~G.K. Chesterton: Charles Dickens, Chap. I.
Discover the Wit & Wisdom of Gilbert Keith Chesterton
3/22/15
"Why have we no great men?"
"WE ARE then able to answer in some manner the question, 'Why have we no great men?' We have no great men chiefly because we are always looking for them. We are connoisseurs of greatness, and connoisseurs can never be great; we are fastidious, that is, we are small."
~G.K. Chesterton: Charles Dickens, Chap. I.
~G.K. Chesterton: Charles Dickens, Chap. I.
3/21/15
The Legend of the Sword
A STRANGE STORY is told of the Spanish-American War, of a sort that sounds like the echo of some elder epic: of how an active Yankee, pursuing the enemy, came at last to a forgotten Spanish station on an island and felt as if he had intruded on the presence of a ghost. For he found in a house hung with ragged Cordova leather and old gold tapestries, a Spaniard as out of time as Don Quixote, who had no weapon but an ancient sword. This he declared his family had kept bright and sharp since the days of Cortes: and it may be imagined with what a smile the American regarded it, standing spick and span with his Sam Browne belt and his new service revolver.
His amusement was naturally increased when he found, moored close by, the gilded skeleton of an old galley. When the Spanish spectre sprang on board, brandishing his useless weapon, and his captor followed, the whole parted amidships and the two were left clinging to a spar. And here (says the legend) the story took a strange turn: for they floated far on this rude raft together: and were ultimately cast up on a desert island.
The shelving shores if the island were covered with a jungle of rush and tall grasses; which it was necessary to clear away, both to make space for a hut and to plait mats or curtains for it. With an activity rather surprising in one so slow and old-fashioned, the Spaniard drew his sword and began to use it in the manner of a scythe. The other asked if he could assist.
“This, as you say, is a rude and antiquated tool,” replied the swordsman, “and your own is a weapon of precision and promptitude. If, therefore, you (with your unerring aim) will condescend to shoot off each blade of grass, at one time, who can doubt that the task will be more rapidly accomplished?”
The face of the Iberian, under the closest scrutiny, seemed full of gravity and even gloom: and the work continued in silence. In spite of his earthly toils, however, the Hidalgo contrived to remain reasonably neat and spruce: and the puzzle was partially solved one morning when the American, rising early, found his comrade shaving himself with the sword, which that foolish family legend had kept particularly keen.
“A man with no earthly possessions but an old iron blade,” said the Spaniard apologetically, “must shave himself as best he can. But you, equipped as you are with every luxury of silence, will have no difficulty in shooting off your whiskers with a pistol.”
So far from profiting by this graceful felicitation, the modern traveler seemed for a moment a little ruffled or put out: then he said abruptly, unslinging his revolver, “Well, I guess I can’t eat my whiskers, anyhow; and this little toy may be more use in getting breakfast.”
And blazing away rapidly and with admirable aim, he brought down five birds and emptied his revolver.
“Let me assure you, said the other courteously, “that you have provided the materials for more than one elegant repast. Only after that, you ammunition being exhausted, shall we have to fall back on a clumsy trick of mine, of spiking the fish on a sword.”
“You can spike me now, I suppose, as well as the fish,” said the other bitterly. “We seem to have sunk back into a state of barbarism.”
“We have sunk into a state,” said the Spaniard, nodding gravely, “in which we can get anything we want with what have got already.”
“But,” cried the American, “that is the end of all Progress!”
“I wonder whether it matters much which end?” said the other.
~G.K. Chesterton
His amusement was naturally increased when he found, moored close by, the gilded skeleton of an old galley. When the Spanish spectre sprang on board, brandishing his useless weapon, and his captor followed, the whole parted amidships and the two were left clinging to a spar. And here (says the legend) the story took a strange turn: for they floated far on this rude raft together: and were ultimately cast up on a desert island.
The shelving shores if the island were covered with a jungle of rush and tall grasses; which it was necessary to clear away, both to make space for a hut and to plait mats or curtains for it. With an activity rather surprising in one so slow and old-fashioned, the Spaniard drew his sword and began to use it in the manner of a scythe. The other asked if he could assist.
“This, as you say, is a rude and antiquated tool,” replied the swordsman, “and your own is a weapon of precision and promptitude. If, therefore, you (with your unerring aim) will condescend to shoot off each blade of grass, at one time, who can doubt that the task will be more rapidly accomplished?”
