was, she dealt with it as only a +genius could who had followed a maniacal Queen who +failed in everything she did.</p> + +<p>From the times of Elizabeth, Chesterton moves on to the +age of the Puritans, those rather dull people who have always +been the byword for those who are more popularly known +as Prigs. 'The Puritans were primarily enthusiastic for what +they thought was pure religion. Their great and fundamental +idea was that the mind of man can alone directly deal with +the mind of God. Consequently they were anti-sacramental.' +Not only in ecclesiastical matters, they were in doctrine +Calvinistic—that is, they believed 'that men were created to +be lost and saved,' a theological position that makes God a +Person who wastes a lot of valuable time. It was to a large +extent this belief in Calvin that made the Puritans dislike a +sacramental principle; it was, of course, quite unnecessary to +have one. If a man was either lost or saved, the need of any +human meditators was not felt.</p> + +<p>It is, of course, true, as Chesterton says, that 'England +was never Puritan.' Neither was it ever entirely Catholic, +neither has it ever been entirely Protestant. It is one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +things to be thankful for that men have ever held different +religious opinions. It would be the greatest mistake if ever the +Church was so misguided as to listen to the cries that come +for unity, a unity that could only be founded on the subordinating +of the opinions of the many to the opinion of the few.</p> + +<p>I have said at the beginning of this chapter that Chesterton +has said that the Middle Ages have not had the historical +attention they deserve. Whether this is so is a question +that cannot be answered here. What we have to say is +whether this book is a valuable one. There are, of course, +many opinions expressed in it that do not take the usual +historical standpoint, or they have a more original way of +expression. I cannot feel that this book is the best of +Chesterton's works, not because it has not some very sound +opinions expressed in it, but rather because to understand +its import the ordinary histories must be well known. +It is perhaps a matter of an unsuitable title, 'A Short +History of England.' It would have been better to have +called it a 'History of the Histories of England, and the Mistakes +therein.' It would be no use as an historical book in the +school sense, but as an original book on some of the turning-points +of English history it is valuable. Mr. Chesterton tells +us to read history backwards to understand it. This we may +well do if we have read it as fully forward as he evidently has.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Six" id="Chapter_Six"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">S</span>ix</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">THE POET</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">A</span><span class="upper">mongst</span> the many outstanding qualities of Chesterton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +there is one that is pre-eminent—his extraordinary +versatility. It cannot be said that this quality +is always an advantage; a too ready versatility is not always +synonymous with valuable work; especially is this so in +literary matters. There are quite a number of writers who, +without success, attempt to be a little of everything. This is +not the case with Chesterton; if he is better as an essayist +than as a historian, he is at least good as the latter; if he is +better at paradox than at concise statements, he can be, if he +chooses, quite free from paradox; if he excels in satire of a light +nature, he can also be the most serious of critics if the subject +needs such treatment.</p> + +<p>It has often been said that a good prose writer seldom makes +a good poet. This may be to a certain extent a truism; the +opposite is more often the case; that a good poet is quite often +a poor producer of prose. There is a good reason for this: the +mind of a poet is probably of a different calibre to that of a +prose writer; a poet must have a poetical outlook on life and +nature; the tree to him is something more than a tree, it is +probably a symbol, but to a prose writer more often than not a +tree is merely a mass of bark and leaves that adorns the landscape.</p> + +<p>Chesterton has written a great many poems, all of which +can claim to be poetical in the true sense, but he has +only written one really important poetical work. It is a ballad +that is important for two things; firstly, it is about a very +English thing; secondly, the style of the writing is nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> +short of delightful, a statement that is not true of all good +poetry. It has been said that Chesterton might well be the +Poet Laureate; at least, it is a matter for extreme joy that he is +not, not because he is not worth that honour, but because anything +that tended to reduce his poetical output would be a +serious thing in these days when good poets are as scarce as +really good novelists.</p> + +<p>The poem that has established Chesterton for all time +as a poet is the one he has called with true poetical genius +'The Ballad of the White Horse.' There have been many +white horses, but there is The White Horse, and he lies alone +on the side of a hill down Wiltshire way, where he has watched +with a mournful gaze the centuries pass away as the horizon +passes away in a liquid blue.</p> + +<p>The White Horse stands for something that year by year +we are forgetting, those quaint old English feasts that have +done so much to make England merry, and have made history +into a beautiful legend that bears the name of Alfred. Yet +the White Horse is falling into neglect. The author of 'Tom +Brown's Schooldays' lamented the fact that people flew past +the White Horse in stuffy first class carriages; were he alive +now he would lament still more that English men and English +women can pass the White Horse without a glance up from +the novel they are reading bound in a flaring yellow cover. +But there is one great Englishman who will never do this, and +that is Chesterton; rather he writes of the White Horse, the +lonely horse that is worthy of this splendid poem.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>In connection with the Vale of White Horse there are three +traditions—one, that Alfred fought a great battle there; +another, that he played a harp in the camp of the Danes; a +third, that Alfred proved himself a very bad cook who +wasted a poor woman's cake, a poor woman who would +willingly have sacrificed cakes every day to have the honour +of the king under her roof.</p> + +<p>It is of these three traditions that Chesterton writes his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +poem. Whether they may be historically accurate does not +much matter; there is no doubt that the Vale had something +to do with the King of Wessex, and popular tradition has made +the name of Alfred a national legend.</p> + +<p>When Chesterton writes of the vision of the king he is no +doubt writing of his own vision of the events that led up to the +gathering of the chiefs. The Danes had descended on England +like a cloud of locusts; it was the time that needed a National +Champion, as time and again in the past the Israelites had +needed one. It is one of the strange things of history that a +champion has always appeared when he was most needed. +The name of the Danes inspired terror; Wessex was +shattered—</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'For earthquake following earthquake</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Uprent the Wessex tree ...'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>The kings of Wessex were weary and disheartened: fire +and pillage had laid the countryside bare with that horrible +bareness that only lies in the wake of conqueror:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'There was not English armour left,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Nor any English thing,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">When Alfred came to Athelney</span><br /> +<span class="i2">To be an English <a name="double" id="double">king.'</a></span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>This was the vision that Alfred had, and he gathered the +disheartened chiefs to his side till, in victory, he could bear the +name of king.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>In the wake of national champions there have ever +appeared popular tales demonstrating the human qualities of +these giants; if Napoleon could conquer empires, tradition +has never forgotten that he once pardoned a sentry he found +asleep at his post. If Wellington won the battle of Waterloo +by military genius, so popular hearsay has urged that he commanded +the Guards to charge 'La Grande Armée' in cockney +terms. Around the almost sacred name of Alfred many and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +various are the old wives' tales, among which the story of his +harp is not the least picturesque; it is one on which Chesterton +expends a good deal of poetic energy.</p> + +<p>From the gist of the poem it is evident that Alfred, in the +course of his wanderings, came near to the White Horse, but +as though for very sorrow—</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'The great White Horse was grey.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>Down the hill the Danes came in headlong flight and +carried Alfred off to their camp; his fame as a harpist had +pierced the ears of the invaders:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">'And hearing of his harp and skill,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">They dragged him to their play.'</span></div> +</div> + +<p>The Danes might well laugh at the song of the king, but it +was a laugh that was soon to be turned to weeping when the +king had finished his song:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'And the king with harp on shoulder</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Stood up and ceased his song;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And the owls moaned from the mighty trees,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And the Danes laughed loud and long.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>There is in this poem a pleasant rhythm and a clearness of +meaning that is absent from much good poetry. Chesterton +has caught the wild romantic background of the time when the +King of England could play a harp in the camp of his enemies; +when he could, by a note, bring back the disheartened +warriors to renew the fight; when he could be left to look after +the cakes and be scolded when, like the English villages, they +were burnt. One of the most popular of the legends is the one +connected with Alfred and the woman of the forest. It has +made Chesterton write some of his most charming verse.</p> + +<p>And Alfred came to the door of a woman's cottage and +there rested, with the promise that in return he would watch +the cakes that they did not burn.</p> + +<p>But—</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'The good food fell upon the ash,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And blackened instantly.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>The woman was naturally annoyed that this unknown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +tramp should let her cooking spoil:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'Screaming, the woman caught a cake</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Yet burning from the bar,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And struck him suddenly on the face,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Leaving a scarlet scar.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>The scar was on the king's brow, a scar that tens of +thousands should follow to victory:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'A terrible harvest, ten by ten,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As the wrath of the last red autumn—then</span><br /> +<span class="i2">When Christ reaps down the kings.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>In a preface to this poem, with regard to that part which +deals with the battle of Enthandune, Chesterton says: 'I +fancy that in fact Alfred's Wessex was of very mixed bloods; +I have given a fictitious Roman, Celt, and Saxon a part in the +glory of Enthandune.'</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>The battle of Enthandune is divided into three parts. The +poetry is specially noticeable for the great harmony of the +words with the subject of the lines; it is one of the great +characteristics of Chesterton's poetry that he uses language +that intimately expresses what he wants to describe. He can, +in a few lines, describe the discipline of an army:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'And when they came to the open land</span><br /> +<span class="i0">They wheeled, deployed, and stood.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>It is perfect poetry concerning the machine-like movements +of highly-trained troops.</p> + +<p>The death of an earl that occurs in a moment of battle: we +can almost see the blow, the quick change on the face from +life to death; we can almost hear the death gurgle:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'Earl Harold, as in pain,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Strove for a smile, put hand to head,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Stumbled and suddenly fell dead,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And the small white daisies all waxed red</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With blood out of his brain.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>Of the tremendous power of a charge, Chesterton can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +give us the meaning in two lines that might otherwise take +a page of prose:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'Spears at the <a name="punc" id="punc">charge!'