G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study Part 5

I welcome a return to the rudeness of old times; when Luther attacked Henry VIII for being fat; and when Milton and his Dutch opponent devoted pages of their controversy to the discussion of which of them was the uglier. . . . The new controversialists . . . call a man a physical degenerate, instead of calling him an ugly fellow. They say that red hair is the mark of the Celtic stock, instead of calling him "Carrots."

Of this cla.s.s of fun Chesterton is an easy master. It makes him a fearsome controversialist on the platform or in his favourite lists, the columns of a newspaper. But he uses his strength a little tyrannously.

He is an adept at begging the question. The lost art called ignoratio elenchi has been privately rediscovered by him, to the surprise of many excellent and honest debaters, who have never succeeded in scoring the most obvious points in the face of Chesterton's power of emitting a string of epigrams and pretending it is a chain of argument. The case, in whatever form it is put, is always fresh and vigorous. Another epigrammatist, Oscar Wilde, in comparison with him may be said to have used the midnight oil so liberally in the preparation of his witticisms, that one might almost detect the fishy odour. But as with his prose so with his verses; Chesterton's productions are so fresh that they seem to spring from his vitality rather than his intellect. They are generally a trifle ragged and unpolished as if, like all their author's productions, they were strangers to revision. And vitality demands boisterous movement, more even than coherence. Sometimes the boisterousness is apparently unsupported by the sense of the words.

So you have gained the golden crowns and grasped the golden weather, The kingdoms and the hemispheres that all men buy and sell, But I will lash the leaping drum and swing the flaring feather, For the light of seven heavens that are lost to me like h.e.l.l.

Here the stanza actually goes with such a swing that the reader will in all probability not notice that the lines have no particular meaning.

On the other hand, Chesterton's poetry has exuberant moments of sheer delight. In one of his essays he is lamenting the songlessness of modern life and suggests one or two chanties. Here they are:

Chorus of Bank Clerks:

Up, my lads, and lift the ledgers, sleep and ease are o'er.

Hear the Stars of Morning shouting: "Two and Two are Four."

Though the creeds and realms are reeling, though the sophists roar, Though we weep and p.a.w.n our watches, Two and Two are Four.

Chorus of Bank Clerks when there is a run on the bank:

There's a run upon the Bank-- Stand away!

For the Manager's a crank and the Secretary drank, and the Upper Tooting Bank Turns to bay!

Stand close: there is a run On the Bank.

Of our s.h.i.+p, our royal one, let the ringing legend run, that she fired with every gun Ere she sank.

The Post Office Hymn would begin as follows:

O'er London our letters are shaken like snow, Our wires o'er the world like the thunderbolts go.

The news that may marry a maiden in Sark, Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park.

Chorus (with a swing of joy and energy):

Or kill an old lady in Finsbury Park.

The joke becomes simply immense when we picture the actual singing of the songs.

But that is not the only cla.s.s of humour of which Chesterton is capable.

He can cut as well as hack. It is to be doubted whether any politician was ever addressed in lines more sarcastic than those of _Antichrist_, an ode to Mr. F. E. Smith. This gentleman, speaking on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, remarked that it "has shocked the conscience of every Christian community in Europe." It begins:

Are they clinging to their crosses, F. E. Smith.

Where the Breton boat-fleet tosses, Are they, Smith?

Do they, fasting, tramping, bleeding, Wait the news from this our city?

Groaning "That's the Second Reading!"

Hissing "There is still Committee!"

If the voice of Cecil falters, If McKenna's point has pith, Do they tremble for their altars?

Do they, Smith?

Then in Russia, among the peasants,

Where Establishment means nothing And they never heard of Wales, Do they read it all in Hansard With a crib to read it with-- "Welsh t.i.thes: Dr. Clifford answered."

Really, Smith?

The final verse is:

It would greatly, I must own, Soothe me, Smith, If you left this theme alone, Holy Smith!

For your legal cause or civil You fight well and get your fee; For your G.o.d or dream or devil You will answer, not to me.

Talk about the pews and steeples And the Cash that goes therewith!

But the souls of Christian peoples . . .

--Chuck it, Smith!

The wilting sarcasm of this poem is a feature which puts it with a few others apart from the bulk of Chesterton's poems. Even as bellicosity and orthodoxy are two of the brightest threads which run through the whole texture of his work, so Poems of Pugnacity (as Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x would say) and religious verses const.i.tute the largest part of the poetic works of G.K.C. His first book of verses--after _Greybeards at Play_--_The Wild Knight_ contained a bloodthirsty poem about the Battle of Gibeon, written with strict adhesion to the spirit of the Old Testament. It might have been penned by a survivor, glutted with blood and duly grateful to the G.o.d of his race for the solar and lunar eccentricities which made possible the extermination of the five kings of the Amorites. In 1911 came _The Ballad of the White Horse_, which is all about Alfred, according to the popular traditions embodied in the elementary history books, and, in particular, the Battle of Ethandune.

