Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

A week or so later, Chesterton started his series of Saturday articles in The Daily Herald. His first few efforts show that he made a determined attempt to get down to the intellectual level of the Syndicalist. But anybody who sits down to read through these articles will notice that before many weeks had passed Chesterton was beginning to feel a certain discomfort in the company he was keeping. He writes to say that he likes writing for The Daily Herald because it is the most revolutionary paper he knows, "even though I do not agree with all the revolutions it advocates," and goes on to state that, personally, he likes most of the people he meets. Having thus, as it were, cleared his conscience in advance, Chesterton let himself go. He attacked the Government for its alleged nepotism, dishonesty, and corruption. He ended one such article with, "There is nothing but a trumpet at midnight, calling for volunteers." The New Statesman then published an article, "Trumpets and How to Blow Them," suggesting, among other things, that there was little use in being merely destructive. It is typical of what I have called the decadence of Chesterton that he borrowed another writer's most offensive description of a lady prominently connected with The New Statesman in order to quote it with glee by way of answer to this article. The Syndicalist hates the Socialist for his catholicity. The Socialist wishes to see the world a comfortable place, the Syndicalist merely wishes to work in a comfortable factory. Chesterton seized the opportunity, being mildly rebuked by a Socialist paper, to declare that the Fabians "are constructing a man-trap." A little later on he writes, with reference to a controversialist's request, that he should explain why, after all, he was not a Socialist:

If he wants to know what the Marconi Scandal has
saved us from, I can tell him. It has saved us
from Socialism. My God! what Socialism, and run by
what sort of Socialists! My God! what an escape!
If we had transferred the simplest national
systems to the State (as we wanted to do in our
youth) it is to these men that we should have
transferred them.

There never was an example of more muddled thinking. Let us apply it to something definite, to that harmless, necessary article of diet, milk, to be precise, cow's milk. To-day milk is made expensive by a multiplicity of men who have interests in keeping milk expensive. There are too many milkmen's wages to be paid, too many milk-carts to be built, too many shop-rents paid, and too much apparatus bought, simply because we have not yet had the intelligence to let any municipality or county run its own milk-service and so avoid all manner of duplication. Chesterton's answer to this is: "I used to think so, but what about Lord Murray, Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. Godfrey Isaacs?" It would be as relevant to say, "What about Dr. Crippen, Jack Sheppard, and Ananias," or, "But what about Mr. Bernard Shaw, the Grand Duke Nicolas, and my brother?" The week later Chesterton addresses the Labour Party in these words:

Comrades (I mean gentlemen), there is only one
real result of anything you have done. You have
justified the vulgar slander of the suburban
Conservatives that men from below are men who
merely want to rise. It is a lie. No one knows so
well as you that it was a lie: you who drove out
Grayson and deserted Lansbury. Before you went
into Parliament to represent the working classes,
the working classes were feared. Since you have
represented the working classes, they are not even
respected. Just when there was a hope of
Democracy, you have revived the notion that the
demagogue was only the sycophant. Just when there
had begun to be an English people to represent,
you have been paid to misrepresent them. Get out
of our path. Take your money; go.

Regarding which passage there is only to be said that it is grossly unjust both to the Labour Party and to the working classes. It was followed up in subsequent numbers by violent attacks on woman suffrage and the economic independence of women; a proceeding quite commendably amusing in a paper with a patron saint surnamed Pankhurst. A promise to say no more about Votes for Women was followed by several more spirited references to it, from the same point of view. After which Chesterton cooled off and wrote about detective stories, telephones, and worked himself down into an all-round fizzle of disgust at things as they are, to illustrate which "I will not run into a paroxysm of citations again," as Milton said in the course of his Epistle in two books on Reformation in England.

The most unpleasant feature of The Daily Herald articles is the assumption of superiority over the British working man, expressing itself in the patronizing tone. The British working man, as Chesterton sees him, is a very different person from what he is. If the Middle Ages had been the peculiar period Chesterton appears to believe it was, then his working man would be merely a trifling anachronism of five centuries or so. But he is not even that. Five centuries would be but a trifle compared with the difference between him and his real self. Chesterton's attitude towards the working man must resemble that of a certain chivalrous knight towards the distressed damsel he thought he had rescued. He observed, "Well, little one, aren't you going to show me any gratitude?" And the lady replied, "I wasn't playing Andromeda, fathead, I was looking for blackberries. Run away and play."