The face of the Iberian, under the closest scrutiny, seemed full of gravity and even gloom: and the work continued in silence. In spite of his earthly toils, however, the Hidalgo contrived to remain reasonably neat and spruce: and the puzzle was partially solved one morning when the American, rising early, found his comrade shaving himself with the sword, which that foolish family legend had kept particularly keen.
“A man with no earthly possessions but an old iron blade,” said the Spaniard apologetically, “must shave himself as best he can. But you, equipped as you are with every luxury of silence, will have no difficulty in shooting off your whiskers with a pistol.”
So far from profiting by this graceful felicitation, the modern traveler seemed for a moment a little ruffled or put out: then he said abruptly, unslinging his revolver, “Well, I guess I can’t eat my whiskers, anyhow; and this little toy may be more use in getting breakfast.”
And blazing away rapidly and with admirable aim, he brought down five birds and emptied his revolver.
“Let me assure you, said the other courteously, “that you have provided the materials for more than one elegant repast. Only after that, you ammunition being exhausted, shall we have to fall back on a clumsy trick of mine, of spiking the fish on a sword.”
“You can spike me now, I suppose, as well as the fish,” said the other bitterly. “We seem to have sunk back into a state of barbarism.”
“We have sunk into a state,” said the Spaniard, nodding gravely, “in which we can get anything we want with what have got already.”
“But,” cried the American, “that is the end of all Progress!”
“I wonder whether it matters much which end?” said the other.
~G.K. Chesterton
3/18/15
On Private Property
When Captain Nicholas Nicholson found himself falling head downwards through empty space, the whole of his previous life passed before him. At least if it did not, the narrator of his adventures will certainly say it did; as it affords that unscrupulous scribe the most rapid method of describing who the Captain was and how he happened to be in mid air at the moment. He would describe at some length the life at public school, the first faint stirring of the human brain at Cambridge, the joining of a Socialist society, the growing belief in social order and system of the German type so abruptly interrupted by enlistment in 1914, the incident of the girl in the tea-shop of whom he could never find further traces, the quarrel with the solicitor who had put all the family patrimony to the higher purposes of finance, and finally the experiences in the Air Force which had terminated in the way described above.
He never heard himself crash; but he came to semi-consciousness in an atmosphere of racking clamour which gradually lessened till he heard voices round him; one saying something about somebody having an artificial leg and the other observing that such legs were very beautifully made nowadays. Then he relapsed into unconsciousness with an under current of pain; and woke in a white light to see men standing about in white clothes and wearing spectacles; he supposed they were Prussians, but their faces looked hard and alien enough to be Chinese. The talk was still of the excellence of artificial limbs; and looking down, Nicholas saw that his own legs had been replaced by lengths of shining steel rods with mechanical joints of glittering complexity.
“Well,” he said, forcing his courage to cheerfulness, “by your account it is almost as good as having real ones.”
“It is much better,” said a man with shaven head and shining spectacles, without a movement in his wooden face, “The leg of nature is a most inefficient instrument.”
“Come now,” said Nicholas, “if that were true you might just as well cut off my arms as well.”
“We are going to,” said the man in goggles.
Darkness redescended and when he awoke he was sitting up with metal arms and legs and looking down a long white-washed corridor; and the man at his side told him breakfast would be ready in half-an-hour. They walked passed rows of doors, as in the passages of an hotel, and outside each door stood a pair of steel legs, newly burnished, like the boots left outside bedrooms to be cleaned.
“You won’t want your legs at breakfast,” said his companion; and such was clearly the case; for he was lowered by a sort of chain from above so that his truncated body fitted into a hole in the long benches flanking the tables. He has left his legs in a sort of cloakroom, duly receiving a ticket. He said something about exercise; and was gravely told that after the meal (which was of a simple but scientific sort) he would parade for a proper constitutional in the grounds. It is true that when the time came for this, he was in turn relieved of his arms, by another official (duly receiving a ticket for them) since science had already determined that arms are not used in walking or legs in eating.
