CHAPTER SEVEN

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF G. K. C.

Mr. Bernard Shaw told the author that he was so much struck by a review of Scott’s “Ivanhoe” which appeared in the “Daily News” while Chesterton was holding his earliest notable job as feuilletonist to the paper that he wrote to him, “asking him who he was and where he came from, as he was evidently a new star in literature. He was either too shy or too lazy to answer. The next thing I remember is his lunching with us on quite intimate terms, accompanied by Belloc.

“Our actual physical contacts, however, were few, as he never belonged to the Fabian Society nor came to its meetings (this being my set) whilst his Fleet Street Bohemianism lay outside my vegetarian, teetotal, non-smoking tastes. Besides, he apparently liked literary society; and it had the grace to like him. I avoided it and it loathed me.

“But, of course, we were very conscious of one another. I enjoyed him and admired him keenly; and nothing could have been more generous than his treatment of me. Our controversies were exhibition spars, in which nothing could have induced either of us to hurt the other.”

In July, 1933, the Canadian Authors’ Association paying its first official visit to England, was entertained at Claridge’s by the Royal Society of Literature. Miss Paty Carter recalls that at the end of the luncheon the toast was proposed by Rudyard Kipling and ably seconded by Chesterton. The contrast in appearance between the mover and seconder of the toast, caused a ripple of amusement: a contrast that might be likened to the Giant and Jack in the fairy story. Though Kipling, in reality, was only slightly below average size, and if a giant, Chesterton at least conveyed the impression of an amiable, gentle, likable giant.

“You will be much puzzled at my occupying any space--so much space--in this august assembly,” he began, “and why any word of mine could possibly add to what this great literary genius, Mr. Kipling, has said. I cannot pose as a newspaper man; one reads of newspaper men slipping in through half-closed doors.

“Now, no one could possibly think of me as slipping through a half-closed door! (Laughter).

“I do not know Canada as Mr. Kipling knows it. I have traveled here and there in the miserable capacity of one giving lectures. I might call myself a lecturer; but then again I fear some of you may have attended my lectures. The reason for my presence here today is to return hospitality. I have been twice to Canada. My first visit was made twelve years ago when I crossed to the Dominion from America--that was in the early days of Prohibition. The second time I went up the St. Lawrence. Then I knew that Canada had the foundations of all literature, because she had indeed a country. There was that vast natural background necessary to the growth of literary culture, and there was also what is necessary for all literature--legend. On the Plains of Abraham I was uplifted in the sense in which poetry or great music or even a great monument uplifts one.

“The magnificent cordiality and courtesy of the Canadian people was, to me, amazing. The hospitality of the Canadian Authors’ Association was overwhelming. The Canadian Literature Society rushed out to welcome any stray traveler, and in the confusion I was mistaken for a literary man. (Laughter). I tried to explain I was merely a lecturer, and one of the first things for a lecturer to do is talk about things he does not understand, such as Canada.”

“Are you coming with us to Downing Street, Mr. Chesterton?” asked Miss Carter as the authors all left the hotel.

“No--o,” he drawled, with a delicious sort of chant. “Unfortunately, I have to attend a wretched meeting with three other men; all madmen, like myself!”

Mr. James Truslow Adams happened to have been one of the four or five Americans elected to the Royal Society of Literature, and so he found himself in the rather odd situation of an American who was entertaining Canadians at an empire meeting.

“Chesterton,” recalls Mr. Adams, “was very witty, and although he took a number of sharp cracks at American journalism, I being the only person in the room who was not of the British Empire, there was nothing untrue or unkind. I have an extremely vivid impression of the man, not only of his enormous physical bulk and of his constant mopping of his forehead with his handkerchief, but also of his intellectual vitality.”

The President of the Canadian Authors’ Association, the late Charles W. Gordon (Ralph Connor) was “struck with the freshness of Chesterton’s thought, the brilliancy of his imagination, and his warm human sympathy. I had heard him spoken of as cold, but I could not say that of his speech or of his personality that day.”

Mr. Rodolphe L. Megroz made a pilgrimage in 1922, to Chesterton’s home.