</a> yelled Mark amain,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">'Death to the gods of Death.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>Whether it be to victory or defeat, the last charge grips the +imagination, just as the latest words of a great man are remembered +long after he has turned to dust. The final charge +of the Old Guard, the remnant of Napoleon's ill-fated army +at Waterloo, the dying words of Nelson, these are the things +that produce great poetry.</p> + +<p>Some of the verses describing the last charge at Enthandune +are the finest lines Chesterton has so far written. It will not be +out of place to quote one or two of the best—the challenge of +Alfred to his followers to make an effort against the dreaded +Danes, at whose very name strong men would pale:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'Brothers-at-arms,' said Alfred,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">'On this side lies the foe;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Are slavery and starvation flowers,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">That you should pluck them so?'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>Or the death of the Danish leader, who would have pierced +Alfred through and through:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'Short time had shaggy Ogier</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To pull his lance in line—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">He knew King Alfred's axe on high,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">He heard it rushing through the sky;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">He cowered beneath it with a cry—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">It split him to the spine;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And Alfred sprang over him dead,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And blew the battle sign.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>The last part of the poem is that which gives an account of +the scouring of the White Horse, in the years of peace:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><span class="i0">'When the good king sat at home.'</span></div></div> + +<p>But through everything the White Horse remained—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'Untouched except by the hand of Nature:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The turf crawled and the fungus crept,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And the little sorrel, while all men slept,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Unwrought the work of man.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>'The Ballad of the White Horse' is in its way one of the +best things Chesterton has done: it is a fine poem about a very +picturesque piece of English legend, which may or may not +be based on history. Poetry can, and very often does, fulfil a +great patriotic mission in arousing interest in those distant +times when Englishmen, with their backs to the wall, responded +to the cry of Alfred, as they did when, centuries later, +the hordes of Germans attempted to cut the knot of Haig's +army.</p> + +<p>For hundreds of years Alfred has been turned to dust, but +the White Horse remains, a perpetual monument to the great +days when England was invaded by the Danes. 'The Ballad of +the White Horse' is a ballad worthy of the immortal horse that +will remain centuries after the author of the poem has passed +out of mortal sight.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>In an early volume of light verse Chesterton wrote of the +kind of games that old men with beards would delight in. +'Greybeards at Play' is a delightful set of satirical verses in +which the ardent philosopher confers a favour on Nature by +being on intimate and patronising terms with her.</p> + +<p>This dear old philosopher, with grey beard and presumably +long nose and large spectacles, is full of admiration for the +heavenly beings:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'I love to see the little stars</span><br /> +<span class="i2">All dancing to one tune;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I think quite highly of the Sun,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And kindly of the Moon.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>Coming to earth, this same philosopher is full of friendly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +relations with America, for—</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'The great Niagara waterfall</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Is never shy with me.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>In the same volume Chesterton writes of the spread of +æstheticism, and that the cult of the Soul had a terrible +effect on trade:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'The Shopmen, when their souls were still,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Declined to open shops—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And Cooks recorded frames of mind</span><br /> +<span class="i2">In sad and subtle chops.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>In a small volume of poems called 'Wine, Water, and +Song,' we have some of the poems that appear in Chesterton's +novels. They have a delightful air of brilliancy and satire, +about dogs and grocers and that peculiar king of the Jews, +Nebuchadnezzar, who, when he is spoken of by scholars, +alters his name to Nebuchadrezzar. We have but room for +one quotation, and the place of honour must be given to the +epic of the grocer who, like many of other trades, makes a +fortune by giving short weights:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'The Hell-Instructed Grocer</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Has a Temple made of Tin,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And the Ruin of good innkeepers</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Is loudly urged therein;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">But now the sands are running out</span><br /> +<span class="i2">From sugar of a sort,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The Grocer trembles, for his time,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Just like his weight, is short.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>The hymn that Mr. Chesterton has written, called 'O +God of Earth and Altar,' is unfortunately so good and so +entirely sensible that the clergy on the whole have not used +it much; rather they prefer to sing of heaven with a golden +floor and a gate of pearl, ignoring a really fine hymn that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +pictures God as a sensible Being and not a Lord Chief Justice +either of sickly sentimentality or of the type of a Judge +Jeffreys.</p> + +<p>It must be said that to many people who know Chesterton +he is first and foremost an essayist and lastly a poet. The +reason is that he has written comparatively little serious poetry; +this is, I think, rather a pity—not that quantity is always +consistent with quality, but that in some way it may not be +too much to say that Chesterton is the best poet of the day; +and I do not forget that he has as contemporaries Alfred +Noyes and Walter de la Mare.</p> + +<p>The strong characteristic of his poetry, as I have said, is the +wealth of language; to this must be added the exceedingly +pleasant rhythm that runs as easily as a well-oiled bicycle. If +Mr. Chesterton is not known to posterity as one of the leading +poets of the twentieth century it will be because his prose +is so well known that his poetry is rather crowded out.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Seven" id="Chapter_Seven"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">S</span>even</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">THE PLAYWRIGHT</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">N</span><span class="upper">early</span> eight years ago all literary and dramatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +London focused its eyes on a theatre that was known +as the Little Theatre. On the night of November 7th +the critics might have been seen making their way along John +Street with just the faintest suspicion of mirth in their eyes.</p> + +<p>The reason was that the most eccentric genius of the day +had written a play, and it was to be produced that night, and +had the name of <span class="sc">Magic</span>, a title that might indicate something +that turned princes into wolves, or transported people on +carpets to distant lands, or might be more simply a play that +dealt with Magic in the sense that there really was such a +thing.</p> + +<p>The play was a success—I could see that it would be at the +moment Mr. Bernard Shaw so forgot himself as to be interested +in something he had not himself written. The Press was +charmed with the play and went so far as to say, with a gross +burlesque of Chesterton, that it was 'real phantasy and had +soul.' Chesterton by his one produced play had earned the +right to call himself a dramatic author, who could make the +public shiver and think at the same time, an unusual combination.</p> + +<p>I rather fancy that Magic is a theological argument, disguised +in the form of a play, that relies for its effects on clever +conversation, the moving of pictures, and a mysterious person +who may have been a conjurer and may have also been a +magician.</p> + +<p>When I say that the play is really a theological one, I do not +mean to say that it has anything to do with the Thirty-Nine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> +Articles, the Validity of the Anglican Orders, or even the +truth of the Virgin Birth; rather it is about an indefinable +'something' that is so simple that it is misunderstood by +every one.</p> + +<p>The play turns upon five people who are thrown together +in a room that has a nasty habit of becoming ghostly at times.</p> + +<p>The five people are a doctor who is a scientist, who does +not believe in anything not material being scientific; a vicar +who is a typical clergyman, who thoroughly believes in supernatural +things until they are proved, when he becomes an +agnostic; a young American who is a cad and a fool; a girl +who believes in fairies and goes to Holy Communion, which +is the one thing that depicts she has a certain amount of +sense; a duke who ends every sentence with a quotation from +Tennyson to Bernard Shaw.</p> + +<p>These five people are influenced by a Pied Piper kind of +fellow who calls himself a conjurer, and is rather too clever for +the company.</p> + +<p>Apparently the conjurer has been strolling about the garden +when he meets Patricia, who thinks he can produce fairies. In +due course the conjurer comes into the room, where he has +encounters with the various occupants, who don't believe in his +tricks; the conjurer is unlucky enough to meet the young +American cad Morris Carleon, who is really quite rude to the +conjurer and discovers (so he thinks) all the tricks except one +in which the conjurer turns the red lamp at the doctor's gate +blue. This so worries Morris that he goes up to his room with +a chance of going mad.</p> + +<p>The others beseech the conjurer to explain the trick; he +does so, and says it is done by magic, which is the whole point +of the play, that we are left to wonder whether it was by +magic or by a natural phenomenon.</p> + +<p>The conjurer gets the better of the parson, the Rev. Cyril +Smith, who believes in a model public house and the Old +Testament, and takes a good stipend for pretending to believe +in the supernatural.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> + +<p>The result of the whole matter is magic, by which we +presume the trick may have been done.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>The play is in some ways a difficult one: we are left wondering +whether or not Chesterton believes in magic; if he does, +then the conjurer need not have been so upset that he had +gained so much power of a psychic nature; if he does not, then +the conjurer was a clever fraud or a brilliant hypnotist.</p> + +<p>One thing is quite certain, Chesterton brings out the weaknesses +of the dialectic of the parson and doctor in a remarkable +way; he makes us realise that there are some things we +really know nothing about; if lamps turn blue suddenly it may +quite well be a 'Something' that may be magic and might +be God or Satan; anyhow, it cannot be explained by an American +young man; it is of the things that the clergy profess to +believe in and very often do not.</p> + +<p>It is, I think, undoubtedly a problem play, and I doubt +very much if Chesterton knows what was the agency that +did the trick, but I rather think that 'Magic' is a great play, not +because of the situations, but rather because the more the play +is studied the more difficult is it to say exactly what is the +lesson of it.</p> + +<p>Magic is called a phantastic comedy; it might well be +called a phantastic tragedy.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Eight" id="Chapter_Eight"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">E</span>ight</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">THE NOVELIST</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">here</span> is perhaps no word in the English language<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +which is more elastic than the word novel as applied +to what is commonly known as fiction. The word +novel is used to describe stories that are as far apart as the +Poles. Thus it is used to describe a classic by Thackeray or +Dickens, or a clever love tale by Miss Dell, or a brilliantly +outspoken sex tale by Miss Elinor Glyn, or a romance by Miss +Corelli, or a tale of adventure by Joseph Conrad, or a very +modern type of analytical novel by very modern writers who +are a little bit young and a big bit old.