Gilbert Keith Chesterton Part 1

Gilbert Keith Chesterton.

by Patrick Braybrooke.

Preface

It is certain that up to a point in the evolution of Self most people find life quite exciting and thrilling. But when middle age arrives, often prematurely, they forget the thrill and excitements; they become obsessed by certain other lesser things that are deficient in any kind of Cosmic Vitality. The thrill goes out of life: a light dies down and flickers fitfully; existence goes on at a low ebb--something has been lost. From this numbed condition is born much of the blind anguish of life.

It is one of the tragedies of human existence that the divine sense of wonder is eventually destroyed by inexcusable routine and more or less mechanical living. Mental abandon, the exercise of fancy and imagination, the function of creative thought--all these things are squeezed out of the consciousness of man until his primitive enjoyment of the mystical part of life is affected in a very serious way.

Nothing could be more useful, therefore, than to write a book about a man who has done more than any other living writer to stimulate and preserve the primitive sense of wonder and joy in human life. Gilbert Keith Chesterton has never lost mental contact with the cosmic simplicity of human existence. He knows, as well as anybody has ever known, that the life of man goes wrong simply because we are too lazy to be pleased with simple, fundamental things.

We grow up in our feverish, artificial civilization, believing that the real, satisfying things are complex and difficult to obtain. Our lives become unnaturally stressed and tormented by the pitiless and incessant struggle for social conditions which are, at best, second-rate and ultimately disappointing.

G. K. Chesterton would restore the primitive joys of wonder and childlike delight in simple things. His ideal is the _real_, not the merely impossible. Unlike most would-be saviours of the race, he seeks not to merge a new humanity into a brand new glittering civilization. He would have us awaken once more to the ancient mysteries and eternal truths. He would have us turn back in order to progress.

Science makes us proud, but it does not make us happy. Efficiency makes us slaves--we have forgotten the truth about freedom. Success is our narcotic deity, and weans more men into despair than failure; for, as G.K.C. has said, 'Nothing fails like Success.' We have yet to rediscover the spiritual health that comes with a clear recognition of the part that life cannot be great until it is lived madly and wildly. We have to learn all over again that gra.s.s really is green, and the sky, at times, very blue indeed.

ARTHUR F. THORN

(_Author of 'Richard Jefferies'_), _a.s.sistant-Director of Studies, London School of Journalism._

_Author's Note_

This book is the outcome of many and repeated requests to the author to write it. While realizing the difficulties involved, he feels that the opportunities he has enjoyed give him at least some qualifications for the task, for not only is he a kinsman of Mr. Chesterton, but also has spent much time in his company.

The book aims to be a popular study of the Writer and the Man. It is dedicated to lovers of the works of G.K.C. and to the wider public who wish to know about one of the most brilliant minds of the day.

PATRICK BRAYBROOKE.

_46 Russell Square, W.C. 1_ 1922.

_Chapter One_

THE ESSAYIST

It is extremely difficult in the somewhat limited s.p.a.ce of a chapter to give the full attention that should be given to such a brilliant and original essayist (which is not always an _ipso facto_ of brilliant essayists) as Chesterton. Essayists are of all men extremely elastic.

Occasionally they are dull and prosy, very often they are obscure, quite often they are wearisome. The only criticism which applies adversely to Chesterton as an essayist is that he is very often--and I rather fear he likes being so--obscure. He is brilliant in an original manner, he is original in a brilliant way; scarcely any thought of his is not expressed in paradox. What is orthodox to him is heresy to other people; what is heresy to him is orthodox to other people; and the surprising fact is that he is usually right when he is orthodox, and equally right when he is heretical. An essayist naturally has points of view which he expresses in a different way to a novelist. A novelist, if he adheres to what a novel should be--that is, I think, a simple tale--does not necessarily have a particular point of view when he starts his book. An essayist, on the other hand, starts with an idea and clothes it. Of course, Chesterton is not an essayist in the really accepted manner of an essayist. He is really more a brilliant exponent of an original point of view. In other words, he essays to knock down opinions held by other essayists, whether writers or politicians. It would be manifestly absurd to praise Chesterton as being equal to Hazlitt, or condemn him as being inferior to J.S. Mill. Comparisons are usually odious, which is precisely the reason so much use is made of them. In this case any comparison is not only odious; it is worse, it is merely futile, for the very simple fact that there has been no essayist ever quite like Chesterton, which is a compliment to him, because it proves what every one who knows is a.s.sured, that he is unique.

