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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
'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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 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?
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.'
_Chapter Ten_
'THE NEW JERUSALEM'
There are four ways of going to Jerusalem--the one 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.
'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.
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.'
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 a sort of Harrods,
that sums up anything from a Rolls Royce to a packet of pins.
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.
* * * * *
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 [Greek: ioudaios] 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 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.
* * * * *
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.
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.
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.
_Chapter Eleven_
MR. CHESTERTON AT HOME
There is a very remarkable fascination about the home 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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.
If there is one thing that is characteristic of Chesterton, 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.
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.
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.
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 naturally mostly interested in books. Given a
kindred soul the two will talk and laugh by the hour.
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.
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.
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.
* * * * *