</p> + +<p>I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that Chesterton +as a novelist carries the art yet a step farther and has added +elasticity to the word. It would, I think, be probably untrue to +say that Chesterton is a popular novelist; he is much too unlike +one to be so. That he is read by a wide public is not the same +thing; he has not the following of the millions that Charles +Garvice had, for the millions who understood him might find +Chesterton difficult. Really Chesterton is read by a select +number of people who would claim to be intellectual; very +up-to-date clergymen rave about his catholicity, high-brow +ladies of smart clubs delight in his knave whimsicalities, but +the girl in the suburban train to Wimbledon passes by on the +other side.</p> + +<p>One of the characteristic features of Chesterton's novels is +his clever selection of titles that are by their very nature fit to +designate his original works. If in journalism nine-tenths of +the importance of an article depends upon its title, it is equally +true that the title of a novel is of the same import. Either<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +a title should give some indication of the nature of the book, or +it should be of the kind that makes us want to read it; this is the +case with regard to the Chesterton novels, their designations +are so phantastic that our curiosity is aroused. Thus 'The Man +who was Thursday' gives no possible explanation of what it is +about, but it does suggest that it is interesting to know about a +man who was Thursday; 'The Flying Inn' may be a forecast +of prohibition or it may be a romance of the time when inns +shall fly to the ends of the earth; 'The Napoleon of Notting +Hill' leads us to suppose that perhaps there was a hidden +history of that part of London, that Notting Hill can boast of +a past that makes it worthy of having been a station on the +first London tube.</p> + +<p>It is unsafe to prophesy any limit to the versatility of +Chesterton, but it is improbable that he could write an ordinary +novel; the reason is, I fancy, that he cannot write of the +ordinary emotions with the ease that he can construct +grotesque situations. This is why I have said that, as a novelist, +Chesterton is not popular in the sense that he is read by the +masses (that word that the Church always uses to indicate +those who form the bulk of the community). As a novelist, +Chesterton stands apart, not because he is better than contemporary +writers of fiction, but because his books are unlike +those of any one else.</p> + +<p>I have taken Chesterton's most famous novels and have +written a short survey of their character. They are not always +easy to understand—sometimes they seem to indicate alternative +points of view; they teem with pungent wit and shrewd +observations, they are without doubt phantastic, they are in +the true sense clever.</p> + + +<p style="font-size: 121%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;">'THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL'</p> + +<p>At the time of the publication of this book the critics with +astounding frankness admitted that, while this was a fine book, +they had difficulty in deciphering what it meant. One, now a +well-known Fleet Street editor, went farther, and said that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +possibly the author himself did not know what he meant—a +situation in which quite a number of authors have found +themselves, especially when they read the reviews of their +books.</p> + +<p>'The Napoleon of Notting Hill' is not an easy book to +understand: it may be a satire, it may be a serious book, it may +be a prophecy, it may be a joke, it may even be a novel! I +think that it is a little bit of a joke, in a degree serious—something +of a satire, possibly a prophecy.</p> + +<p>The main thing about the book is that a king is so unwise as +to make a joke, and an obscure poet is more unwise in taking this +Royal joke seriously. Many who have laughed at monarchical +wit have found that their heads had an alarming trick of falling +on Tower Hill.</p> + +<p>In 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill' we are living a hundred +years on, and we are to believe that London hasn't much +changed; a certain respectable gentleman has been made a king +for no special reason—a very good way of having a versatile +monarchy and a selection of kings.</p> + +<p>Not far off in the kingdom of Notting Hill there resides a +poet who has written poems that no one reads. He is a romantic +youth, and loves Notting Hill with the love of a Roman for +Rome or of a Jew for Whitechapel. The new king, by way of +a joke, suggests that it would be quite a good idea to take +the various parts of London and restore them to a mediæval +dignity; thus 'Clapham should have a city guard, Wimbledon +a city wall, Surbiton tolling a bell to raise its citizens.'</p> + +<p>It so happens that the obscure poet, Adam Wayne, has +always seen in Notting Hill a glory that her citizens cannot see; +he determines to make the grocers and barbers of that neighbourhood +realise their rich inheritance. The new king, for +some reason, desires to possess Pump Street in Notting Hill, +and this gives the poet's dream a chance to mature; and he gets +together a huge army, with himself as Lord High Provost of +Notting Hill. There are some frightful battles in the adjacent +states of Kensington and Bayswater, and, after varying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +fortunes, the Notting Hill Army is defeated, the Napoleon +becomes again the poet of Notting Hill, while his citizens have +developed from grocers to romanticists, from barbers to +fanatics.</p> + +<p>That there might be in the future a Napoleon of Notting +Hill is highly improbable, that London will ever return to the +pomp and heraldry of the Middle Ages is not at all likely; but +that in a hundred years Notting Hill will be different is quite +possible. If it is not likely that there will be fights between +Bayswater and Notting Hill, there may at least be battles in +the air unthought of; it may well be that its citizens in times of +peace will take a half-day trip, not to Kew Gardens or to +Hampton Court, but to Bombay and Cape Town.</p> + + +<p style="font-size: 121%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;">'MANALIVE'</p> + +<p>One of the strangest complications that man has to face is +the criminal mind. It is so complex that no society has ever +understood it; very often it has not taken the trouble to try. No +method of punishment has stamped out the criminal; no reformers, +however ardent, have freed the world from those +who live by violence, kill by violence, and are themselves +killed by violence. If crime is a disease, then to treat criminals +as wrongdoers is absurd. If every murderer is insane, then +hanging is nonsense; if a murderer is sane, then sanity is +capable of being more revolting than insanity.</p> + +<p>'Manalive' may, perhaps, be called a philosophy of the +motive for crime; it may be a pseudo philosophy—at least it is +an entertaining one—which cannot be said about all serious +attempts at moulding the universe into a tiresome system, that +is uprooted generally by the next thinker. The book opens +with a very strong gale that ends with the arrival at a boarding +house of a man who can stand on his head and has the name of +Innocent Smith. He is somewhat like the person in the +'Passing of the Third Floor Back,' in that he revolutionizes the +household, who cannot determine whether he is a lunatic or +not; anyhow, he falls in love with the girl of the house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +Unfortunately, rumour—a nasty, ill-natured thing—has it +that Smith is a criminal. Evidence is collected, and a Grand +Jury inquire into the charges, which include Bigamy, Murder, +Polygamy, Burglary. It looks as if Smith is in for a very uncomfortable +time, and the wedding bells are a long way from +ringing.</p> + +<p>The second part of the book is concerned with these +charges and the conduct and motives of Smith. But Chesterton +is a clever barrister, and shows that the motives behind the +'crimes' are not only within the law, but are extremely useful +and throw a new light on criminology.</p> + +<p>The crime of murder of which Smith is accused is one that +he is supposed to have perpetrated in his college days. It was +nothing less than firing at the Warden. The reason was not at +all that Smith wanted to murder the Warden, but, rather, to +discover if his theory of 'the elimination of life being desirable' +was a sincere one. It was not. As soon as the Professor +thought he might attain the desired bliss of death, he desired +more than anything that he might live. The fact, then, that +Smith pointed a pistol at his Warden was perfectly justifiable; +it had the eminently good principle of wishing to test a theory.</p> + +<p>If Smith was a bigamist he was so with his own wife, only +that he happened to like to live with her in various places; if he +was a burglar, he was perfectly justified, because he merely +robbed his own house—in fact, he does not wish to steal, because +he can covet his own goods. Chesterton, on these +grounds, acquits the prisoner.</p> + +<p>At the end of the book another or the same great gale +springs up, and Smith, accompanied by Mary of the boarding-house, +disappears. Clever as Chesterton's explanations of the +crimes are, we shall not probably shoot at the Regius Professor +of Divinity at Cambridge in order to demonstrate to him how +desirable life really is; we shall not burgle our own sitting-room +for the mere excitement of it; we shall not flit with our wife +from Peckham to Marylebone, from Singapore to Bagdad, to +imagine that we are bigamists or polygamists; rather, we shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +sit at home and sigh that all crimes cannot be as easily settled as +those Chesterton propounds and shows are not crimes at all.</p> + + +<p style="font-size: 121%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;">'THE BALL AND THE CROSS'</p> + +<p>It is usually assumed that a theological argument is a +dull and prosy affair that has as its perpetrators either Professors +of Theology or Professors of Rationalism. It is, of +course, true that many Professors of Theology are dull, but +they do not usually argue about theology at all. Professors of +Rationalism are equally dull and are seldom happy when not +engaged on the hopeless task of trying to understand God +when they know nothing about Man and little about Satan.</p> + +<p>'The Ball and the Cross' is a theological novel. It is, without +any doubt, the most brilliant of Chesterton's novels; it is +an argument between a Christian ass and a very decent +atheist. Atheists, if they are sincere, are on the way to becoming +good Christians; Christians, if they are insincere, are +on the way to becoming atheists.</p> + +<p>The book opens with a theological argument in the air +between a professor and a monk. This becomes to the +professor so wearisome that, with great good sense, he leaves +the monk clinging to the cross at the top of St. Paul's +Cathedral while he disappears into the clouds in his silver airship.</p> + +<p>Having successfully climbed into the gallery, the monk is +arrested as a wandering lunatic and taken off to an asylum. +Meanwhile, a great deal of excitement is agitating Ludgate +Hill, where an atheistic editor runs a paper that propounds +(with all the usual insults at Christ, which culminate in an +attack on the method of the birth of Christ) the creed of +atheism. A particularly slanderous attack on the Virgin +Mary results in an ardent Roman Catholic throwing a stone +through the blasphemer's window.</p> + +<p>The result is that they are both brought up before the +magistrate, and the two men decide to fight a duel.</p> + +<p>The whole book really, then, consists of a theological<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +argument between the two, interspersed with attempts to +settle their differences by a duel, which is always interrupted +at the crucial moment. Finally, after queer adventures, the +two arrive in a lunatic asylum, in which they are kept until the +place is burned down. It so happens that the chief doctor of +the place turns out to be Professor Lucifer, who had left the +monk clinging to the Cross at the top of the Cathedral. He is +burnt to death in an airship disaster, and the atheist and the +Catholic end their adventures.</p> + +<p>'The Ball and the Cross' is very full of fine passages. It +presents the side of the atheist and the Catholic in a brilliant +manner. The chapter that describes the trial before the +magistrate has got the atmosphere of the police-court to perfection. +Not less good is the Chestertonian satire of the comments +of the Press on the case, in which Chesterton makes +some pungent remarks about Fleet Street 'stunts.' Perhaps +one of the best things in the book is the argument between the +French Catholic girl and Turnbull the atheist on the doctrine +of Transubstantiation. This passage must be quoted; +it is one of the best arguments for the Sacrament that has been +written for those people who can see that (even in these +days) bread is a symbol for the Presence of the Life Giver, and +wine a symbol for the Presence of the Life Force.</p> + +<p>'I am sure,' cried Turnbull, 'there is no God.'</p> + +<p>'But there is,' said Madeleine quietly; 'why, I touched +His body this morning.'</p> + +<p>'You touched a bit of bread,' said Turnbull.</p> + +<p>'You think it is only a bit of bread,' said the girl.</p> + +<p>'I know it is only a bit of bread,' said Turnbull, with +violence.</p> + +<p>'Then why did you refuse to eat it?' she said.