After this his story becomes a little confused; there are improbable passages about his renewing the quarrel with the solicitor and sending for legs to kick him, or reunion with the tea-shop girl and a temporary lack of arms with which to embrace her; but familiar faces and old emotions often come back in this confused way in dreams; and this experience must be regarded as a dream; for he shortly woke up in an ordinary hospital and found the world had not yet progressed quite so far as he had fancied.
~G.K. Chesterton
(from Daylight and Nightmare: Uncollected Stories and Fables by G.K. Chesterton)
He never heard himself crash; but he came to semi-consciousness in an atmosphere of racking clamour which gradually lessened till he heard voices round him; one saying something about somebody having an artificial leg and the other observing that such legs were very beautifully made nowadays. Then he relapsed into unconsciousness with an under current of pain; and woke in a white light to see men standing about in white clothes and wearing spectacles; he supposed they were Prussians, but their faces looked hard and alien enough to be Chinese. The talk was still of the excellence of artificial limbs; and looking down, Nicholas saw that his own legs had been replaced by lengths of shining steel rods with mechanical joints of glittering complexity.
“Well,” he said, forcing his courage to cheerfulness, “by your account it is almost as good as having real ones.”
“It is much better,” said a man with shaven head and shining spectacles, without a movement in his wooden face, “The leg of nature is a most inefficient instrument.”
“Come now,” said Nicholas, “if that were true you might just as well cut off my arms as well.”
“We are going to,” said the man in goggles.
Darkness redescended and when he awoke he was sitting up with metal arms and legs and looking down a long white-washed corridor; and the man at his side told him breakfast would be ready in half-an-hour. They walked passed rows of doors, as in the passages of an hotel, and outside each door stood a pair of steel legs, newly burnished, like the boots left outside bedrooms to be cleaned.
“You won’t want your legs at breakfast,” said his companion; and such was clearly the case; for he was lowered by a sort of chain from above so that his truncated body fitted into a hole in the long benches flanking the tables. He has left his legs in a sort of cloakroom, duly receiving a ticket. He said something about exercise; and was gravely told that after the meal (which was of a simple but scientific sort) he would parade for a proper constitutional in the grounds. It is true that when the time came for this, he was in turn relieved of his arms, by another official (duly receiving a ticket for them) since science had already determined that arms are not used in walking or legs in eating.
After this his story becomes a little confused; there are improbable passages about his renewing the quarrel with the solicitor and sending for legs to kick him, or reunion with the tea-shop girl and a temporary lack of arms with which to embrace her; but familiar faces and old emotions often come back in this confused way in dreams; and this experience must be regarded as a dream; for he shortly woke up in an ordinary hospital and found the world had not yet progressed quite so far as he had fancied.
~G.K. Chesterton
(from Daylight and Nightmare: Uncollected Stories and Fables by G.K. Chesterton)
3/15/15
The Return of Eve
When Man rose up out of the red mountains
Of which Man was made
A giant ribbed out of the red mountains
Reared and displayed.
Of him was not posterity nor parent
Future or past
But the sun beheld him for a beauteous monster
The first and last.
When God arose upon the red mountains
Man had fallen prone
Flat and flung wide like a continent, capes and headlands,
The vast limbs thrown.
And the Lord lamented over Man, saying “Never
Shall there be but one
For no man born shall be mighty as he was mighty
To amaze the sun.
“Not till I put upon me the red armour
That was man's clay
And walk the world with the mask of man for a vizor
Not till that day.
For on God alone shall the image of God be graven
Which Adam wore
Seeing I alone can lift up this load of ruin
To walk once more.”
But the Lord looked down on the beauty of Woman shattered,
A fallen sky,
Crying “O crown and wonder and world's desire”.
Shall this too die?
Lo, it repenteth me that this too is taken;
I will repay,
I will repair and repeat of the ancient pattern
Even in this clay.
“And this alone out of all things fallen and formless
I will form anew,
And this red lily of all the uprooted garden
Plant where it grew,
That the dear dead thing that was all and only a woman
Without stain or scar
Rise, fallen no more with Lucifer Son of Morning,
The Morning Star.”
The cloud came down upon the red mountains
Long since untrod,
Red quarries of incredible creation
Red mines of God.
And a dwarfed and dwindled race in the dark red deserts
Stumbled and strayed,
While one in the mortal shape that was once for immortals
Made, was remade.
Till a face looked forth from a window in one white daybreak
Small streets above
As the face of the first love of our first father,
The world's first love.
