To Frances
THIS CHAPTER CAN be written only by Gilbert himself. It might seem
that he had no words left for an emotion heightened beyond the love
of his friends and the joyous acceptance of existence. But in these
letters he shows the truth of his own theory, that to love each thing
separately strengthens the power of loving, to have tried to love
everyone is, as he tells Frances, no bad preparation for loving her.
The emotion of falling in love had both intensified his appreciation
of all things and cast for him a vivid light on past, present and
future, so that in the last of these letters he sketches his life
down to the moment when a new life begins.
". . . I am looking over the sea and endeavouring to reckon up the
estate I have to offer you. As far as I can make out my equipment for
starting on a journey to fairyland consists of the following items.
"1st. A Straw Hat. The oldest part of this admirable relic shows
traces of pure Norman work. The vandalism of Cromwell's soldiers has
left us little of the original hat-band.
"2nd. A Walking Stick, very knobby and heavy: admirably fitted to
break the head of any denizen of Suffolk who denies that you are the
noblest of ladies, but of no other manifest use.
"3rd. A copy of Walt Whitman's poems, once nearly given to Salter,
but quite forgotten. It has his name in it still with an affectionate
inscription from his sincere friend Gilbert Chesterton. I wonder if
he will ever have it.
"4th. A number of letters from a young lady, containing everything
good and generous and loyal and holy and wise that isn't in Walt
Whitman's poems.
"5th. An unwieldy sort of a pocket knife, the blades mostly having an
edge of a more varied and picturesque outline than is provided by the
prosaic cutter. The chief element however is a thing 'to take stones
out of a horse's hoof.' What a beautiful sensation of security it
gives one to reflect that if one should ever have money enough to buy
a horse and should happen to buy one and the horse should happen to
have a stone in his hoof--that one is ready; one stands prepared,
with a defiant smile!
"6th. Passing from the last miracle of practical foresight, we come
to a box of matches. Every now and then I strike one of these,
because fire is beautiful and burns your fingers. Some people think
this waste of matches: the same people who object to the building of
Cathedrals.
"7th. About three pounds in gold and silver, the remains of one of
Mr. Unwin's bursts of affection: those explosions of spontaneous love
for myself, which, such is the perfect order and harmony of his mind,
occur at startlingly exact intervals of time.
"8th. A book of Children's Rhymes, in manuscript, called the 'Weather
Book' about ¾ finished, and destined for Mr. Nutt.* I have been
working at it fairly steadily, which I think jolly creditable under
the circumstances. One can't put anything interesting in it. They'll
understand those things when they grow up.
[* _Greybeards at Play_.]
"9th. A tennis racket--nay, start not. It is a part of the new
régime, and the only new and neat-looking thing in the Museum. We'll
soon mellow it--like the straw hat. My brother and I are teaching
each other lawn tennis.
"10th. A soul, hitherto idle and omnivorous but now happy enough to
be ashamed of itself.
"11th. A body, equally idle and quite equally omnivorous, absorbing
tea, coffee, claret, sea-water and oxygen to its own perfect
satisfaction. It is happiest swimming, I think, the sea being about a
convenient size.
"12th. A Heart--mislaid somewhere. And that is about all the property
of which an inventory can be made at present. After all, my tastes
are stoically simple. A straw hat, a stick, a box of matches and some
of his own poetry. What more does man require? . . ."
". . . The City of Felixstowe, as seen by the local prophet from the
neighbouring mountain-peak, does not strike the eye as having
anything uncanny about it. At least I imagine that it requires rather
careful scrutiny before the eerie curl of a chimney pot, or the elfin
wink of a lonely lamp-post brings home to the startled soul that it
is really the City of a Fearful Folk. That the inhabitants are not
human in the ordinary sense is quite clear, yet it has only just
begun to dawn on me after staying a week in the Town of Unreason with
its monstrous landscape and grave, unmeaning customs. Do I seem to be
raving? Let me give my experiences.
"I am bound to admit that I do not think I am good at shopping. I
generally succeed in getting rid of money, but other observances,
such as bringing away the goods that I've paid for, and knowing what
I've bought, I often pass over as secondary. But to shop in a town of
ordinary tradesmen is one thing: to shop in a town of raving lunatics
is another. I set out one morning, happy and hopeful with the
intention of buying (a) a tennis racket (b) some tennis balls (c)
some tennis shoes (d) a ticket for a tennis ground. I went to the
shop pointed out by some villager (probably mad) and went in and said
I believed they kept tennis rackets. The young man smiled and
assented. I suggested that he might show me some. The young man
looked positively alarmed. 'Oh,' he said, 'We haven't got any--not
got any here.' I asked 'Where?' 'Oh, they're out you know. All
round,' he explained wildly, with a graphic gesture in the direction
of the sea and the sky. 'All out round. We've left them all round at
places.' To this day I don't know what he meant, but I merely asked
when they would quit these weird retreats. He said in an hour: in an
hour I called again. Were they in now? 'Well not in--not in, just
yet,' he said with a sort of feverish confidentialness, as if he
wasn't quite well. 'Are they still--all out at places?' I asked with
restrained humour. 'Oh no!' he said with a burst of reassuring pride.