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>If 'Orthodoxy' is the finest of Chesterton's essays, +'Browning' the best of his critical studies, 'The Ballad of the +White Horse' the best of his poems, there is, I think, little +doubt that this strange theological exposition, 'The Ball<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +and the Cross,' is the best of his novels. It should be read by +all rationalists, by all self-satisfied Christians, by all heretics, +by those who are orthodox, and, above all, it should be read +by those millions who pass St. Paul's Cathedral and seldom if +ever give a thought to the 'Ball and the Cross' that has made +the title of Chesterton's best novel.</p> + + +<p style="font-size: 121%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;">'THE FLYING INN'</p> + +<p>Chesterton is once more a laughing prophet in this +book, and he has as sad a state of things to prophesy as had +Jeremiah to the Israelites, those people who, if it were not that +they find a place in the sacred writings, would be the most +silly and futile race of ancient history.</p> + +<p>The scene of the story is England, and the last inn is there. +We are to imagine that the non-drinking wine dogma of Islam +has permeated England. It is a sorry state of things when—</p> + +<p> +'The wicked old women who feel well-bred,<br /> +Have turned to a teashop the Saracen's Head.'<br /> +</p> + +<p>The great charm of the book is the poetry that the Irish +captain recites to Pump, the innkeeper, the gallant innkeeper +who, against all opposition, keeps the flag flying and the +flagon full. If the book is a little overdrawn it is, no doubt, +because the subject is slightly farcical; the arguments of the +Oriental are well put, and, if the discussion of the merits of +vegetarianism are a little wearisome, the poetry of a vegetarian +is splendid:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">'For I stuff away for life</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Shoving peas in with a knife,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Because I am at heart a vegetarian.'</span><br /> +</div></div> + +<p>Thus, if we observe queer manners at Eustace Miles we +shall know the reason.</p> + +<p>No doubt the adventures of the last innkeeper in England +would be wonderful; there would be half-day trips to see him; +bishops would flock to gaze upon the last relic of a pagan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +England; the Poet Laureate might so forget himself as to +write an 'Epic of the Last Innkeeper'; editors would be sending +lady reporters to give the feminine view of the finish of +drinking; publishers would fall over one another in their +eagerness to secure the 'Memoirs of the Last Publican'; the +Salvation Army would put the last drunkard in the British +Museum as a prehistoric specimen; on the death of this +National Hero, the Dean of Westminster would politely offer +the Abbey for a memorial service, with no tickets for the best +places.</p> + +<p>Chesterton gives other adventures to this last innkeeper. +He is, we hope, a false prophet for this once. Were there to be +no beer perhaps not even the pen of Chesterton would be able +to describe the scenes that would take place in England.</p> + + +<p style="font-size: 121%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;">'THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY'</p> + +<p>Anarchy is a very interesting subject and is used to denote +very different things. It may be something that puts a bullet +through a king with the insane hope of ending the monarchy; +it may be an act of a God-fearing Protestant clergyman when +he attempts to harry the Catholics by denying that the crucifix +is the proper symbol of the Christian religion; it may be the +act of God when a village is destroyed by an earthquake or an +island created by a seaquake.</p> + +<p>'The Man who was Thursday' is about an anarchist, and +we are not sure whether Chesterton is not pulling our respectable +legs and laughing that we really believed the party +of desperadoes were real anarchists. The fact is, the book starts +in a highly respectable suburb that might be anywhere near +London and could not be far from it.</p> + +<p>There are two poets strolling about under the canopy of a +lovely sky; one believes in anarchy, the other doesn't—the +one who does invites the one who does not to come with him +and see what anarchy is. This he does, and, after a good supper +of lobster mayonnaise, the two get down to a subterranean +cavern where are assembled half the anarchists of the world,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +precisely six; they call themselves by the names of the week, +with a leader, who is met with later, Sunday.</p> + +<p>Syme, the visitor, is appointed as a member, and becomes, +Thursday; he has a great many adventures, including breakfast, +overlooking Leicester Square, and gradually discovers that the +said anarchists, unknown at first to each other, are really +Scotland Yard detectives.</p> + +<p>The only real anarchist is the poet who believed in it, whose +name is Gregory. He has the pious wish to destroy the world; +he may be Satan, if that person could ever pretend to be a poet.</p> + +<p>What does Chesterton mean by this strange weird tale that +is almost like a romance of Oppenheim and is yet like an +old-world allegory? Is he laughing at anarchists that they +are but policemen in disguise? Is he saying that policemen are +really only anarchists? Or does he mean that the Devil +masquerades as the spirit of the Holy Day of the week +'Sunday,' or is 'Sunday' really Christ?</p> + +<p>Chesterton calls this novel a nightmare; a nightmare is +usually a muddled kind of thing with no connections at all; it +is a dream turned into a blasphemy. The book may mean +several things; it is quite possible that it may mean nothing; +there is no need for a novel to mean anything so long as it is +readable. 'The Man who was Thursday' certainly is that, +but it leaves us with an uneasy suspicion that it is a very serious +book and at the same time it may be merely a farce.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>Space does not permit us to more than mention Chesterton's +two detective books, 'The Innocence of Father Brown' +and 'The Wisdom of Father Brown.' They are a highly +original series of detective tales. 'The Club of Queer Trades' +is a volume of quaint short stories full of Chesterton's genius.</p> + +<p>Since Chesterton wrote these books an event has occurred +to him which may have a considerable effect on his writings. +His novels have always shown a Catholic tendency when they +have touched at all on religion. They have not, of course, the +propagandist setting of the works of Father R.H. Benson,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +nor do they have a contempt for other Churches that so often +blackens the writings of Roman Catholic apologists.</p> + +<p>The event is one that has occasioned the usual mistake in the +Press. They have said with loud emphasis, 'Mr. Chesterton +has joined the Catholic Church.' He has not; there is, unfortunately, +no Catholic Church that he could have joined; +what he has done is to be received into the Roman part of the +Catholic Church.</p> + +<p>This is a matter of importance to Chesterton; it is a +matter of far greater importance to the Roman Catholics. If +the Roman Church is wise she will not put her ban on Chesterton's +writings—his intellect is far beyond the ken of the Pope; +his utterances are of more import than all the Papal Bulls. +She has secured, as her ally, one of the finest intellects of the +day, one of the best Christian apologists.</p> + +<p>If, then, we have further novels from the pen of Chesterton +we shall expect them to have a Roman bias, but we shall hope +that they will not bear any signs that Rome has dictated the +policy that has made many of her best priests mere puppets, +afraid, not of the Church, but of the Pope, who often enough +in history has been a very ignorant man.</p> + +<p>Of present-day novelists it is in no way fair to compare them +to Chesterton; 'some contemporary novelists are better than +he is, some are worse.' These are statements the writer of this +book has often heard; they are entirely unfair. Chesterton, as I +have said, stands apart; his works are for the most part symbolic. +This is their difficulty: any of his books may be the symbol for +several points of view with the exception of his religious +position, which is always on the side of Christianity, and, I +think, the Roman Catholic interpretation of it; his dialogue is +worthy of Anthony Hope, his dramatic power is intense, his +satire is never ill-natured, it is always cutting, his humour is +gentle, pathos is rare in his novels, he has never described a +woman, he is undoubtedly a philosopher, but he is not one who +is academic, above all he is the genial writer of phantastic tales +that are as wide as the universe.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Nine" id="Chapter_Nine"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">N</span>ine</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">CHESTERTON ON DIVORCE</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">t</span> may be somewhat arbitrary to proceed straight away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +to nearly the end of Chesterton's 'Superstition of Divorce' +to find an argument that shows that he doesn't quite +understand what divorce aims at; but it is well, when +taking note of a book on an alleged abuse of modern society, +to also see that the writer has got hold of the right end of +the stick. It is no doubt unfortunate that many marriages +said to be made in heaven end in hell. Divorce may be a sign +that men have no reverence for marriage, it may equally be +an argument that they reverence it very much; but there is no +good reason for attributing to divorce only very low motives +and one of the lowest that can be found; consequently I have +started in the middle of this book.</p> + +<p>In a chapter on the tragedies of marriage, Chesterton remarks +that 'the broad-minded are extremely bitter because a +Christian, who wishes to have several wives when his own +promise bound him to one, is not allowed to violate his vow at +the same altar at which he made it.' What most people who +wish for a divorce want is that they shall have, not several +wives, but one, who shall prove that Christian marriage is not +a horrible farce, that the words of the priest were not a miserable +blasphemy. Chesterton has made a very big mistake if he +thinks that the exponents of divorce wish the Church to be a +party to polygamy; what they want is that the Church shall +show a little common sense and not rely on the tradition of +hotly disputed texts.</p> + +<p>I think it is perfectly clear that Chesterton can see no good +in divorce at all. I have said it may be a very good argument<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +for those who wish to make marriage what it is said by the +Church to be—a Divine institution. Many people seek +divorce, not that, as Chesterton implies, they shall run away +with the wife of the man across the square, but that, having been +unlucky in a speculation, they wish quite naturally and quite +rightly to try again, to the infinite satisfaction of all parties. +If the Church does not agree that divorce is ever right, so +much the worse for that Divine institution; if the Church +is right in holding that marriages are made by God, then +civil marriages are not marriages at all, and there is no need +to worry about divorce, because the most ardent reformer +does not imagine that man can undo the Divine decree; on +the other hand, the Church never will face the fact that, if all +marriages in a church by a priest are Divine, then it is rather +strange that the result of them very often would be more +consistent with a Satanic origin.</p> + +<p>I am dwelling at some length on this theological argument +because, though Chesterton does not base his case on that argument, +he undoubtedly considers that divorce is against the +Church's teaching, and the Church to which he now belongs +would not allow him to think otherwise. Before I finally leave +this side of the question there is one other consideration that +must be faced. Whatever the texts in the New Testament +relating to divorce may mean, it is rather unfortunate that +they are attributed to a bachelor. Whether Christ had any +good reason for knowing anything about divorce is not an +irreverent one, but it is one that the Church must face to-day.</p> + +<p>Another thing that Chesterton does not seem to realize +is that many people do not want divorce to marry again, +but to be free of a partner who is not one in the most superficial +sense of the word; at the same time a separation does not meet +the case, as it is always possible that a man or woman may wish +to take the matrimonial plunge again. Chesterton seems to +think it is amusing to poke fun at those who are sensible +enough to wish to make lunacy a sufficient ground for +divorce. 'The process' he says, 'might begin by releasing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +somebody from a homicidal maniac and end by dealing with a +rather dull conversationalist.' He might have added, to make +the joke complete, or from some one who snores, or keeps cats, +or reads Bernard Shaw.</p> + +<p>'To put it roughly,' says Chesterton, 'we are prepared in +some cases to listen to a man who complains of having a wife. +But we are not prepared to listen at such length to the same +man when he comes back and complains that he has not got a +wife. In a word, divorce is a controversy about remarriage; +or, rather, about whether it is marriage at all.' To a certain +extent Chesterton is right when he says that the controversy +about divorce is really about remarriage, but what he forgets +is, that for the hundreds who want divorce to be remarried, +there are thousands who want it to be unmarried. The reason a +man complains of having a wife is, of course, often that he +prefers a mistress; but it is equally true that another cause for +complaint is that his wife has for him none of the recognized +attributes of the normal state of wifehood.