And men looked up at the woman made for the morning
When the stars were young,
For whom, more rude than a beggar's rhyme in the gutter,
These songs are sung.
~G.K. Chesterton
(early 1920's)
Of which Man was made
A giant ribbed out of the red mountains
Reared and displayed.
Of him was not posterity nor parent
Future or past
But the sun beheld him for a beauteous monster
The first and last.
When God arose upon the red mountains
Man had fallen prone
Flat and flung wide like a continent, capes and headlands,
The vast limbs thrown.
And the Lord lamented over Man, saying “Never
Shall there be but one
For no man born shall be mighty as he was mighty
To amaze the sun.
“Not till I put upon me the red armour
That was man's clay
And walk the world with the mask of man for a vizor
Not till that day.
For on God alone shall the image of God be graven
Which Adam wore
Seeing I alone can lift up this load of ruin
To walk once more.”
But the Lord looked down on the beauty of Woman shattered,
A fallen sky,
Crying “O crown and wonder and world's desire”.
Shall this too die?
Lo, it repenteth me that this too is taken;
I will repay,
I will repair and repeat of the ancient pattern
Even in this clay.
“And this alone out of all things fallen and formless
I will form anew,
And this red lily of all the uprooted garden
Plant where it grew,
That the dear dead thing that was all and only a woman
Without stain or scar
Rise, fallen no more with Lucifer Son of Morning,
The Morning Star.”
The cloud came down upon the red mountains
Long since untrod,
Red quarries of incredible creation
Red mines of God.
And a dwarfed and dwindled race in the dark red deserts
Stumbled and strayed,
While one in the mortal shape that was once for immortals
Made, was remade.
Till a face looked forth from a window in one white daybreak
Small streets above
As the face of the first love of our first father,
The world's first love.
And men looked up at the woman made for the morning
When the stars were young,
For whom, more rude than a beggar's rhyme in the gutter,
These songs are sung.
~G.K. Chesterton
(early 1920's)
3/14/15
Cheese
MY forthcoming work in five volumes, “The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature,” is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it is doubtful if I shall live to finish it. Some overflowings from such a fountain of information may therefore be permitted to sprinkle these pages. I cannot yet wholly explain the neglect to which I refer. Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. Virgil, if I remember right, refers to it several times, but with too much Roman restraint. He does not let himself go on cheese. The only other poet I can think of just now who seems to have had some sensibility on the point was the nameless author of the nursery rhyme which says: “If all the trees were bread and cheese” — which is, indeed a rich and gigantic vision of the higher gluttony. If all the trees were bread and cheese there would be considerable deforestation in any part of England where I was living. Wild and wide woodlands would reel and fade before me as rapidly as they ran after Orpheus. Except Virgil and this anonymous rhymer, I can recall no verse about cheese. Yet it has every quality which we require in exalted poetry. It is a short, strong word; it rhymes to “breeze” and “seas” (an essential point); that it is emphatic in sound is admitted even by the civilisation of the modern cities. For their citizens, with no apparent intention except emphasis, will often say, “Cheese it!” or even “Quite the cheese.” The substance itself is imaginative. It is ancient — sometimes in the individual case, always in the type and custom. It is simple, being directly derived from milk, which is one of the ancestral drinks, not lightly to be corrupted with soda-water. You know, I hope (though I myself have only just thought of it), that the four rivers of Eden were milk, water, wine, and ale. Aerated waters only appeared after the Fall.