There are, of course, as is to be expected, people who do not like his essays. The reason is not far to seek, as in everything else people set up for themselves standards which they do not like to see set aside.

Consequently people who had read Lamb, Hazlitt, Hume, and E.V. Lucas astutely thought that no essayist could be such who did not adhere to the style of one of these four. Therefore they were a little alarmed and upset when there descended upon them a strange genius who not only upset all the rules of essay writing, but was at the same time acclaimed by all sections of the Press as one of the finest essayists of the day.

With the advent of Chesterton the essay received a shock. It had to realize that it was a larger and wider thing than it had been before. As it had been almost insular, so it became international; as it had been almost theological in its orthodoxy, so it became in its catholicity well-nigh heretical. Which is the best possible definition of a heresy?

It is the expanding of orthodoxy or the lessening of it. Thus Chesterton was a pioneer. He gave to the essay a new impetus--almost, we might say, a 'sketch' form; it dealt with subjects not so much in a dissertation as in a dissection. Having dissected one way so that we are quite sure no other method would do, he calmly dissects again in the opposite manner, leaving us gasping, and finding that there really are two ways of looking at every question--a thing we never realize till we think about it. I have in this chapter taken five of Chesterton's most characteristic books of essays, displaying the enormous depth of his intellect, the vast range of subject, the unique use of paradox. Of these five books I have again taken rather necessarily at random subjects depicting the above Chestertonian attributes, with an attempt to give some idea of what it really means when we say that he is an essayist.

That Chesterton's book of essays, ent.i.tled 'Heretics,' should have an introductory and a concluding chapter on the importance of orthodoxy is exactly what we should expect to find. There is a great deal of what is undeniably true in this book; there is also, I venture to think, a good deal that is undeniably untrue. I do not think it is unfair to say that in some respects Chesterton allows his cleverness to lead him to certain errors of judgment, and a certain levity in dealing with matters that are to a number of people so sacred that to reinterpret them is almost to blaspheme.

I am thinking of the chapter in this book that is a reply to Mr. McCabe, an ex-Roman Catholic, who, being a keen logician, is now a rationalist.

He accuses Chesterton of joking with the things _de profundis_.

Certain clergymen have also taken exception to Chesterton's writings on the ground of this supposed levity. It is merely that he sees that the Bible has humour, because it has said that 'G.o.d laughed and winked.' I do not think he intends to offend, but for many people any idea of humour in the Bible is repugnant, and this view is not confined to clergymen.

In an absolutely charming chapter Chesterton writes of the literature of the servant girl, which is really the literature of Park Lane. It is the literature of Park Lane, for the very obvious reason that it is probably never read there; but the literature is about Park Lane, and is read by those who may live as near it as Balham or Surbiton. What he contends, and rightly, is that the general reader likes to hear about an environment outside his own. It is inherent in us that we always really want to be somewhere else; which is fortunate, as it makes it certain that the world will never come to an end through a universal contentment. It has been said that contentment is the essence of perfection. It is equally true that the essence of perfection is discontent, a striving for something else. This, I think, Chesterton feels when he says of the penny novelette that it is the literature to 'teach a man to govern empires or look over the map of mankind.'

Rudyard Kipling finds a warm spot in Chesterton's heart, but he is a little too militaristic, which is exactly what he is not. Kipling loves soldiers, which is no real reason why he should be disliked as a militarist. Many a servant girl loves a score of soldiers, she may even write odes to her pet sergeant, but she is not necessarily a militarist.

Rudyard Kipling likes soldiers and writes of them. He does not, as Chesterton lays to his charge, 'wors.h.i.+p militarism.' He accuses Kipling of a want of patriotism, which is about as absurd as accusing Chesterton of a love of politics. But when he says that Kipling only knows England as a place, he is on safe ground, because England is something that is not bound by the confines of s.p.a.ce.

Not being exactly a champion of Kipling, Chesterton turns to a different kind of man, George Moore, and has nothing to say for him beyond that he writes endless personal confessions, which most people do if there are those who will read them. But not only this, poor George Moore 'doesn't understand the Roman Catholic Church, he doesn't understand Thackeray, he misunderstands Stevenson, he has no understanding of Christianity.'