</p> + +<p>I have always understood that in some sense Chesterton +was a journalist of the kind who is rather hard on journalism, +but I did not know until I read this book on divorce that he so +little understood newspapers and their writers. Commenting +on the fact that the Press is sensible enough to use divorce as a +news item, he says: 'The newspapers are full of an astonishing +hilarity about the rapidity with which hundreds of thousands +of human families are being broken up by the lawyers; and +about the undisguised haste of the "hustling" judges who carry +on the work.' I wonder if Mr. Chesterton ever reads the +leaders of certain papers, leaders which never fail to regret the +enormous amount of divorce there is. If it be true that there is +a great deal of news of divorce in the Press, it is because the +Press does not give news of an imaginary world that is a Utopia, +but of the dear old muddle-headed world as it is. Does +Chesterton fail to see that if the newspapers did not report the +Divorce Courts, the numbers of cases would increase from +thousands to millions. It is useless Chesterton sighing that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +lawyers have become breakers of families; they have also +become restrainers of suicide. If the judges hustle, it is because +they are sensible enough to see that most of the divorces are +justifiable; when they have not been, they have not been slow +to say so.</p> + +<p>Yet again Chesterton repeats the somewhat superficial argument +against divorce that its obvious effect would be frivolous +marriage. The normal person on his or her wedding day +luckily does not think about anything beyond the supreme +happiness they have found at least at the time. It is lightly said +that the modern Adam and Eve think of the chances of divorce +before marriage whatever may be the cause of divorce afterwards; +at least it will be agreed that it is a failure of a particular +two people who thought that their lives together would be a +mutual happiness. Therefore, when Chesterton says that +divorce is likely to make frivolous marriages he is saying +that couples about to marry do so expecting it to be a failure. +If this be so, then the young men and women of to-day are +more hopeless than they are commonly made to appear by +correspondence about them in the papers. If, on the other +hand, every couple on marriage knew for a certainty that it was +'till death us do part,' it is more than likely that marriage +would be a thing that was abnormal, not normal. It might +even be that the Church would have to listen to reason, and +be disturbed over worse things than divorce, and whether she +should endeavour to take a Christian attitude to those who +had been unfortunate or indiscreet.</p> + +<p>Chesterton is very concerned that the time will come when +'there will be a distinction between those who are married +and those who are really married.' This is precisely to state +what is Utopia. At present many people who are really married +are in the chains of slavery; the more who get out of it the better. +As the number of those whose marriages are a farce will gradually +diminish, thus will divorce be a godsend. Divorce is, in +certain cases, a godsend, but the priests refuse to listen to the +Divine revelation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<p>Chesterton sketches at some length the nature of a vow. +He considers that Henry the VIII broke the civilization of +vows when he wished to have done with his wife. It is quite +possible that he did, but it is also possible that she did precisely +the same thing. The question in regard to our inquiry is: +Is the marriage vow entirely binding even when the other +party to the contract has broken it? The opponents of divorce, +amongst whom are Chesterton, will quite easily say that it is, +yet they cheerfully ignore the fact that in a marriage two +persons make a contract, and if one breaks it there is quite +a good reason that the vow made is no longer one at all. +It is a very interesting question whether a vow should ever be +broken. Should Jephthah have broken the vow that sacrificed +his daughter? Should Herod have broken his vow that laid +the head of John the Baptist on a charger? Should two people +remain together when (if they have not broken their actual +vows) they have lost the spirit of them? The opponents of +divorce, who are so eager over the keeping of the marriage +vow, are they as eager that it shall be but a miserable skeleton?</p> + +<p>Chesterton does not see any particular reason why the exponents +should be anxious to secure easier divorce for the poor +man. It is, he thinks, 'encouraging him to look for a new +wife.' If he has a wife who isn't one at all, the best thing for +him is to look for another who will prove to be so, otherwise he +will search for the nearest public-house and a cheap prostitute. +Surely it is better that it be granted his first marriage was a +failure and let him try decently for a better.</p> + +<p>Of course, the most sensible plan would be to give divorce +for all sorts of small things; people would soon then tire of it. +Chesterton tells us that already in America there is demand for +less divorce consequent on the increased facilities over there. +In England there is demand for more. Let it be given freely +and the demand will soon cease. Why should our policy be +dictated by a celibate priesthood? Does Chesterton think that +people who hate one another are going to live together as +though they were the most ardent lovers? Does he consider<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +that it would be better to have no divorce and no marriage as a +consequence? Does he consider that ill-assorted couples will +make happy nations? Does he really consider that divorce +can destroy marriage? Does he consider that the newspapers +print the divorce cases because they have no other copy?</p> + +<p>Chesterton's book is, I think, unfair on some points. +He considers divorce is a superstition; he holds that it is +pernicious from a social standpoint; he considers that it +encourages adultery; he considers that it is the breaking of a +vow; but has he ever seriously considered that if all divorce is +wrong, that marriage very often is the most miserable caricature +of Divinity possible? Has he thought what the state of the +country would be if no marriage could ever be broken or a fresh +matrimonial start made? If such a thing happened it might +make him write a book on the 'Superstition of Non-Divorce.'</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Ten" id="Chapter_Ten"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">T</span>en</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">'THE NEW JERUSALEM'</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">here</span> are four ways of going to Jerusalem—the one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +is to go as a pilgrim would go to Mecca; another is to +go as a tourist in much the way that an American +staying in Russell Square might start for a trip round London. +Again, it is possible to go to Jerusalem for yet a third reason, +that of wishing quite humbly to be in some way a modern +Crusader. There is yet a fourth way, which is to be made to go +for reasons that are called military and are really political.</p> + +<p>'The New Jerusalem' is, above all, a massive book. It is +the record of a tour, and it is something more, it is an appreciation +of the Sacred City on a Hill. It is, in a limited sense, a +philosophy of the Holy Land; it deals in a masterly way with +problems connected with the Jews; it is so unscholarly as to +insist that the scholars who refuse to call the Mosque of Omar +that at all are pedantic; it has a fine chapter on Zionism; it +describes Jerusalem, not so much as a city, but as an impression +that fastened itself on the mind of Mr. Chesterton.</p> + +<p>There are some very fine passages in the book that deal with +the curious question of Demonology, that peculiar belief +which finds a place in the New Testament in the story of the +Gadarene swine, and who, Chesterton felt, might still be +found at the bottom of the Dead Sea—'sea swine or four-legged +fishes swollen over with evil eyes, grown over with +sea grass for bristles, the ghosts of Gadara.'</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting chapters of this book is that +which is entitled 'The Philosophy of Sightseeing.' There is, +of course, a philosophy of everything, of boiling eggs, of race-horses, +of the relations of space and time—in fact, Philosophy is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> +a sort of Harrods, that sums up anything from a Rolls Royce +to a packet of pins.</p> + +<p>To some people there must be almost something incongruous +in the idea of sightseeing in the Holy Land, yet it is probable +that of the crowds round the foot of the Cross, on which +was enacted the world's greatest blessing, a great part were +idle sightseers who, twenty centuries later, might have been a +bank holiday crowd on Hampstead Heath. Chesterton found +that there was a philosophy in sightseeing; he had been +warned that he would find Jerusalem disappointing, but he did +not. He could be interested in the guide who 'made it very +clear that Jesus Christ was crucified in case any one should +suppose that He was beheaded.' He could see that the 'Christianity +of Jerusalem, after a thousand years of Turkish tyranny, +survived even in the sense of dying daily'; fascinating as +Chesterton found Jerusalem, much as he insists that the +'sights' of the city must be seen in their right perspective, yet +he has sympathy with the man who only 'sees in the distance +Jerusalem sitting on the hill and keeping that vision' lest +going further he might understand the city and weep over it.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>Chesterton devotes a long and careful chapter to the +question of the Jews, of whom Christ was the chief; but, +notwithstanding, thousands of His so-called followers quite +forget this, and scarcely will admit that the Jew has a right to +live. The reason is, no doubt, that the Fourth Gospel uses the +word <ins title="ioudaios">ιουδαιος</ins> in the sense of those who were hostile, consequently +many entirely orthodox Christians are anti-Jewists, +quite oblivious of the very reasonable request of St. Paul that +in Christ are neither Jew nor Gentile. This is, in brief, the +theological side of the vexed question of Zionism. Chesterton +makes it quite clear that he thinks it desirable that 'Jews +should be represented by Jews, should live in a society of +Jews, should be judged by Jews and ruled by Jews,' which is +of course to say that the Jews should be a nation. But the fact +remains, do they wish to be so, and, if they do, is it necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +to them, or even congenial, that it shall be in Palestine? It +is no way the province of this book to go into this question; it +has been enough to say that it is perfectly evident that +Chesterton desires for the Jew the dignity of being a separate +nation.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>Is there any particular characteristic in this record of +Chesterton's visit to Jerusalem? Is it anything more than an +impression of a wonderful experience, when a great writer left +his home in Buckinghamshire and passed over the sea and the +desert to the city that is older than history and is now new? +I do not think that the book can be called more than a Chestertonian +impression of Jerusalem, with an appreciation of the +vexed history of that strange city which is Holy. It does not +forget the problems in connection with Palestine, but it has no +particular claim to having said very much that was new about +the New Jerusalem. Yet it has avoided the obvious: it is not of +the type of book that is read at drawing-room missionary +meetings, which are more often than not written in a surprised +style, that the places mentioned in the Bible are really +somewhere.</p> + +<p>I almost feel as if this book is something of a guide-book—in +fact, it was inevitable that it should be so. I rather fancy that +descriptive writing is for Chesterton difficult; it is a little +bit too descriptive, which is to say it is not always easy to +imagine the scene he is trying to describe. I am not sure that +the Jews will be flattered to be told that Chesterton thinks they +are worthy of being a nation; it is slightly patronizing.</p> + +<p>Yet the New Jerusalem is a book to read, but it is not of the +Holy City that St. John saw in the Revelation; it is of the New +Jerusalem of the twentieth century, which is very imperfect, +yet is Holy. It is a book of a city that was visited by God, Who +did not deem Himself too important to walk in its streets; it is +of a city teeming with difficulties; it is of a city that has felt +the iron hand of the conqueror; it is finally Jerusalem made +into a symbol by the hand of Mr. Chesterton.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Eleven" id="Chapter_Eleven"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">E</span>leven</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">MR. CHESTERTON AT HOME</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">here</span> is a very remarkable fascination about the home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +life of a great man whatever branch of activity he may +adorn. If he is an archbishop, it is interesting to know +what he looks like when he has exchanged his leggings for a +human dress; if he is a pork millionaire, we like to see whether +he enjoys Chopin; if he is a great writer, the interest of his home +life is intensified. For the tens of thousands who know an +author by his books, the number who know him at home may +quite well be measured by the score.