The attitude of the middle-class suburbanite towards the working man and his wife is not exactly graceful, but the former at any rate does not pretend to love the latter, and to find all decency of feeling and righteousness of behaviour in them. Chesterton both pretends to reverence the working classes, and exhibits a profound contempt for them. He is never happier than when he is telling the working classes that they are wrong. He delights in attacking the Labour Party in order to have the supreme satisfaction of demonstrating that working men are their own worst enemies.

At the beginning of August, 1914, the Great War broke out, and everything seemed changed. No man now living will be able to say definitely what effects the war will have upon literature, but one thing is certain: nothing will remain the same. We have already learned to view each other with different eyes. For better or for worse, old animosities and party cleavages have given way to unforeseen combinations. To assert that we have all grown better would be untrue. But it might reasonably be argued that the innate generousness of the British people has been vitiated by its childlike trust in its journalists, and the men who own them. When Mr. Bernard Shaw wrote a brilliant defence of the British case for intervention in the war, his mild denigration of some of the defects of the English nation, a few trivial inaccuracies, and his perverse bellicosity of style made him the object of the attentions of a horde of panic-stricken heresy-hunters. Those of us who had not the fortune to escape the Press by service abroad, especially those of us who derived our living from it, came to loathe its misrepresentation of the English people. There seemed no end to the nauseous vomits of undigested facts and dishonourable prejudices that came pouring out in daily streams. Then we came to realize, as never before, the value of such men as Chesterton. Christianity and the common decencies fare badly at the hands of the bishops of to-day, and the journalists threw them over as soon as the war began. But, unfortunately for us all, G.K.C. fell seriously ill in the early period of the war, and was in a critical state for many months. But not before he had published a magnificent recantation--for it is no less--of all those bitternesses which, in their sum, had very nearly caused him to hate the British. It is a poem, _Blessed are the Peacemakers_.

Of old with a divided heart
I saw my people's pride expand,
Since a man's soul is born apart
By mother earth and fatherland.

I knew, through many a tangled tale,
Glory and truth not one but two:
King, Constable and Amirail
Took me like trumpets: but I knew

A blacker thing than blood's own dye
Weighed down great Hawkins on the sea;
And Nelson turned his blindest eye
On Naples and on liberty.

Therefore to you my thanks, O throne,
O thousandfold and frozen folk,
For whose cold frenzies all your own
The Battle of the Rivers broke;

Who have no faith a man could mourn,
Nor freedom any man desires;
But in a new clean light of scorn
Close up my quarrel with my sires;

Who bring my English heart to me,
Who mend me like a broken toy;
Till I can see you fight and flee,
And laugh as if I were a boy.

When we read this poem, with its proclamation of a faith restored, Chesterton's temporary absence from the field of letters appears even more lamentable. For even before his breakdown he had given other signs of a resurrection. Between the overworked descriptions of _The Flying Inn_ and the little book _The Barbarism of Berlin_ which closely followed it, there is a fine difference of style, as if in the interval Chesterton had taken a tonic. Thus there is a jolly passage in which, describing German barbarism, he refers to the different ways of treating women.

The two extremes of the treatment of women might
be represented by what are called the respectable
classes in America and in France. In America they
choose the risk of comradeship; in France the
compensation of courtesy. In America it is
practically possible for any young gentleman to
take any young lady for what he calls (I deeply
regret to say) a joy-ride; but at least the man
goes with the woman as much as the woman with the
man. In France the young woman is protected like a
nun while she is unmarried; but when she is a
mother she is really a holy woman; and when she is
a grandmother she is a holy terror. By both
extremes the woman gets something back out of
life. France and America aim alike at
equality--America by similarity; France by
dissimilarity. But North Germany does actually aim
at inequality. The woman stands up, with no more
irritation than a butler; the man sits down, with
no more embarrassment than a guest.

And so on. It runs very easily; we recognize the old touch; the epigrams are not worked to death; and the chains of argument are not mere strings of damped brilliancies. And before 1914 had come to its end, in another pamphlet, _Letters to an Old Garibaldian_, the same style, the same freshness of thought, and the same resurgent strength were once again in evidence. Then illness overcame.