“Oh, yes, certainly, sir,” said the railway porter at Beaconsfield when asked where Chesterton lived. “Turn to your left at the bridge and along the road to the old town. When you come to the film studios, go across into the side road and it’s surrounded by a field. His house is called ‘Top Meadow’.”

Mr. and Mrs. Chesterton received the visitor in a little room with white-washed walls and book-cases, and a long desk below a window that ran the length of the room. Megroz was anxious to compare Chesterton’s ideas with those of H. G. Wells whom he had seen shortly before, and particularly wished to question the former’s opinions on patriotism and nationalism. Although such books as the jolly “Napoleon of Notting Hill” belonged to the pre-war period, G. K. C.’s own journalistic writings had shown no change in his dislike of internationalism and the kind of social organization favored by Wells.

“The trouble is,” he said, “that terms like patriotism and nationalism are very often used by people who mean something quite different from what I mean. My idea in ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill’ was that men have a natural loyalty for their own home and their own land, I do not see why, instead of progress lying in the direction of bigger and bigger everything, it should not be found in the opposite direction, in local patriotism. I say let a man go on loving his own home, he will all the better recognize the other fellow’s right to do so.”

“H. G. Wells,” continued Chesterton, “talks about abstractions like the World State, which has no root. The League of Nations lost its grip on realities by ignoring local patriotism.”

When Megroz repeated Chesterton to H. G. Wells the latter remarked,

“Possibly the World State is an abstraction at present, but what are not abstractions are the flying machines and poison gas; electricity and wireless; the fact that the food grown in India may be eaten in England, and the food grown in Australia may be eaten at the Cape. These are hard facts, and they demand sane treatment as hard facts, and the only possible sane treatment is to bring them under one comprehensive control.”

Megroz got the impression that Chesterton was “certainly a romanticist, often escaping from reality. By fantasies, among which may be included his medievalism; but always one comes back to his great sanity, his poetic insight, his sweetness which redeemed all his propaganda, illuminated his poetry, and could fill even the detective story with a wisdom akin to mysticism.”

What Chesterton wrote his friend Mr. W. R. Titterton about Wells is pertinent, and is here published for the first time, and with Mr. Wells’ leave,

My dear Titterton:

I think we might drop the formal address on both sides; especially as I want to write to you about a personal feeling which I don’t want you to take too officially, or in that sense too seriously. I ought to have written direct to Pugh to thank him for his great generosity in giving us his most interesting sketch about Wells, which you were good enough to arrange for us. My task is made a little more delicate now, because there is something I feel about it, which I do hope neither he nor you would exaggerate or misunderstand. I was the more glad of his kind offer, when he made it, because I thought nobody could more ably and sincerely appreciate Wells; and I was rather pleased that Wells should be appreciated in a paper where he had been so often criticized. I do hope this work will not turn into anything that looks like a mere attack on Wells; especially in the rather realistic and personal modern manner, which I am perhaps too Victorian myself to care very much about. I do not merely feel this because I have managed to keep Wells as a friend on the whole. I feel it much more (and I know you are a man to understand such sentiments) because I have a sort of sense of honor about him as an enemy, or at least a potential enemy. We are so certain to collide in controversial warfare, that I have a horror of his thinking I would attack him with anything but fair controversial weapons. My feeling is so entirely consistent with a faith in Pugh’s motives, as well as an admiration of his talents, that I honestly believe I could explain this to him without offense; and I will if necessary write to him to do so; but I thought I would write to you first; as you know him and may possibly know his aims and attitude as I do not.

I am honestly in a very difficult position on the “New Witness,” because it is physically impossible for me really to edit it, and also do enough outside work to be able to edit it unpaid, as well as having a little over to give to it from time to time. What we should have done without the loyalty and capacity of you and a few others I can’t imagine. I cannot oversee everything that goes into the paper and it would certainly be most uncomfortable for either of us to exercise our rights of “cutting” stuff given to us under such circumstances as Pugh’s: but I think I should exercise it if Pugh went very far in the realistic manner about some of the weak points in Wells’ career. There were one or two phrases about old quarrels in the last number which strike a note I should really regret touching more serious things; and I should like to consult with you about such possibilities before they appear in the paper. I cannot do it with most things in the paper, as I say; and nobody could possibly do it better than you. On the other hand, I cannot resign, without dropping, as you truly say, the work of a great man who is gone; and who, I feel, would wish me to continue it. It is like what Stevenson said about Marriage and its duties: “There is no refuge for you; not even suicide.” But I should have to consider even resignation, if I felt that the acceptance of Pugh’s generosity really gave him the right to print something that I really felt bound to disapprove. It may be that I am needlessly alarmed over a slip or two of the pen, in vivid descriptions of a very odd character; and that Pugh really admires his Big Little H. G. as I thought he did at the beginning of the business. I only write this to confide to you what is in my mind, which is far from an easy task; but I think you are one to understand. If the general impression on the reader’s mind is of the Big Wells and not the little Wells, I think the doubt I mean would really be met.