</p> + +<p>There is always an idea that a great man is not as others; that +he may quite conceivably eat mustard with mutton, or peas +with a spoon; that his conversation will be of things the ordinary +man knows nothing about; that he is unapproachable; that he is, +in short, on a glorified pedestal. This love of the personal is +demonstrated in the absurd wish people have to know about the +private doings of Royalty, it is shown in the remarkable fact +that thousands will hang about a church door to see the wedding +of some one who is of no particular interest beyond the fact that +they are in some way well known; it is again seen in the interest +that people display in those parts of a biography that deal with +the life of the public man in his private surroundings.</p> + +<p>When I first knew Chesterton he was living in a flat in +Battersea, a charming place overlooking a green park in +front and a mass of black roofs behind. Here Chesterton lived +in the days when he was becoming famous, when the inhabitants +of that part of London began to realize that they had a +great man in their midst, and grew accustomed to seeing a +romantic figure in a cloak and slouch hat hail a hansom and +drive off to Fleet Street.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> + +<p>Later, Chesterton moved to Beaconsfield, a delightful +country town, built in the shape of a cross, on the road from +London to Oxford. He has here a queer kind of house that is +mostly doors and passages, and looks like a very elaborate dolls'-house; +it is rather like one of the Four Beasts, who had eyes all +round, except that instead of having eyes all round it has doors +all round; and I have never yet discovered which is really the +front door, for the very good reason that either of the sides may +be the front.</p> + +<p>In a very charming essay, Max Beerhobm, one of the best +essayists of the day, gives warning to very eminent men that +if they wish to please their admirers a great deal depends on +how they receive those who would pay them homage. He tells +us of how Coventry Patmore paid a visit to Leigh Hunt and +was so overcome by the poet's greeting—'This is a beautiful +world, Mr. Patmore'—that he remembered nothing else of that +interview. I remember one day it so happened that I had to +pay a visit to Anthony Hope. I knocked tremblingly at his +door in Gower Street and followed the trim housemaid into the +dining-room. Here I found an oldish man with his back to +me. Turning round at my entrance he said, without any asking +who I was, 'Have a cigarette?' And this is all that I remembered +of this visit.</p> + +<p>The best way, according to Max Beerbohm, is for the visitor +to be already seated, and for the very eminent man to enter, for +'Let the hero remember that his coming will seem supernatural +to the young man.'</p> + +<p>I cannot remember the first time I saw Chesterton, +whether he was seated or whether I was; whether his entrance +was like a god or whether he was sitting on the floor drawing +pirates of foreign climes or whether he was wandering up and +down the passage. Chesterton is so remarkable-looking that +any one seeing him cannot fail to be impressed by his splendid +head, his shapely forehead, his eyes that seem to look back +over the forgotten centuries or forward to those yet to come.</p> + +<p>If there is one thing that is characteristic of Chesterton,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +it is that he always seems genuinely pleased to see you. Many +people say they are pleased to see you, yet at the same time +there is the uncomfortable feeling that they would be much +more pleased to see you leaving. This is not the case with Chesterton: +he has the happy advantage of making you feel that he +really is glad that you have come to his house. This is not so with +all great writers. Carlyle, if he liked to see a person, did not say +so; Tennyson did not always trouble to be polite; Swift would +receive his guests with a gloomy moroseness; Dickens was a +man of moods; conversation with Browning was not always +easy. Great men do not always trouble to be polite to smaller +ones.</p> + +<p>What a wonderful laugh Chesterton has. It is like a clap of +thunder that suddenly startles the echoes in the valley; it is the +very soul of geniality. There is nothing that so lays bare a man's +character as his laugh—it cannot pretend. We can pretend to +like; we can pretend to be pleased; we can pretend to listen; we +can't pretend to laugh. Chesterton laughs because he is amused; +he is amused at all the small things, but he seldom laughs at a +thing.</p> + +<p>I have often and often sat at his table. He talks incessantly. +There is no subject upon which he has not something worth +while to say. His memory is remarkable; he can quote poet after +poet, or compose a poem on anything that crops up at the table. +I do not think it can be said that Chesterton is a good listener. +This is not in any way conceit or boredom, but is rather that +he is always thinking out some new story or article or poem. +Yet he is a good host in the niceties of the table; he knows if you +want salt; he does not forget that wine is the symbol of hospitality.</p> + +<p>It has been said that Chesterton is one of the best conversationalists +of the day. Conversation is a queer thing; so many +people talk without having anything to say; others have a great +deal to say and never say it. Chesterton can undoubtedly talk +well; he has a knack of finding subjects suitable to the company; +though he does not talk very much of things of the day; he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +naturally mostly interested in books. Given a kindred soul +the two will talk and laugh by the hour.</p> + +<p>Naturally, Chesterton has to pay the price of greatness: +he has visitors who will make any pretence to get into his +presence. But many are the interesting people to be found at his +home. I remember one day, some years ago, when Sir Herbert +Tree called to see him. I do not recollect what they talked +about, but the time came for the famous actor to go. The +last I saw of him was the sight of his motor-car disappearing +and Sir Herbert waving a great hat, while Chesterton waved a +great stick. I never saw Tree again. Not long after, the world +waved farewell to him for ever.</p> + +<p>One of the most frequent visitors to his home is Mr. Belloc, +and it is said that he always demands beer and bacon. One day it +so happened that Mr. Wells came in about tea-time. He +seemed, it is said, gloomy during the meal, and finally the cause +was discovered! Mr. Wells also wanted beer and bacon. It was +forthcoming, and the great novelist was satisfied. It is at least +interesting to know that on one point at least Belloc and Wells +are agreed—that beer and bacon are very excellent things.</p> + +<p>No word of Chesterton's home life would be complete +without reference to his dog Winkle. Winkle was more than a +dog, he was an institution; he had the most polished manners—the +more you hurt him the more he wagged his tail; if you trod +on his tail he would almost apologize for being in the way. He +knew his master was a great man; he had a certain dignity, but +was never a snob. But the day came that Winkle died, and +was, I am sure, translated into Abraham's Bosom. Chesterton +has now another dog, but he will never get another Winkle. +Such dogs are not found twice. I am not sure, but I think one +day Winkle will greet Chesterton in the Land that lies the +other side of the grave.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>It is, I think, well known that Chesterton has a great +liking for children. He is often to be seen playing games with +them or telling them fairy stories; he is an optimist, and no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +optimist can dislike children. He probably likes children for +the very good reason that he is quite grown up; it is no uncommon +thing to see him sitting on the floor drawing pictures to +illustrate his stories. Which reminds me that Chesterton is a +remarkably clever artist. I would solemnly warn any one who +does not like his books defaced not to lend them to Chesterton. +He will not cut them, he will not leave them out in the sun, +he will not scorch them in front of the fire, but he will draw +pictures on them. I have looked through many books at his +home—nearly all of them have sketches in them. I have not +the qualifications to speak of his art; I do not know whether he +can be considered a great artist; I do not know whether it is a +pity that he does not do more drawing; I do not know whether +he can really be called an artist in the modern sense at all—but +I do know that at his home there are many indications that he +likes drawing, especially sketches of a fantastic nature.</p> + +<p>Chesterton does nearly all his work in his little study, a +sanctum littered with innumerable manuscripts. He, like +most authors of the day, dictates to a secretary, who types what +he says. It is, I think, in many ways a pity that so many +authors type their manuscripts; for not only are they machine-made, +they have not the interest that they should have for +posterity. What would the British Museum have lost if all the +manuscripts had been typewritten! Chesterton's written hand +is extremely elegant. At one time I believe he used to write +his own manuscripts. The typewriter is, after all, but one +more indication that we live in times when nothing is done +except by some kind of machinery; all the same, I could wish +that even if typewriters are used famous authors would keep +one copy of their writings in their own hand.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable the amount of work that Chesterton gets +through. He has masses of correspondence, he has articles to +write, books to get ready for press, and yet he finds time to +help in local theatricals, to give lectures in places as wide apart +as Oxford and America (and what is wider in every way than +those two places?), that mean all that is best in the ancient world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +and all that is best in the modern. He can also find time to take +a long tour to Palestine to find the New Jerusalem, that city +that Christ wept over, not because it was to be razed to the +ground, but because its inhabitants were fools.</p> + +<p>What are the general impressions that a stranger visiting +Chesterton would get? He would, I think, be impressed by +his genial kindliness; he would be amazed by his extraordinary +powers of memory and the depths of his reading; he would be +gratified by the interest that Chesterton displays in him; he +would be charmed by the quaintness of his home. That +Chesterton has humour is abundant by his conversation; that +he has pathos is not so apparent. I am not perfectly sure +that he can appreciate the things that make ordinary men sad. +It has been said that he is not concerned with the facts of +everyday life; if he is not, it is because he can see beyond +them—he can see that this is a good world, which makes him +a good host; he can look forward across the ages to the +glorious stars that shine in the night sky for those who are +optimists, as Chesterton is, and are great men in their own +homes.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Twelve" id="Chapter_Twelve"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">T</span>welve</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">n</span> a very admirable discussion on the word 'great,' in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +study of Dickens, Chesterton remarks that 'there are a +certain number of people who always think dead men +great and live men small.' The tendency is natural and is +entirely worthy of blame. If a man is great when he is dead, +then he was great when he was alive. It is but a re-echo of +much of the folly talked during the war, when we were so +credulous as to believe that every dead soldier was a saint and +every live one a hero. Then, when the war was over, these +hero worshippers quietly forgot that the soldiers had been +heroes, put up stone crosses to the dead, and did little to remove +the crosses from the living.</p> + +<p>There are a number of quite well meaning people who will +say, without much thought, that Chesterton is a great man, +and if you ask them why, they will answer, 'He is a great writer, +he is a great lecturer, he must be great; look at the times he +appears in the Press, look at the wealth of caricature that is +displayed on him.' No doubt these are good reasons in their +way, but they rather indicate that Chesterton is well known in a +popular sense; they are not a true indication that he is great. +The public of to-day is inclined to measure greatness by the +number of times a person appears in the newspapers, it +seldom realizes that greatness is, above all, a moral quality, not +a quantity; the fact that a person is in front of the public eye +(very often a blind eye) is no indication of true greatness. If +it was, then of necessity every Prime Minister would be a +great man, every revue actress would be a great woman, every +ordinary person would be small.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is one of the most difficult things possible to determine +what is the place a writer takes in literature. It does not make +the task easier when the writer is not only alive but is still a +comparatively young man in the height of his powers. A pure +and simple biography cannot always determine with any +satisfaction its subject's literary standing. Critical studies of +classic authors do not usually give any preciseness about the +exact niche the subject fills.</p> + +<p>Literature is one of the most elastic qualities of the day, of +human activity; it cannot be bound by rules, yet has a more +or less artificial standard, which is, perhaps, an imaginary line +which has style on the one side and lack of style on the other. +Yet there is a further difficulty: it is in no way fair to award +an author his place in literature entirely by his style, nor is it +fair to literature to disregard it.