But cheese has another quality, which is also the very soul of song. Once in endeavouring to lecture in several places at once, I made an eccentric journey across England, a journey of so irregular and even illogical shape that it necessitated my having lunch on four successive days in four roadside inns in four different counties. In each inn they had nothing but bread and cheese; nor can I imagine why a man should want more than bread and cheese, if he can get enough of it. In each inn the cheese was good; and in each inn it was different. There was a noble Wensleydale cheese in Yorkshire, a Cheshire cheese in Cheshire, and so on. Now, it is just here that true poetic civilisation differs from that paltry and mechanical civilisation which holds us all in bondage. Bad customs are universal and rigid, like modern militarism. Good customs are universal and varied, like native chivalry and self-defence. Both the good and bad civilisation cover us as with a canopy, and protect us from all that is outside. But a good civilisation spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilisation stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella — artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform. So it is with the contrast between the substances that vary and the substances that are the same wherever they penetrate. By a wise doom of heaven men were commanded to eat cheese, but not the same cheese. Being really universal it varies from valley to valley. But if, let us say, we compare cheese with soap (that vastly inferior substance), we shall see that soap tends more and more to be merely Smith’s Soap or Brown’s Soap, sent automatically all over the world. If the Red Indians have soap it is Smith’s Soap. If the Grand Lama has soap it is Brown’s soap. There is nothing subtly and strangely Buddhist, nothing tenderly Tibetan, about his soap. I fancy the Grand Lama does not eat cheese (he is not worthy), but if he does it is probably a local cheese, having some real relation to his life and outlook. Safety matches, tinned foods, patent medicines are sent all over the world; but they are not produced all over the world. Therefore there is in them a mere dead identity, never that soft play of slight variation which exists in things produced everywhere out of the soil, in the milk of the kine, or the fruits of the orchard. You can get a whisky and soda at every outpost of the Empire: that is why so many Empire-builders go mad. But you are not tasting or touching any environment, as in the cider of Devonshire or the grapes of the Rhine. You are not approaching Nature in one of her myriad tints of mood, as in the holy act of eating cheese.
When I had done my pilgrimage in the four wayside public-houses I reached one of the great northern cities, and there I proceeded, with great rapidity and complete inconsistency, to a large and elaborate restaurant, where I knew I could get many other things besides bread and cheese. I could get that also, however; or at least I expected to get it; but I was sharply reminded that I had entered Babylon, and left England behind. The waiter brought me cheese, indeed, but cheese cut up into contemptibly small pieces; and it is the awful fact that, instead of Christian bread, he brought me biscuits. Biscuits — to one who had eaten the cheese of four great countrysides! Biscuits — to one who had proved anew for himself the sanctity of the ancient wedding between cheese and bread! I addressed the waiter in warm and moving terms. I asked him who he was that he should put asunder those whom Humanity had joined. I asked him if he did not feel, as an artist, that a solid but yielding substance like cheese went naturally with a solid, yielding substance like bread; to eat it off biscuits is like eating it off slates. I asked him if, when he said his prayers, he was so supercilious as to pray for his daily biscuits. He gave me generally to understand that he was only obeying a custom of Modern Society. I have therefore resolved to raise my voice, not against the waiter, but against Modern Society, for this huge and unparalleled modern wrong.
~G.K. Chesterton
But cheese has another quality, which is also the very soul of song. Once in endeavouring to lecture in several places at once, I made an eccentric journey across England, a journey of so irregular and even illogical shape that it necessitated my having lunch on four successive days in four roadside inns in four different counties. In each inn they had nothing but bread and cheese; nor can I imagine why a man should want more than bread and cheese, if he can get enough of it. In each inn the cheese was good; and in each inn it was different. There was a noble Wensleydale cheese in Yorkshire, a Cheshire cheese in Cheshire, and so on. Now, it is just here that true poetic civilisation differs from that paltry and mechanical civilisation which holds us all in bondage. Bad customs are universal and rigid, like modern militarism. Good customs are universal and varied, like native chivalry and self-defence. Both the good and bad civilisation cover us as with a canopy, and protect us from all that is outside. But a good civilisation spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. A bad civilisation stands up and sticks out above us like an umbrella — artificial, mathematical in shape; not merely universal, but uniform. So it is with the contrast between the substances that vary and the substances that are the same wherever they penetrate. By a wise doom of heaven men were commanded to eat cheese, but not the same cheese. Being really universal it varies from valley to valley. But if, let us say, we compare cheese with soap (that vastly inferior substance), we shall see that soap tends more and more to be merely Smith’s Soap or Brown’s Soap, sent automatically all over the world. If the Red Indians have soap it is Smith’s Soap. If the Grand Lama has soap it is Brown’s soap. There is nothing subtly and strangely Buddhist, nothing tenderly Tibetan, about his soap. I fancy the Grand Lama does not eat cheese (he is not worthy), but if he does it is probably a local cheese, having some real relation to his life and outlook. Safety matches, tinned foods, patent medicines are sent all over the world; but they are not produced all over the world. Therefore there is in them a mere dead identity, never that soft play of slight variation which exists in things produced everywhere out of the soil, in the milk of the kine, or the fruits of the orchard. You can get a whisky and soda at every outpost of the Empire: that is why so many Empire-builders go mad. But you are not tasting or touching any environment, as in the cider of Devonshire or the grapes of the Rhine. You are not approaching Nature in one of her myriad tints of mood, as in the holy act of eating cheese.