Yours always sincerely, G. K. Chesterton.

Mr. Titterton wrote in a letter a few years ago:

“Edward Macdonald assists G. K. C. in editing the ‘Rag.’ In fact he does all the technical editing, though G. K. C. controls the strategy. He is a splendid fellow, very simple and humble, very loyal, very wise. His editing of “G. K.’s Weekly” is a labor of love. What I know of G. K. you know already. You must be with him day by day to see the infinite simplicity--innocence--and friendliness of the man. We are fortunate to be led by a little child. When we were starting the Distributist League, I suggested that it should be called ‘The League of the Little Man.’ And G. K. C. said that, though he liked the title, he thought that, with him as President, it would be regarded as a great joke. Probably it would have been. Yet, in fact, he IS the little Man.”

Mr. Hugo C. Riviere has pleasant recollections of having painted Chesterton’s portrait:

“What excellent talk I heard when he was sitting to me. It was, as I so often saw him, in his big Inverness cape with that massive head at that time covered with a big mane of brown hair, his hat on the grass and a favorite sword stick brandished against the sky. It was just after his ‘Napoleon of Notting Hill’ was written. A little later I was to be made a very proud man by receiving a copy of ‘The Flying Inn’ and finding it was dedicated to me. You know, of course, what a fine large style G. K. C. had himself as a draughtsman with a great and free grasp of form and character. How often when dining with us I have seen him take out an old envelope and rapidly cover it with extraordinary sketches. I have one carefully treasured in my ‘Napoleon of Notting Hill’ an old envelope covered with every sort and type of hand and figure, some in medieval dress, and some modern, two or three clever heads of G. B. Shaw and other clerical and political and imaginary. How delightful were the illustrations he made for ‘The Biography of Beginners’ that he and E. C. Bentley did together. I also remember G. K. C., after writing an article, over his last glass of wine when all of us, and he too, were talking after dinner, and the boy sent by whatever magazine it was destined for, waiting in the hall. His favorite, and I think, characteristic, taste in wine was red Burgundy, but he did not notice his food much, as he was far too busy thinking and talking.”

Mr. Hermon Ould, the Secretary-General of the P. E. N. Club, met Chesterton many times. When H. G. Wells found the presidency too onerous and was threatening to resign, Mr. Ould offered the office to Chesterton who replied in a characteristic letter, dated August 2, 1935:

Dear Mr. Ould:

You might imagine how miserable I feel in having again delayed a reply to your kind letters; and being again, after a struggle, forced back on the same dismal reply. The truth is that I did very much wish to accept this great distinction you have offered me; and have been trying to think of various ways in which it might be managed; but have come back to the conclusion that it really cannot be managed. The delay was partly due to your own persuasive powers; for I must admit that I was a good deal shaken by what you said about the possibilities of using the position for many things in which I believe. If I may say so, you must be a very good secretary; and a good secretary is much more important than a good president. But I am practically certain that I should not be a good president. I am honestly thinking in the interests of the Club; and I feel it would be better for me to decline the candidature than for me to resign rather abruptly soon afterwards, because I found the responsibilities you describe too incompatible with the responsibilities I have already. As you truly say, it would be unworthy to accept what is merely a sinecure; and I really cannot manage this additional cure of souls....

Yours faithfully, G. K. Chesterton.