</p> + +<p>I have anticipated in earlier chapters some of what must +be said in this, but it is not, I think, out of place to attempt to +write of the literary qualities of Chesterton and of his place +in contemporary literature. With regard to his position +in respect of former writers I must say something, but it +would not be wise to give any comment of what may be the +permanent place of Chesterton in the world of books. He has, +I hope, many years of literary output in front of him. It cannot +be ignored that his reception into the Roman Catholic Church +may greatly influence his future writings; it is too soon to +make any effort to predict whether his writings will stand the +test of time, whether he will be popular in a hundred years or +whether he will have the neglect that has attended some of the +greatest of authors.</p> + +<p>There is a question that must be faced. Has Chesterton a +place in literature at all, if, as is the usual thing, we have to +compare him with contemporary writers, or is it that he has +such a unique place that it is impossible to compare him to any +living writer? Probably, although it is not necessary, it is best +to compare Chesterton with some of the greatest writers of the +day, and see why it is that he is worthy of a place in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +foremost rank. There are, at the present day, a great number +of writers who would appear worthy of a foremost place in +literature. Those I have chosen have been selected because, +in a sort of vague way, people couple them with the name of +Chesterton. They are, I think, H.G. Wells, Bernard Shaw +and Hilaire Belloc.</p> + +<p>I do think that all these writers have a unique place in contemporary +literature. Perhaps, of the three, Wells is the +greatest, because there is possibly no greater thing than a +scientific prophet who is also a brilliant novelist. If Belloc +and Shaw are smaller men it is because they deal with smaller +matters.</p> + +<p>At the present day Chesterton does occupy in contemporary +literature a place that no one else does. He is, in a sense, a +Dickens of the twentieth century; he is something more, he +may even be a prophet. Of course Chesterton has not the +enormous following that Dickens had at the height of his +powers, but he has that kind of monumental feeling in the +twentieth century that belonged to Dickens in the nineteenth: +he is typical of this century, being an optimist when ordinary +men are pessimistic. As in the nineteenth century Dickens +made common men realise their greatness when they themselves +felt immeasurably small, so Chesterton makes great +men feel small when they are really so.</p> + +<p>But in another sense he cannot really be compared to +Dickens. Dickens undoubtedly was a delineator of supreme +characters. I do not think it can be said that any of the characters +of Chesterton would ever be known with the knowledge +with which Mr. Pickwick is known. Dickens was not in any +sense an essayist; Chesterton is one in every sense. Dickens +was a man who really cared very much that all kinds of oppression +should be put down; Chesterton, no doubt, cares also, but +he rather imagines that things ordinary people quite rightly call +welfare work are but forms of slavery. If Dickens hated +factories it was because he had hateful experience of them; if +Chesterton hates factories it is because he thinks they destroy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> +family life and the home. I have attempted to suggest that +Dickens and Chesterton are alike as regards their being monuments +of their respective centuries. I have also suggested that +they are extremely unlike. Yet I can think of no writer of +the nineteenth century who, in ideal, is so near to Chesterton +as Dickens; but that at the same time they are also so far apart +is but another indication that to place Chesterton in regard +to the past is almost impossible.</p> + +<p>One thing that Chesterton is not, is an Eclectic; if he +is an original thinker, it is because he can see that though +black is not really white there is no particular reason why it +should not be grey; if Notting Hill can boast of forty fried fish +shops he does not see any reason why it could fail to produce +a Napoleon. If a party of Dons are sitting round a table discussing +how desirable is the elimination of life, he sees that it +is a perfectly good ethic for one of the undergraduates to test +the theory by brandishing a loaded pistol at the warden's head. +If, as a novelist, he is different to all his contemporaries, it is +because he has discovered that the word novel sometimes +means something new, sometimes something original, very +often something extremely old.</p> + +<p>Yet another difficulty for finding an exact niche for Chesterton +lies in the fact that he is a bit of everything, and, what is +more, these bits are very big and make a large kaleidoscope. He +is a theological professor who is so entirely sensible that the +public hardly discovers the fact; he does not wear a cap and +gown, and quote quite easily from all the Fathers of the ancient +Church. He does not apologize for Christianity by reading +Christian books. Rather to learn the Christian standpoint he +discovers the tenets of Rationalism; he writes a theological +philosophy that might be a discussion between Satan and +Christ and puts it into a novel; he writes a dissertation on +Transubstantiation and puts it into a tale of anarchy that is so +untheological that it mentions Leicester Square and lobster +mayonnaise; he is a historian who not only writes history but +understands it; he does not consider that William conquered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +England, but that England conquered William; he says the +best way to read history is to read it backwards; he is a historian +who does not consider the most important facts are the +dates of kings who lived and died.</p> + +<p>It has been said that Chesterton is the finest essayist of the +day. It would be perhaps fairer to say he is like no living +essayist; if he is not a finer essayist than Dean Inge, he is at +least as good; he may not be so academic, but he is as learned; +if he has not quite the charm of Mr. Lucas he is at least more +versatile. His essays sparkle with epigrams, they are full of +paradox. He has said that Plato said silly things and yet was +the wonder of the ancient world. He can lament that H.G. +Wells has come to the awful conclusion that two and two are +four, and at the same time be thankful that not even in fairyland +can two and two make five; he can state quite calmly that +the weakness of Feminism is that it drives the woman from the +freedom of the home to the slavery of the world; he can make +priggish clergymen, who accuse him of joking and taking the +name of the Lord in vain, bite their words by explaining that +to make a joke of anything is not to take it in vain. As an +essayist, Chesterton stands apart from his contemporaries. Of +older essayists I can think of none who could in any way be +said to have a similarity to Chesterton.</p> + +<p>One of the most interesting things about Chesterton is his +position as a poet. I have said, in an earlier chapter, that he +might have been the Poet Laureate. I have ventured to say +that if posterity did not place him among great poets it would be +because he had given more attention to prose. The particular +question of Chesterton as a poet opens up a more general one, +which is something in the nature of a problem. Would the +great classic poets of the last century have been as great if they +had not written so much poetry? Had Tennyson written but +two long poems; had Browning never written anything but +short lyrics; had Wordsworth been content to write few +poems, provided these had been an indication of the best work +of these particular poets, would posterity have granted them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> +immortality? Will Chesterton go down to posterity as a poet +on account of his fine achievement in his 'Ballad of the White +Horse,' or will people forget him because he has not written +more? I am rather afraid this may be so. Posterity, it is true, +likes quality, but it likes it better with quantity.</p> + +<p>But I feel that I am dealing with what I had said it would +be well to avoid—anything to do with the future of Chesterton. +What is Chesterton's position as a poet to-day? He +is, I think, one of the finest of the day; he has a fine sense of +humour in poetry; he has great powers of recasting scenes of +long-forgotten centuries; he has a fine musical rhythm; but he +has not, I think, pathos. I think it is a pity that he does not +write epics on events of the day; he might easily find the Poet +Laureate's silence an inspiration; he might write another great +poem; it might be better than any more novels.</p> + +<p>It is difficult to say whether or not Chesterton is a playwright. +His one play was a fine one about a fine subject, but +I do not think it had the qualities that would be popular in an +ordinary theatre in London. There is a certain suggestion of a +problem about it which is a little obscure. We are not sure +whether Chesterton is in earnest or joking: it has not probably +sufficient action to suit this century, that wishes aeroplanes to +dash through the house on the stage, or two or three people to +meet with violent deaths in three acts. It is in the nature of a +discussion and might be almost anti-Shavian; it would be +absurd to attempt to place Chesterton among contemporary +dramatic authors, but it is not too much to predict that he +might quite easily soon be very near the front rank.</p> + +<p>By his critical studies of Browning, Dickens, and Thackeray, +Chesterton has proved that there was a great deal more to be +said about these classic authors than the critics had seemed to +think. Chesterton seldom agreed with those who had written +before. What they had considered weaknesses he had considered +strength; what he had considered weakness they had +considered strength. Possibly no author had been written +about more than Dickens, yet there remained for Chesterton<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +to add much that was vital. No poet had been more misunderstood +than Browning; no poet had been more attacked +for his grotesque style; no critic has written with the understanding +of Browning as has Chesterton. In taking extracts +from Thackeray, Chesterton has shown a fine appreciation of +that novelist's best work.</p> + +<p>It is a difficult thing for a great writer to be a great critic. +He is liable to be either condescending or <a name="supercillious" id="supercillious">supercilious;</a> he is +liable unconsciously to judge all standards by his own; he is +likely to be rather intolerant of any opinions but his own; it is +easier for a great critic to be a great writer. In the case of +Chesterton, because he is a great and original writer he has +a brilliant critical acumen that probes deep into the minds of +other authors and sees what is stored there in a way that other +critics have, perhaps, failed to see, not because they did not +choose to look for it, but rather because, almost without +knowing it, critics who set out to be critics exclusively are +liable to work rather too much by a fixed rule.</p> + +<p>It is, I hope, now apparent how difficult it is to say where +exactly Chesterton finds a place in literature. Is it as an +essayist? Is it as a novelist? Is it as a historian? Is it as a critic? +If it is as a novelist, then it is as a writer of peculiar phantasy; +if it is as an essayist, it is as a brilliant controversialist; if it is +as a historian, it is as a unique critic of history; if it is as a critic, +it is as a broad-minded one of not only past great authors but +of current events.</p> + +<p>I do not know of any writer who is so difficult to place. +Wells can quite well be a fine novelist and prophet; Bernard +Shaw can easily be called a playwright and a philosopher; +Galsworthy is a serious novelist and a playwright who takes +the art with proper regard for its powers of social redress; +Sir James Barrie is a mystical writer with a message. There +are fifty novelists who are interpreters of manners and problems +of the twentieth century. But Chesterton is not like +any of these. He is not in any sense a specialist; he is really a +general practitioner with the hand of a specialist in everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +he touches except divorce. In a word, he is that thing in +literature that occurs once or twice in every century—an epic. +He is the laughing, genial writer of the twentieth century +who, in everything he does, earns the highest of all literary +honours—to be unique.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Thirteen" id="Chapter_Thirteen"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">T</span>hirteen</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">G.K.C. AND G.B.S.</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">t</span> would be a very interesting problem to try and discover<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +how it is that Gilbert Keith Chesterton and George +Bernard Shaw have come to be known so familiarly as +G.K.C. and G.B.S. If any of my readers can suggest a +solution of this, I hope they will let me know; because, if I +calmly headed this chapter G.K.C. and J.M.B. I do not +think that any one would guess that I was attempting to compare +Chesterton to James Matthew Barrie unless I told them. +It would be really quite amusing to do all comparisons by this +initial method; we might find in the <i>Hibbert Journal</i> an +article on the need of Episcopacy headed H.H. Dunelm and +Frank Zanzibar, which would be quite simply the Bishop +of Durham and the Bishop of Zanzibar on Episcopacy; or, for +a rest, we might turn to the <i>Daily Herald</i> and find 'J.R.C. +attacks L.G.,' which would be quite simply that Mr. Clynes +did not see eye to eye with the Premier that a Coalition +Government was a national asset.