How Chesterton revels in that Homeric slaughter! The words blood and b.l.o.o.d.y punctuate the largest poem of G.K.C. to the virtual obliteration in our memory of the fine imagery, the occasional tendernesses, and the bl.u.s.tering aggressiveness of some of the metaphors and similes. Not many men would have the nerve, let alone the skill, to write:

And in the last eclipse the sea Shall stand up like a tower, Above all moons made dark and riven, Hold up its foaming head in heaven, And laugh, knowing its hour.

But, at the same time, this poem contains very touching and beautiful lines. _The Ballad of the White Horse_ is an epic of the struggle between Christian and Pagan. One of the essentials of an epic is that its men should be decent men, if they cannot be heroes. The Iliad would have been impossible if it had occurred to Homer to introduce the Government contractors to the belligerent powers. All the point would have gone out of Orlando Furioso if it had been the case that the madness of Orlando was the delirium tremens of an habitual drunkard.

Chesterton recognizing this truth makes the pagans of the _White Horse_ behave like gentlemen. There is a beautiful little song put into the mouth of one of them, which is in its way a perfect expression of the inadequacy of false G.o.ds.

There is always a thing forgotten When all the world goes well; A thing forgotten, as long ago When the G.o.ds forgot the mistletoe, And soundless as an arrow of snow The arrow of anguish fell.

The thing on the blind side of the heart, On the wrong side of the door, The green plant groweth, menacing Almighty lovers in the spring; There is always a forgotten thing, And love is not secure.

The sorrow behind these lines is more moving, because more sincere, than the lines of that over-quoted verse of Swinburne's:

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever G.o.ds there be-- That no life lives for ever, That dead men rise up never, That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

This is insincere, because a pagan (as Swinburne was) could have committed suicide had he really felt these things. Swinburne, like most modern pagans, really hated priestcraft when he thought he was hating G.o.d. Chesterton's note is truer. He knows that the pagan has all the good things of life but one, and that only an exceptionally nice pagan knows he lacks that much.

And so one might go on mining the _White Horse_, for it contains most things, as a good epic should. Two short stanzas, however, should be quoted, whatever else is omitted, for the sake of their essential Christianity, their claim that a man may make a fool of himself for Christ's sake, whatever the bishops have to say about it.

The men of the East may spell the stars, And times and triumphs mark, But the men signed of the Cross of Christ Go gaily in the dark.

The men of the East may search the scrolls For sure fates and fame, But the men that drink the blood of G.o.d Go singing to their shame.

In his last volume of _Poems_ (1915) Chesterton presents us with a varied collection of works, written at any time during the last twelve or so years. The pugnacious element is present in _Lepanto_, through the staccato syllables of which we hear drum-taps and men cheering. There is a temptation to treat _Lepanto_, and indeed most of Chesterton's poems, with special reference to their technique, but we must resist this temptation, with tears if need be, and with prayer, for to give way to it would be to commit a form of vivisection. G.K.C. is not a text, praise be, and whether he lives or dies, long may he be spared the hands of an editor or interpreter who is also an irrepressible authority on anapaests and suchlike things. He is a poet, and a considerable poet, not because of his strict attention to the rules of prosody, but because he cannot help himself, and the rules in question are for the persons who can, the poets by deliberate intention, the writers who polish unceasingly. Chesterton has more impulse than finish, but he has natural gifts of rhythm and the effective use of words which more or less (according to the reader's taste) compensate for his refusal or his incapacity to take pains.

Finally there are the religious poems. From these we can best judge the reality of Chesterton's poetic impulse, for here, knowing that affectation would be almost indecent, he has expressed what he had to express with a care denied to most of his other works. In one of his essays, G.K.C. exults in that matchless phrase of Vaughan, "high humility." He has both adopted and adapted this quality, and the results are wonderful. In _The Wise Men_ occurs this stanza:

The Child that was ere worlds begun (. . . We need but walk a little way, We need but see a latch undone . . .) The Child that played with moon and sun Is playing with a little hay.

The superb ant.i.thesis leaves one struggling against that involuntary little gasp which is a reader's first tribute to a fine thought. He could be a great hymn writer, if he would. One of his poems, in fact, has found its way into The English Hymnal, where it competes (if one may use the word of a sacred song) with Recessional for the favour of congregations. If we take a glance at a few of the finest hymns, we shall find that they share certain obvious qualities: bold imagery, the vocabulary of conflict, an att.i.tude of humility that is very nearly also one of great pride, and certain tricks of style. And when we look through Chesterton's poems generally, we shall find that these are exactly the qualities they possess.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Transcriber's Note: The original equation was represented as clearly as possible. An image of the original equation can be found in the html version of this text.

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