'They are only out there--out behind, you know.' I hope my face
expressed my beaming comprehension of the spot alluded to.
Eventually, at a third visit, the rackets were produced. None of
them, I was told by my brother, were of any first-class maker, so
that was outside the question. The choice was between some good, neat
first-hand instruments which suited me, and some seedy-looking
second-hand objects with plain deal handles, which would have done at
a pinch. I thought that perhaps it would be better to get a
good-class racket in London and content myself for the present with
economising on one of these second-hand monuments of depression. So I
asked the price. '10/6' was the price of the second-hand article. I
thought this large for the tool, and wondered if the first-hand
rackets were much dearer. What price the first-hand? '7/6' said the
Creature, cheery as a bird. I did not faint. I am strong.
"I rejected the article which was dearer because it had been hallowed
by human possession, and accepted the cheap, new crude racket. Except
the newness there was no difference between them whatever. I then
asked the smiling Maniac for balls. He brought me a selection of
large red globes nearly as big as Dutch cheeses. I said, 'Are these
tennis-balls?' He said, 'Oh did you want tennis-balls?' I said
Yes--they often came in handy at tennis. The goblin was however quite
impervious to satire, and I left him endeavouring to draw my
attention to his wares in general, particularly to some zinc baths
which he seemed to think should form part of the equipment of a
tennis-player.
"Never before or since have I met a being of that order and degree of
creepiness. He was a nightmare of unmeaning idiocy. But some mention
ought to be made of the old man at the entrance to the tennis ground
who opened his mouth in parables on the subject of the fee for
playing there. He seemed to have been wound up to make only one
remark, 'It's sixpence.' Under these circumstances the attempt to
discover whether the sixpence covered a day's tennis or a week or
fifty years was rather baffling. At last I put down the sixpence.
This seemed to galvanise him into life. He looked at the clock, which
was indicating five past eleven and said, 'It's sixpence an hour--so
you'll be all right till two.' I fled screaming.
"Since then I have examined the town more carefully and feel the
presence of something nameless. There is a claw-curl in the sea-bent
trees, an eye-gleam in the dark flints in the wall that is not of
this world.
"When we set up a house, darling (honeysuckle porch, yew clipt hedge,
bees, poetry and eight shillings a week), I think you will have to do
the shopping. Particularly at Felixstowe. There was a great and
glorious man who said, 'Give us the luxuries of life and we will
dispense with the necessities.' That I think would be a splendid
motto to write (in letters of brown gold) over the porch of our
hypothetical home. There will be a sofa for you, for example, but no
chairs, for I prefer the floor. There will be a select store of
chocolate-creams (to make you do the Carp with) and the rest will be
bread and water. We will each retain a suit of evening dress for
great occasions, and at other times clothe ourselves in the skins of
wild beasts (how pretty you would look) which would fit your taste in
furs and be economical.
"I have sometimes thought it would be very fine to take an ordinary
house, a very poor, commonplace house in West Kensington, say, and
make it symbolic. Not artistic--Heaven--O Heaven forbid. My blood
boils when I think of the affronts put by knock-kneed pictorial
epicures on the strong, honest, ugly, patient shapes of necessary
things: the brave old bones of life. There are aesthetic pottering
prigs who can look on a saucepan without one tear of joy or sadness:
mongrel decadents that can see no dignity in the honourable scars of
a kettle. So they concentrate all their house decoration on coloured
windows that nobody looks out of, and vases of lilies that everybody
wishes out of the way. No: my idea (which is much cheaper) is to make
a house really allegoric: really explain its own essential meaning.
Mystical or ancient sayings should be inscribed on every object, the
more prosaic the object the better; and the more coarsely and rudely
the inscription was traced the better. 'Hast thou sent the Rain upon
the Earth?' should be inscribed on the Umbrella-stand: perhaps on the
Umbrella. 'Even the Hairs of your Head are all numbered' would give a
tremendous significance to one's hairbrushes: the words about 'living
water' would reveal the music and sanctity of the sink: while 'our
God is a consuming Fire' might be written over the kitchen-grate, to
assist the mystic musings of the cook--Shall we ever try that
experiment, dearest. Perhaps not, for no words would be golden enough
for the tools you had to touch: you would be beauty enough for one
house. . . ."