When I had done my pilgrimage in the four wayside public-houses I reached one of the great northern cities, and there I proceeded, with great rapidity and complete inconsistency, to a large and elaborate restaurant, where I knew I could get many other things besides bread and cheese. I could get that also, however; or at least I expected to get it; but I was sharply reminded that I had entered Babylon, and left England behind. The waiter brought me cheese, indeed, but cheese cut up into contemptibly small pieces; and it is the awful fact that, instead of Christian bread, he brought me biscuits. Biscuits — to one who had eaten the cheese of four great countrysides! Biscuits — to one who had proved anew for himself the sanctity of the ancient wedding between cheese and bread! I addressed the waiter in warm and moving terms. I asked him who he was that he should put asunder those whom Humanity had joined. I asked him if he did not feel, as an artist, that a solid but yielding substance like cheese went naturally with a solid, yielding substance like bread; to eat it off biscuits is like eating it off slates. I asked him if, when he said his prayers, he was so supercilious as to pray for his daily biscuits. He gave me generally to understand that he was only obeying a custom of Modern Society. I have therefore resolved to raise my voice, not against the waiter, but against Modern Society, for this huge and unparalleled modern wrong.
~G.K. Chesterton
3/13/15
The Flying Vandal
THE curse of long distances, which is coming to be like the curse of large fortunes, threatens to have a very ruinous effect on one of the real glories of England. If there is one thing that the history of this country has preserved more than that of any other country it is the individuality of the small town. The turn of each street is unexpected; the feature of each market place is unique. They are in their very shape as quaint and elvish as their quaint and elvish names—Nether Wallop, or Stoke Poges, or Stow-in-the-Wold. Those who love liberty, those who love beauty, those who love the essential of English tradition, know that this variety turns England into Elfland.
But our immediate point is a particular fashion in which it is being swept away. The excuse is given that these angels and obstruction become death-traps when they are assailed with reckless and rapid motoring. Nobody seems to answer that reckless motoring is a danger to themselves. Old landmarks must be cleared away to give motorists a playground in which to play the fool, or a large and airy lethal chamber in which to commit suicide. It would puzzle the people of this mental caliber to tell them that in many great civilizations a man would have had to respect the gate and banner of an ancient municipality, or salute the gods of the city as he passed.
But, in any case, the following extraordinary principle is established. A monument in a market town does not belong to the market town; but only to a man who lives forty miles away to the south. To him the market is mere blur of dust and confused colours; he cares nothing about it; perhaps he does not even know its name. But he is the king of that city, who can order all monuments to fall. He can send pioneers on in front of him to cut down the oak under which Alfred sat or in which Charles was hidden, simply and solely because he cannot drive through the oak and will not bother to drive round it. He can knock off a large corner of a house in which Chaucer drank or Wolsey slept, simply because he prefers a curve to a corner when he is rushing blindly from Brighton to Charing Cross. The town he owns is not the town he inhabits, or even the town he wishes to reach. Never was there a safer or smoother form of imperial expansion. We have heard many tales of Big Bertha and the modern shelling of great cities from far away. The old English towns are to be shelled and shot to pieces from very far away. They are bombarded with cars, and not with cannon balls, and blown up with petrol instead of powder. But only long-range artillery is recognised as having any rights in the matter. The only principle recognised is that the village cross of Hugby-in-the-Hole must be immediately pulled down, to please a gentleman who lives in Mancheser and is very anxious to get to Margate.
G. K. C.
(Originally published in G.K.'s Weekly)
But our immediate point is a particular fashion in which it is being swept away. The excuse is given that these angels and obstruction become death-traps when they are assailed with reckless and rapid motoring. Nobody seems to answer that reckless motoring is a danger to themselves. Old landmarks must be cleared away to give motorists a playground in which to play the fool, or a large and airy lethal chamber in which to commit suicide. It would puzzle the people of this mental caliber to tell them that in many great civilizations a man would have had to respect the gate and banner of an ancient municipality, or salute the gods of the city as he passed.