Father Vincent C. Donovan spent a good part of an afternoon with Chesterton and his wife at Boston’s Chatham Hotel. Many things were discussed, but Father Donovan recalls that the visitors were particularly interested in their impressions of America. They found Boston very English in appearance and atmosphere. Among other things Chesterton said,

“All the Jews have been hounding me as a result of my ‘New Jerusalem.’ I am not a little hurt and puzzled about their unreasonable attitude because in that work I have honestly tried to be objective, fair, and understanding, but they won’t see that.”

Mr. Vincent de Paul Fitzpatrick first met Chesterton at the Belvedere Hotel, Baltimore, in February, 1921, and recalls that he praised the persistency of the Irish in struggling for their rights:

“When you hear of an organization in England fighting for liberty, you must find whether or not that organization contains much Irish blood. It means all the difference in the world. If you hear in this country of a strike in the Cycle Valley, it is nothing to get worried over. But if you hear of a strike in Glasgow, you may expect something exclusive and exciting. The reason is that a mass of the Irish poor is found in that city, and the Irish will not submit meekly when any person or any group tries to trample upon them.

“We see the English people grumbling at the perpetual interference with their rights and at the various restrictions to which they are subjected, but they are not organized. There are plenty of old radicals in England, who, as individuals, are sincere defenders of liberty, but they are isolated. Take, for example, old Dr. Johnson. With the Irish Catholics things are different. Their love for liberty seems to have been created by the Catholic Church--their only corporate defender of liberty today--is the Catholic Church. Liberty means much to her--something to be protected. She defends it with her powerful organization. When we speak of the English Labor party in England fighting for its rights, we do not mean the English labor party, at all, we mean the Scotch-Irish Labor party.”

On December 7, 1930, Mr. Fitzpatrick had a long talk with Chesterton at the St. Moritz, New York City. It was the eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and Chesterton was thinking of his newly found Faith,

“It stands to reason that Christmas means more to me now that I am a Catholic than it did before I was converted to the Faith. But Christmas has meant much to me ever since my boyhood. I believed in Christmas before I believed in Christ. In the years immediately before my conversion I naturally thought much more seriously about Christmas, my thoughts became more consoling and Christmas was more beautiful as the passing days drew me nearer to the Church.

“I believed in the spirit of Christmas and I liked Christmas, even when I was a boy filled with radicalistic tendencies when I really thought I was atheistic. In those days I wrote a poem to the Blessed Virgin. I was quite young and the poem, God help me, must have been a rather wretched thing, though I imitated Swinburne, or at least, tried to imitate him when I wrote it.

“From my early years I had an affection for the Blessed Virgin and for the Holy Family. The story of Bethlehem and the story of Nazareth appealed to me deeply when I was a boy. Long before I joined the Catholic Church the Immaculate Conception had my allegiance. That allegiance has been intensified steadily.

“Aside from the teaching of the Church on the subject, a doctrine which we as Catholics accept, the thought that there was in all the ages one creature, and that creature a woman, who was preserved from the slightest taint of sin, won my heart.”

Mother Mary St. Luke recalls that during Chesterton’s visit to Rome in the late Autumn of 1929, he went several times to the Convent of the Holy Child, where he lectured one day before a crowded audience on “Thomas More and Humanism.” At the conclusion, a Father Cuthbert thanked the speaker and expressed the appreciation of the audience, remarking on the mental resemblance of More and Chesterton, saying that he could quite well imagine them sitting together making jokes, some of them VERY good, and some of them VERY bad.

The Chestertons were also present in the Vatican at the reading of the Degree for the Beatification of the English Martyrs. At the conclusion of the ceremony there was the usual rush and confusion in the neighborhood of the cloak-room next to the sala Clementina. A group of Holy Child pupils having gathered around Chesterton, and learned of his dismay at not being able to retrieve his famous cloak from the “Bussolanti” on account of the milling crowd, plunged into the melee and brought it back to him in triumph. They also secured a taxi for them in the Piazza di San Pietro--no small feat on such an occasion! G. K. expressed his appreciation of their efforts in his own beautiful “architectural” handwriting, which constitutes one of the most treasured possessions of the school,

“For the Young Ladies Suffering Education at the Convent of the Holy Child.

“To be a Real Prophet once For you alone did I desire, Who dragged the Prophet’s Mantle down And brought the Chariot of Fire.”