". . . By all means let us have bad things in our dwelling and make
them good things. I shall offer no objection to your having an
occasional dragon to dinner, or a penitent Griffin to sleep in the
spare bed. The image of you taking a Sunday school of little Devils
is pleasing. They will look up, first in savage wonder, then in vague
respect; they will see the most glorious and noble lady that ever
lived since their prince tempted Eve, with a halo of hair and great
heavenly eyes that seem to make the good at the heart of things
almost too terribly simple and naked for the sons of flesh: and as
they gaze, their tails will drop off, and their wings will sprout:
and they will become Angels in six lessons. . . .
"I cannot profess to offer any elaborate explanation of your mother's
disquiet but I admit it does not wholly surprise me. You see I happen
to know one factor in the case, and one only, of which you are wholly
ignorant. I know you . . . I know one thing which has made me feel
strange before your mother--I know the value of what I take away. I
feel (in a weird moment) like the Angel of Death.
"You say you want to talk to me about death: my views about death are
bright, brisk and entertaining. When Azrael takes a soul it may be to
other and brighter worlds: like those whither you and I go together.
The transformation called Death may be something as beautiful and
dazzling as the transformation called Love. It may make the dead man
'happy,' just as your mother knows that you are happy. But none the
less it is a transformation, and sad sometimes for those left behind.
A mother whose child is dying can hardly believe that in the
inscrutable Unknown there is anyone who can look to it as well as
she. And if a mother cannot trust her child easily to God Almighty,
shall I be so mean as to be angry because she cannot trust it easily
to me? I tell you I have stood before your mother and felt like a
thief. I know you are not going to part: neither physically,
mentally, morally nor spiritually. But she sees a new element in your
life, wholly from outside--is it not natural, given her temperament,
that you should find her perturbed? Oh, dearest, dearest Frances, let
us always be very gentle to older people. Indeed, darling, it is not
they who are the tyrants, but we. They may interrupt our building in
the scaffolding stages: we turn their house upside down when it is
their final home and rest. Your mother would certainly have worried
if you had been engaged to the Archangel Michael (who, indeed, is
bearing his disappointment very well): how much more when you are
engaged to an aimless, tactless, reckless, unbrushed, strange-hatted,
opinionated scarecrow who has suddenly walked into the vacant place.
I could have prophesied her unrest: wait and she will calm down all
right, dear. God comfort her: I dare not. . . ."
". . . Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born of comfortable but honest
parents on the top of Campden Hill, Kensington. He was christened at
St. George's Church which stands just under that more imposing
building, the Waterworks Tower. This place was chosen, apparently, in
order that the whole available water supply might be used in the
intrepid attempt to make him a member of Christ, a child of God and
an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven.
"Of the early years of this remarkable man few traces remain. One of
his earliest recorded observations was the simple exclamation, full
of heart-felt delight, 'Look at Baby. Funny Baby.' Here we see the
first hint of that ineffable conversational modesty, that shy social
self-effacement, which has ever hidden his light under a bushel. His
mother also recounts with apparent amusement an incident connected
with his imperious demand for his father's top-hat. 'Give me that
hat, please.' 'No, dear, you mustn't have that.' 'Give me that hat.'
'No, dear--' 'If you don't give it me, I'll say 'At.' An exquisite
selection in the matter of hats has indeed always been one of the
great man's hobbies.
"When he had drawn pictures on all the blinds and tablecloths and
towels and walls and windowpanes it was felt that he required a
larger sphere. Consequently he was sent to Mr. Bewsher who gave him
desks and copy-books and Latin grammars and atlases to draw pictures
on. He was far too innately conscientious not to use these materials
to draw on. To other uses, asserted by some to belong to these
objects, he paid little heed. The only really curious thing about his
school life was that he had a weird and quite involuntary habit of
getting French prizes. They were the only ones he ever got and he
never tried to get them. But though the thing was quite mysterious to
him, and though he made every effort to avoid it, it went on, being
evidently a part of some occult natural law.
"For the first half of his time at school he was very solitary and
futile. He never regretted the time, for it gave him two things,
complete mental self-sufficiency and a comprehension of the
psychology of outcasts.
"But one day, as he was roaming about a great naked building land
which he haunted in play hours, rather like an outlaw in the woods,
he met a curious agile youth with hair brushed up off his head.
Seeing each other, they promptly hit each other simultaneously and
had a fight. Next day they met again and fought again. These Homeric
conflicts went on for many days, till one morning in the crisis of
some insane grapple, the subject of this biography quoted, like a
war-chant, something out of Macaulay's _Lays_. The other started and
relaxed his hold. They gazed at each other. Then the foe quoted the
following line. In this land of savages they knew each other. For the
next two hours they talked books. They have talked books ever since.