It is, in fact, a hopeless case, but it is also possible that Chesterton has not troubled to understand George Moore.

Mr. Bernard Shaw is, so Chesterton contends, a really horrible eugenist, because he wants to get a super-man who, having more than two legs, will be a vastly superior person to a man. Chesterton loves men. He tells us why St. Peter was used to found the Church upon. It was because he 'was a shuffler, a coward, and a sn.o.b--in a word, a man.' Even the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Councils of Trent have failed to find a better reason for the founding of the Church. It is a defence of the fallibility of the Church, the practical nature of that Body, an organization founded by a Man who had Divine powers in a unique way and was G.o.d.

Presumably, then, the mistake of Shaw is that instead of trying to improve man he wishes to invent a kind of demi-G.o.d.

Chesterton has a great deal to say for Christmas; in fact, he has no sympathy for those superior beings who find Christmas out of date. Even Swinburne and Sh.e.l.ley have attacked Christianity in the grounds of its melancholy, showing a lamentable forgetfulness that this religion was born at a time that had always been a season of joy. Chesterton is annoyed with them, and is sure that Swinburne did not hang up his socks on Christmas Eve, nor did Sh.e.l.ley. I wonder whether Chesterton hangs up his socks on the eve of Christmas?

'Heretics' is a book that deals with a great number of subjects universal in their scope. The writing is at times too paradoxical, leading to obscurity of thought. There are splendid pa.s.sages in this book, which is, when all is said, brilliantly original, even if at times a little puzzling.

'Orthodoxy' is, I think, one of the most important of Chesterton's books. The lasting importance of a book depends not so much on its literary qualities or on its popularity, but rather on the theme handled.

There are really two central themes handled in this book. One is of Fairyland, the other is of the defence of Christianity; not that it is either true or false, but that it is rational, or the most shuffle-headed nonsense ever set to delude the human race. The method of apology that Chesterton takes is one that would cause the average theological student to turn white with fear.

The theological colleges, excellent as they are in endeavouring to train efficient laymen into equally efficient priests, usually a.s.sume that the best way to know about Christianity is to study Christian books. It is the worst way, because these books are naturally biased in favour of it.

It is better to study any religion by seeing what the attackers have to say against it. Then a personal judgment can be formed.

This is, I feel, the method that Chesterton adopts in his deep and original treatise, 'Orthodoxy,' which is more than an essay and less than a theological work.

The Chestertonian contention is that philosophers like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche have embarked on the suicide of thought, and that a later disciple to this self-destruction is Bernard Shaw.

In the same way these pseudo philosophers have attacked the Christian religion, 'tearing the soul of Christ into silly strips labelled altruism and egoism. They are alike puzzled by His insane magnificance and His insane meekness.'

As I have said, the method to realize the worth of Christianity is to read all the attacks on it. This is what Chesterton does. In doing so he discovers that these attacks are the one thing that demonstrate the strength of Christianity. Because the attackers reject it upon reasons that are contradictory to each other. Thus some complain that it is a gloomy religion; others go to the opposite extreme and accuse it of pointing to a state of perpetual chocolate cream; yet again it is attacked on grounds of effeminancy, it is upbraided as being fond of a sickly sentimentalism.

Thus it is attacked on opposite grounds at once. It is condemned for being pessimistic, it is blamed for being optimistic. From this position Chesterton deduces that it is the only rational religion, because it steers between the Scylla of pessimism and avoids the Charybdis of a facile optimism. Regarding presumably the early Church she has also kept from extremes. She has ignored the easy path of heresy, she has adhered to the adventurous road of orthodoxy. She has avoided the Arian materialism by dropping a Greek Iota; she has not succ.u.mbed to Eastern influences, which would have made her forget she was the Church on earth as well as in heaven. With tremendous commonsense she has remained rational and chosen the middle course, which was one of the cardinal virtues of the ancient Greek philosophers.

The Christian religion is, then, rational because attacked along irrational grounds; the Church is also reasonable because she has not been swayed by the attraction of heresy nor listened to the glib fallacies of those who always want to make her something more or something less.