children. He is often to be seen playing games with them or telling them
fairy stories; he is an optimist, and no 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
_Chapter Twelve_
HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE
In a very admirable discussion on the word 'great,' in his 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
It is a difficult thing for a great writer to be a great critic. He is
liable to be either condescending or supercilious; 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.
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.
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 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.
_Chapter Thirteen_
G.K.C. AND G.B.S.
It would be a very interesting problem to try and discover 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 _Hibbert
Journal_ 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
_Daily Herald_ 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.
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.
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 Moliere of the twentieth century, and
posed until it was expected of him.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.'
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.