</p> + +<p>If we refer to the past, it is not easy to suggest any one who +might be known by initials. Charles Dickens was never known +as C.D.; Thackeray, when he wrote his 'Essay on the Four +Georges' was probably not known as W.M.T. on the Four +Georges; but if Chesterton writes a book on America, the +Press affirms that there is a new book on America by G.K.C., +or we pick up a morning paper and find a large headline on +'G.B.S. on Prisons,' and every one knows who it is. But put a +headline, 'Randall on Divorce,' and it is not seen at once that +the Archbishop of Canterbury has been addressing the Upper +House on a matter of grave ecclesiastical import.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> + +<p>There is a saying about some people being born great, +others having that state thrust upon them, others as having +achieved it. There is no doubt that Chesterton was born to be +great, so no doubt was Shaw, but they went about it in a different +way. The public caught hold of the remarkable personality +of Chesterton and scarcely a day passed that the Press did +not either quote him or caricature him; on the other hand, +Shaw caught hold of the public, annoyed its susceptibilities, +held it in supreme contempt, raved at it from the stage and +platform, and the public, amazed at his cleverness, received +him as the rude philosopher who looked a genius, talked like a +whirlwind, said that he was greater than Shakespeare, said he +was the Molière of the twentieth century, and posed until it +was expected of him.</p> + +<p>But Chesterton does not pose. If he comes to lecture on +Cobbett and talks for three-quarters of an hour on how his +hat blew off, it is not a pose, it is the natural inconsequence of +Chesterton on the platform. If Shaw is invited to a dinner and +writes that he does not eat dinner and does not care to see +others doing nothing else, he is posing; but, if so, it is because +he is expected to do so.</p> + +<p>On almost every subject Shaw and Chesterton disagree; yet +they are both men who, in some way, attempt to be reformers. +Shaw proceeds by satire and contempt; Chesterton proceeds +by originality and good nature, except on the question of +divorce, which makes him very angry, and, as I have said, +uncritical. Shaw chastises the world and is angry; Chesterton +laughs, and, in a genial way, asks what is wrong; and, having +found out, attempts to put things right. Shaw would rather +have a new sort of world with a super-man.</p> + +<p>Shaw and Chesterton approach reform from two different +ways. Chesterton suggests them by queer novels and paradoxical +essays; Shaw puts his ideas into the mouthpieces of +those who are known as Shavian characters; he interprets his +theories by the Stage, therefore his sermons reach tens of +thousands who would not read him if he preached from a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +pulpit. Thus, if he wants to show that there are no rules +for getting married, he puts the problem into a play and wants +an extension of divorce; Chesterton, on the other hand, +believes that marriage is Divine and that divorce is but a +superstition. If Shaw believed that the home narrowed life, +was a domestic monarchy, meant a loss of individuality between +husband and wife, Chesterton, far from agreeing to this proposition, +takes the opposite view that it is the home which is +large and the world which is small and narrowing. Probably +neither is quite right. For some people the home is narrowing, +for others it is the place that affords the widest scope; for some +the world is narrow, for others the world is extremely broad—in +fact, so broad that they never are able to get free from its +immensity.</p> + +<p>With regard to religion, whatever opinions Chesterton may +hold—as he is now a Roman Catholic—they are no longer of +interest. Shaw, on the other hand, is much too elastic a man to +imagine for a moment that religion is a thing that is necessarily +bound up with an organization which is mainly political; he +is not so credulous as to believe that the spiritual can fall vertically +to earth because a man kneels before a bishop and becomes +a priest. Rather he had a much better plan. He +started by being an atheist, the best possible foundation for +subsequent theism. From this he became an Immanist, +which is that God is in some way dispersed throughout the +earth.</p> + +<p>If there is one thing upon which we may say that Shaw and +Chesterton are identical, it is in the strange fact that neither of +them has, I think, ever described an ordinary lover—the sort +of person who is nothing of a biological surprise, the kind of +person who woos on a suburban court in Surbiton or Wimbledon +and marries in a hideous red brick church to the cheerful +accompaniment of confetti and the Wedding March. I do not +think either of them can really enter into the ordinary emotions +of life. They could neither of them write, I fancy, a really +typical novel—that is, a tale about the folks who do the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +conventional things. Chesterton always sees everything upside +down. If the man on Notting Hill sees it as a bustling area, +Chesterton sees it as a place upon which a Napoleon might +fall. Shaw, on the other hand, could not write of ordinary +things because he is usually contemptuous of them. If Chesterton +thinks education is a failure it is because the conventional +method irritates him; Shaw considers that education +does not educate a man, it 'merely moulds him.'</p> + +<p>I am not sure that Mr. Skimpole, in his brilliant study of +Bernard Shaw, is quite correct when he says 'the whole case +against Chesterton, of course, is that he is a Romantic.' Why +is it a something against him that he chooses to be an idealist? +Because, says Mr. Skimpole, 'he does not seem to have +grasped the fact that the most important difference between the +Real and the Ideal aspects of anything is that while the Ideal +is permanent and unchangeable as an angel, the Real requires an +everlasting circle of changes.' I am rather afraid Mr. Skimpole +is talking through a certain covering that adorns his head. +Cannot he see that very often the ideal is nothing less than the +real? It is no case against Chesterton that he is a Romantic +so long as the fact is duly recognized. If he considers certain +institutions are permanent which may be said to be ideal (for +instance, that marriage is a sacrament), he is just as likely to be +as right as is Mr. Shaw when he contends that marriage must +be made to fit the times, even if it be granted it is a Divine +thing.</p> + +<p>If Shaw is unable to see that most earthly things have a +heavenly meaning, as Chesterton does, it is so much the worse +for Shaw and so much the better for Chesterton. If Chesterton +is a dangerous Romantic who likes Fairyland, at least Shaw is a +dangerous eugenist who wants a super-man, and I am not +sure that the fairies of Chesterton are not more useful than the +ethics of Shaw; there is no doubt that they are less grown up. +If Shaw is a philosopher, he is not one of this Universe; he is of +another that shall be entirely sub-Shavian. If Chesterton is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +philosopher, it is because he can see this universe better upside +down than Shaw understands it the right way up.</p> + +<p>In fact, the difference between Shaw and Chesterton may, +I think, be something like this. They are, as I have said, both +reformers, but Chesterton wishes to keep man as he is essentially, +and gradually make him something better. Shaw wants to +have done with man and produce a super-man. In this way +Shaw admits the failure of man to rise above his environment. +Chesterton not only thinks he is able to, but tries to prove it in +his writings. Thus, if a man is an atheist he can show that he +is in time capable of becoming a good theist, but Shaw if he +allows some of his characters to be in hell, gets them out of it +by attempting to make them strive for the super-man. For +Chesterton, Man is the Super-Man; for Shaw, the Super-Man +is not Man at all.</p> + +<p>In fact, this no doubt is the reason that Shaw is really a +pessimist and Chesterton an optimist.</p> + +<p>There is, I think, little doubt that Chesterton is a far more +important man than Shaw. He has the facility for getting hold +of the things that matter; he is never ill-natured; he does not +make fun of other people. Much as the writer admires the +wit and brilliancy of Shaw, he cannot help feeling that Shaw +is a rather cynical personality; Shaw loves to laugh at people, +he is inclined to make fun of the martyrs. They were +possibly quite mistaken in their enthusiasm, but at least they +were consistent. I do not feel convinced that Shaw would +stand in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and keep his ideals if +he knew that it would involve being eaten by lions that came +up Regent Street, as the martyrs faced them centuries ago in +Rome, but I have little doubt that Chesterton would remain in +Piccadilly Circus if he knew that he would be eaten unless he +denied that marriage was a Divine institution.</p> + +<p>In a word, Shaw bases his Philosophy and Plays on a contempt +for all existing institutions. Chesterton bases his +Writings and Philosophy on genial good nature and a respect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +for the things that are important. Therefore I think that +Shaw has not made such a permanent contribution to thought +as Chesterton certainly has; even if it is only in showing that +the Christian religion is reasonable.</p> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="Chapter_Fourteen" id="Chapter_Fourteen"></a><i><span class="dropcap2">C</span>hapter <span class="dropcap3">F</span>ourteen</i></h2> + +<h3 class="chapter2">CONCLUSION</h3> + + +<p><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="upper">here</span> was a time in history when the ancient world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +searched in vain for the truth. It produced men of the +type of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates; they were great +philosophers who looked at the world in which they lived and +asked what it meant. Was it material? Was it spiritual? Was +it temporary? Was it eternal? Men were dissatisfied. And +about that time a greater Philosopher came in the wake of a +star, and men called Him Christ.</p> + +<p>It is the twentieth century, and the Man the ancient world +called Christ founded the religion which His followers were to +take to the ends of the earth. Yet men are still dissatisfied; +philosophers look out of their high-walled windows and watch +the modern world, which goes on; men die and are forgotten; +creeds spring up for a day and pass; writers produce books, and +in their turn pass away.</p> + +<p>Of this century Chesterton is one of the great thinkers. It is, +I think, a mistake not to take him seriously. If he is phantastic, +there is a meaning behind his phantasy; if he laughs, the world +need not think that he is frivolous. He is a prophet, and he +has honour in his own country.</p> + +<p>Chesterton is still a young man; he is young in soul and +body. Like Peter Pan he does not grow up, yet he is a famous +man; he has written great books, he has written fine poems, +he has written brilliant essays, but he has never written a book +with an appeal to an unthinking public that reads to kill +thought. I wonder whether Chesterton would write a +'Philosophy for the Unthinking Man'? I think he is the one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +man of the day who could do it, and I think it might be his +greatest book.</p> + +<p>I have attempted in this book to draw a picture of the +works of Chesterton. They are not easy to deal with; they +may mean many things. I have not attempted to forecast the +future of Chesterton, strong as the temptation has been, but +I have endeavoured to place before those who know Chesterton +what it is they admire in him; and for those who only know +him as a name, I hope that this book may induce them to read +the most arresting writer of the day, who is known in every +country as the Master of Paradox, which is to say that he is +the Master of the Temple of Understanding.</p> + +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="minispace"> </div> +<div class="tnote" style="margin-left: 13%; margin-right: 13%;"> +<h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3> +<br /> +The following typographical errors have been corrected:<br /> +<br /> +Page <a href="#period">16:</a> A period was added after "period." (keen survey of the Dickens period.)<br /> + +Page <a href="#cricle">25:</a> "cricle" changed to "circle." (but mentioned in a small circle)<br /> + + Page <a href="#task">36:</a> ' added after "task." (Thackeray's 'most difficult task.')<br /> + +Page <a href="#Dickens">42:</a> "Dicken's" changed to "Dickens'." (Had Dickens' life been uneventful,)<br /> + + Page <a href="#temp">50:</a> ' deleted after "temperament." (French temperament.)<br /> + + Page <a href="#rock">63:</a> ' added after "Peter." (rock of Peter.')<br /> + + Page <a href="#victors">64:</a> ' deleted after "victors." (astonished the victors.)<br /> + +Page <a href="#double">69:</a> " changed to ' after "king." (To be an English king.')<br /> + +Page <a href="#punc">72:</a> !' added after "charge." ('Spears at the charge!')<br /> + +Page <a href="#supercillious">111:</a> "supercillious" changed to "supercilious" (be either condescending or supercilious;)<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +All other language, spelling, and punctuation has been retained. +<br /> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 27569-h.txt or 27569-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/5/6/27569">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/5/6/27569</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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