But, in any case, the following extraordinary principle is established. A monument in a market town does not belong to the market town; but only to a man who lives forty miles away to the south. To him the market is mere blur of dust and confused colours; he cares nothing about it; perhaps he does not even know its name. But he is the king of that city, who can order all monuments to fall. He can send pioneers on in front of him to cut down the oak under which Alfred sat or in which Charles was hidden, simply and solely because he cannot drive through the oak and will not bother to drive round it. He can knock off a large corner of a house in which Chaucer drank or Wolsey slept, simply because he prefers a curve to a corner when he is rushing blindly from Brighton to Charing Cross. The town he owns is not the town he inhabits, or even the town he wishes to reach. Never was there a safer or smoother form of imperial expansion. We have heard many tales of Big Bertha and the modern shelling of great cities from far away. The old English towns are to be shelled and shot to pieces from very far away. They are bombarded with cars, and not with cannon balls, and blown up with petrol instead of powder. But only long-range artillery is recognised as having any rights in the matter. The only principle recognised is that the village cross of Hugby-in-the-Hole must be immediately pulled down, to please a gentleman who lives in Mancheser and is very anxious to get to Margate.
G. K. C.
(Originally published in G.K.'s Weekly)
Dragooning the Dragon
WE ALL KNOW people who think it wicked to tell children fairy tales which they are not required to believe, though of course not wicked to teach them false doctrines or false news which they are required to believe. They hold that the child must be guarded from the danger of supposing that all frogs turn into princesses or that any pumpkin will at any minute turn into a coach and six, and that he must rather reserve his faith for the sober truth told in the newspapers, which will tell him that all Socialists are Satanists or that the next Act of Parliament will mean work and wealth for all. We ourselves have generally found that children were quite sufficiently intelligent to question the first and that grown-up people were quite sufficiently stupid to swallow the second. It almost looks as if there were something wrong about education; or something wrong about growing up. But the latest news in the educational world is that a more moderate reform is under consideration; and the reformers admit that there is a distinction to be made. One or two fairy tales about pretty things like flowers or butterflies, it is loftily admitted, may do no harm. But fairy tales about dragons and giants, because they are ugly things, may have a dreadful effect upon the delicate instinct for beauty. Schoolmasters discussed the question recently in the light of the most recent psychology of aesthetics. For our part, we have seldom seen a schoolmaster who was half so decorative as a dragon. And though a giant may appear gross or grotesque, he is not necessarily less so when (as in the case of one or two professors) he is reduced to the dimensions of a dwarf. The human race must be a very horrible sight to the human child, if he is really so sensitive an aesthete as all that. But it must be admitted that the objection was not exclusively aesthetic, but also partly ethical. On moral grounds also it was urged that the child may read stories about beanstalks, but not stories about giants; the learned educationists having apparently forgotten that they both occur in the same story. Children, it appears, are not to read about giants and witches because it will encourage cruelty; as the child “will certainly sympathise with the torturers.” This would seem to be an extreme dogma of Original Sin by the Calvinist rather than the Catholic definition of it. Why a little boy reading about another little boy pursued by a dragon should suppose himself to be a dragon, which he is not, instead of a boy, which he is, we have no idea; we suppose it is the dragon complex. Anyhow, psychologists suffer from what may be called the contradiction complex; and we need not say that they contradict themselves flatly even on that one small point. For they also say that the tale of the dragon will produce morbid terror and panic; so that it would almost seem as if the little boy were a little boy after all. But he is a rather curious little boy, who exultantly enjoys eating himself at the same moment that he is mad and miserable with fear of being eaten by himself; his complexity is evidently very complex indeed. Meanwhile, it might perhaps be pointed out that a child generally goes very eagerly to his father or his friend for the experience of fairy tales; whereas he can remain in complete isolation and ignorance, and still have the experience of fear. The child learns without being taught that life contains some element of enmity. His own dreams would provide him with dragons; what the legend provides is St. George.
~ G. K. C.
(Originally published in G.K.'s Weekly)
~ G. K. C.
(Originally published in G.K.'s Weekly)
Saint George Killing the Dragon. By Bernat Martorell.
Tempera on wood, 1430-35; Art Institute, Chicago.
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