The boy was Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The incident just narrated is
the true and real account of the first and deepest of our hero's male
connections. But another was to ensue, probably equally profound and
far more pregnant with awful and dazzling consequences. Bentley
always had a habit of trying to do things well: twelve years of the
other's friendship has not cured him of this. Being seized with a
peculiar desire to learn conjuring, he had made the acquaintance of
an eerie and supernatural young man, who instructed him in the Black
Art: a gaunt Mephistophelian sort of individual, who our subject half
thought was a changeling. Our subject has not quite got over the idea
yet, though for practical social purposes he calls him Lucian
Oldershaw. Our subject met Lucian Oldershaw. 'That night,' as
Shakespeare says, 'there was a star.'
"These three persons soon became known through the length and breadth
of St. Paul's School as the founders of a singular brotherhood. It
was called the J.D.C. No one, we believe, could ever have had better
friends than did the hero of this narrative. We wish that we could
bring before the reader the personality of all the Knights of that
eccentric round table. Most of them are known already to the reader.
Even the subject himself is possibly known to the reader. Bertram,
who seemed somehow to have been painted by Vandyck, a sombre and
stately young man, a blend of Cavalier and Puritan, with the physique
of a military father and the views of an ethical mother and a soul of
his own which for sheer simplicity is something staggering. Vernède
with an Oriental and inscrutable placidity varied every now and then
with dazzling agility and Meredithian humour. Waldo d'Avigdor who
masks with complete fashionable triviality a Hebraic immutability of
passion tried in a more ironical and bitter service than his Father
Jacob. Lawrence and Maurice Solomon, who show another side of the
same people, the love of home, the love of children, the meek and
malicious humour, the tranquil service of a law. Salter who shows how
beautiful and ridiculous a combination can be made of the most
elaborate mental cultivation and artistic sensibility and omniscience
with a receptiveness and a humility extraordinary in any man. These
were his friends. May he be forgiven for speaking of them at length
and with pride? Some day we hope the reader may know them all. He
knew these people; he knew their friends. He heard Mildred Wain say
'Blogg' and he thought it was a funny name. Had he been told that he
would ever pronounce it with the accents of tears and passion he
would have said, in his pride, that the name was not suitable for
that purpose. But there are _oukh eph' emin_ [Greek characters in
original]. . . .
"He went for a time to an Art School. There he met a great many
curious people. Many of the men were horrible blackguards: he was not
exactly that: so they naturally found each other interesting. He went
through some rather appalling discoveries about human life and the
final discovery was that there is no Devil--no, not even such a thing
as a bad man.
"One pleasant Saturday afternoon Lucian said to him, 'I am going to
take you to see the Bloggs.' 'The what?' said the unhappy man. 'The
Bloggs,' said the other, darkly. Naturally assuming that it was the
name of a public-house he reluctantly followed his friend. He came to
a small front-garden; if it was a public-house it was not a
businesslike one. They raised the latch--they rang the bell (if the
bell was not in the close time just then). No flower in the pots
winked. No brick grinned. No sign in Heaven or earth warned him. The
birds sang on in the trees. He went in.
"The first time he spent an evening at the Bloggs there was no one
there. That is to say there was a worn but fiery little lady in a
grey dress who didn't approve of 'catastrophic solutions of social
problems.' That, he understood, was Mrs. Blogg. There was a long,
blonde, smiling young person who seemed to think him quite off his
head and who was addressed as Ethel. There were two people whose
meaning and status he couldn't imagine, one of whom had a big nose
and the other hadn't. . . . Lastly, there was a Juno-like creature in
a tremendous hat who eyed him all the time half wildly, like a shying
horse, because he said he was quite happy. . . .
"But the second time he went there he was plumped down on a sofa
beside a being of whom he had a vague impression that brown hair grew
at intervals all down her like a caterpillar. Once in the course of
conversation she looked straight at him and he said to himself as
plainly as if he had read it in a book: 'If I had anything to do with
this girl I should go on my knees to her: if I spoke with her she
would never deceive me: if I depended on her she would never deny me:
if I loved her she would never play with me: if I trusted her she
would never go back on me: if I remembered her she would never forget
me. I may never see her again. Goodbye.' It was all said in a flash:
but it was all said. . . .
"Two years, as they say in the playbills, is supposed to elapse. And
here is the subject of this memoir sitting on a balcony above the
sea. The time, evening. He is thinking of the whole bewildering
record of which the foregoing is a brief outline: he sees how far he
has gone wrong and how idle and wasteful and wicked he has often
been: how miserably unfitted he is for what he is called upon to be.
Let him now declare it and hereafter for ever hold his peace.
"But there are four lamps of thanksgiving always before him. The
first is for his creation out of the same earth with such a woman as
you. The second is that he has not, with all his faults, 'gone after
strange women.' You cannot think how a man's self-restraint is
rewarded in this. The third is that he has tried to love everything
alive: a dim preparation for loving you. And the fourth is--but no
words can express that. Here ends my previous existence. Take it: it
led me to you."