* * * * *

Of all futures, the future of literature and its professors is the least predictable. We have all, so to speak, turned a corner since August, 1914, but we have not all turned the same way. Chesterton would seem to have felt the great change early in the war. Soon he will break his silence, and we shall know whether we have amongst us a giant with strength renewed or a querulous Nonconformist Crusader, agreeing with no man, while claiming to speak for every man. Early in the course of this study a distinction was drawn between Christians and Crusaders. Chesterton has been throughout his career essentially a Crusader. He set out to put wrongs to rights in the same spirit; in much the same spirit, too, he incidentally chivvied about the Jews he met in his path, just as the Crusaders had done. He fought for the Holy Sepulchre, and gained it. Like the Crusaders, he professed orthodoxy, and, like them, fell between several "orthodoxies." He shared their visions and their faith, so far as they had any. But one thing is true of all Crusaders, they are not necessarily Christians. And there is that about Chesterton which sometimes makes me wonder whether, after all, he is not "a child of the French Revolution" in a sense he himself does not suspect. He has cursed the barren fig-tree of modern religious movements. But there comes a suspicion that he denies too much; that from between those supple sentences and those too plausible arguments one may catch a glimpse of the features of a mocking spirit. Chesterton has given us the keenest enjoyment, and he has provoked thought, even in the silly atheist. We all owe him gratitude, but no two readers of his works are likely to agree as to the causes of their gratitude. That, in itself, is a tribute. Wherefore let it be understood that in writing this study I have been speaking entirely for myself, and if any man think me misguided, inappreciative, hypercritical, frivolous, or anything else, why, he is welcome.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] _All Things Considered._

BIBLIOGRAPHY (TO JULY, 1915)

WORKS

1900. _Greybeards at Play._ Brimley Johnson. Cheaper edition, 1902.

_The Wild Knight._ Grant Richards. Second edition,
Brimley Johnson, 1905. Enlarged edition, Dent, 1914.

1901. _The Defendant._ Brimley Johnson. Second enlarged edition,
1902. Cheap edition, in Dent's Wayfarer's Library, 1914.

1902. _Twelve Types._ A. L. Humphreys. Partly reprinted as _Five
Types_, 1910, same publisher. Cheap edition, 1911.

_G. F. Watts._ Duckworth. In Popular Library of Art. Reissued
at higher price, 1914.

1903. _Robert Browning._ In English Men of Letters Series. Macmillan.

1904. _The Patriotic Idea._ In _England a Nation_. Edited by Lucien
Oldershaw. Brimley Johnson.

_The Napoleon of Notting Hill._ John Lane. With 7 full-page
illustrations by W. Graham Robertson and a Map of the Seat
of War.

1905. _The Club of Queer Trades._ Harper. Cheap edition, Hodder and
Stoughton, 1912.

_Heretics._ John Lane.

1906. _Charles Dickens._ Methuen. Cheaper edition, 1907. Popular
edition, 1913.

1908. _The Man who was Thursday._ Arrowsmith.

_All Things Considered._ Methuen.

_Orthodoxy._ John Lane.

1909. _Tremendous Trifles._ Methuen.

1910. _Alarms and Discursions._ Methuen.

_Five Types._ A. L. Humphreys. Reprinted from _Twelve
Types_, 1905.

_What's Wrong with the World?_ Cassell. Cheap edition, 1912.

_William Blake._ Duckworth. In Popular Library of Art.

_George Bernard Shaw._ John Lane. Cheap edition, 1914.

_The Ball and the Cross._ Wells Gardner, Darton.

1911. _The Ballad of the White Horse._ Methuen.

_Appreciations of Dickens._ Dent. Reprinted prefaces from
Everyman Series edition of Dickens.

_The Innocence of Father Brown._ Cassell.

1912. _Simplicity and Tolstoy._ A. L. Humphreys. Another edition,
H. Siegle. In Watteau Series, 1913.

_A Miscellany of Men._ Methuen.

_Manalive._ Nelson.

1913. _Magic._ Martin Seeker.

_The Victorian Age in Literature._ Williams and Norgate. In
Home University Library.

1914. _The Wisdom of Father Brown._ Cassell.

_The Flying Inn._ Methuen. (_The Songs of the Simple Life_
appeared originally in _The New Witness_.)

_The Wild Knight._ Dent. Enlarged edition, first published
1900.

_The Barbarism of Berlin._ Cassell.

_Letters to an Old Garibaldian._ Methuen.

1915. _Poems._ Burns and Oates.

And articles on Tolstoy, Stevenson, Tennyson, and Dickens
in a series of booklets published by _The Bookman_,
1902-1904.

PREFACES TO THE FOLLOWING BOOKS

1902. _Past and Present._ By Thomas Carlyle. In World's Classics.
Grant Richards.

1903. _Life of Johnson._ Extracts from Boswell. Isbister.

1904. _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table._ By O. W. Holmes.
Red Letter Library. Blackie.

_Sartor Resartus._ By Thomas Carlyle. Cassell's National
Library.

_The Pilgrim's Progress._ By John Bunyan. Cassell's National
Library.

1905. _Creatures That Once Were Men._ By Maxim Gorky. Rivers.

1906 etc. _Works of Dickens._ In Everyman Library. Dent.

1906. _Essays._ By Matthew Arnold. In the Everyman Library. Dent.

_Literary London._ By Elsie M. Lang. Werner Laurie.

1907. _The Book of Job._ (Wellwood Books.)

_From Workhouse to Westminster; the Life Story of Will Crooks,
M.P._ By George Haw. Cassell. Cheaper edition, 1908.

1908. _Poems._ By John Ruskin. Muses Library. Routledge.

_The Cottage Homes of England._ By W. W. Crotch. Industrial
Publishing Co.

1909. _A Vision of Life._ By Darrell Figgis. Lane.

_Meadows of Play._ By Margaret Arndt. Elkin Mathews.

1910. _Selections from Thackeray._ Bell.

_Eyes of Youth._ An Anthology. Herbert and Daniel.

1911. _Samuel Johnson._ Extracts from, selected by Alice
Meynell. Herbert and Daniel.

_The Book of Snobs._ By W. M. Thackeray. Red Letter
Library. Blackie.

1912. _Famous Paintings Reproduced in Colour._ Cassell.

_The English Agricultural Labourer._ By A. H. Baverstock.
The Vineyard Press.

_Fables._ By AEsop. Translated by V. S. Vernon Jones.
Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Heinemann.

1913. _The Christmas Carol._ In the Waverley Dickens.

1915. _Bohemia's Claim for Freedom._ The London Czech Committee.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE FOLLOWING BOOKS BY OTHER WRITERS

1901. _Nonsense Rhymes._ By W. C. Monkhouse. Brimley Johnson.
Cheaper edition, 1902.

1903. _The Great Enquiry._ By H. B. (Hilaire Belloc). Duckworth.

1904. _Emmanuel Burden._ By Hilaire Belloc. Methuen.

1905. _Biography for Beginners._ By E. Clerihew. Cheaper edition,
Werner Laurie, 1908. Cheap edition, 1910.

1912. _The Green Overcoat._ By Hilaire Belloc. Arrowsmith.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO PERIODICALS

_Bookman._ From 1898 onwards, _passim_.

_The Speaker_ (afterwards _The Nation_). From 1898 onwards.

_The Daily News._ Weekly article, 1900-1913. Also occasional
poems and reviews.

_The Daily Herald._ Weekly article, 1913-1914.

_The Illustrated London News._ 1905-1914; 1915-

_The Eye-Witness_ (afterwards _The New Witness_). Poems and
articles, 1911 onwards.

Also correspondence columns of _The Tribune_ (1906-1908),
_The Clarion_, and the London Press in general.

_The Oxford and Cambridge Review_ (afterwards _The British
Review_). Articles 1911, etc.

_The Dublin Review._ Occasional articles.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS

Evidence before the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and
the House of Commons on Stage Plays (Censorship), included in the
Minutes of Evidence, 1909.

SPEECHES

1908. _The Press._ Speech at Pan-Anglican Congress. Proceedings
published by _The Times_.

1910. _What to do with the Backward Races._ Speech at the
Nationalities and Subject Races Conference, London.
Proceedings published by P. S. King.

1914. _Do Miracles Happen?_ Report of a Discussion at the Little
Theatre in January, 1914. Published as a pamphlet by The
Christian Commonwealth Co.

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