Gilbert Keith Chesterton Part 12

_Chapter Twelve_

HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE

In a very admirable discussion on the word 'great,' in his study of d.i.c.kens, Chesterton remarks that 'there are a certain number of people who always think dead men great and live men small.' The tendency is natural and is entirely worthy of blame. If a man is great when he is dead, then he was great when he was alive. It is but a re-echo of much of the folly talked during the war, when we were so credulous as to believe that every dead soldier was a saint and every live one a hero.

Then, when the war was over, these hero worshippers quietly forgot that the soldiers had been heroes, put up stone crosses to the dead, and did little to remove the crosses from the living.

There are a number of quite well meaning people who will say, without much thought, that Chesterton is a great man, and if you ask them why, they will answer, 'He is a great writer, he is a great lecturer, he must be great; look at the times he appears in the Press, look at the wealth of caricature that is displayed on him.' No doubt these are good reasons in their way, but they rather indicate that Chesterton is well known in a popular sense; they are not a true indication that he is great. The public of to-day is inclined to measure greatness by the number of times a person appears in the newspapers, it seldom realizes that greatness is, above all, a moral quality, not a quant.i.ty; the fact that a person is in front of the public eye (very often a blind eye) is no indication of true greatness. If it was, then of necessity every Prime Minister would be a great man, every revue actress would be a great woman, every ordinary person would be small.

It is one of the most difficult things possible to determine what is the place a writer takes in literature. It does not make the task easier when the writer is not only alive but is still a comparatively young man in the height of his powers. A pure and simple biography cannot always determine with any satisfaction its subject's literary standing.

Critical studies of cla.s.sic authors do not usually give any preciseness about the exact niche the subject fills.

Literature is one of the most elastic qualities of the day, of human activity; it cannot be bound by rules, yet has a more or less artificial standard, which is, perhaps, an imaginary line which has style on the one side and lack of style on the other. Yet there is a further difficulty: it is in no way fair to award an author his place in literature entirely by his style, nor is it fair to literature to disregard it.

I have antic.i.p.ated in earlier chapters some of what must be said in this, but it is not, I think, out of place to attempt to write of the literary qualities of Chesterton and of his place in contemporary literature. With regard to his position in respect of former writers I must say something, but it would not be wise to give any comment of what may be the permanent place of Chesterton in the world of books. He has, I hope, many years of literary output in front of him. It cannot be ignored that his reception into the Roman Catholic Church may greatly influence his future writings; it is too soon to make any effort to predict whether his writings will stand the test of time, whether he will be popular in a hundred years or whether he will have the neglect that has attended some of the greatest of authors.

There is a question that must be faced. Has Chesterton a place in literature at all, if, as is the usual thing, we have to compare him with contemporary writers, or is it that he has such a unique place that it is impossible to compare him to any living writer? Probably, although it is not necessary, it is best to compare Chesterton with some of the greatest writers of the day, and see why it is that he is worthy of a place in the foremost rank. There are, at the present day, a great number of writers who would appear worthy of a foremost place in literature. Those I have chosen have been selected because, in a sort of vague way, people couple them with the name of Chesterton. They are, I think, H.G. Wells, Bernard Shaw and Hilaire Belloc.

I do think that all these writers have a unique place in contemporary literature. Perhaps, of the three, Wells is the greatest, because there is possibly no greater thing than a scientific prophet who is also a brilliant novelist. If Belloc and Shaw are smaller men it is because they deal with smaller matters.

At the present day Chesterton does occupy in contemporary literature a place that no one else does. He is, in a sense, a d.i.c.kens of the twentieth century; he is something more, he may even be a prophet. Of course Chesterton has not the enormous following that d.i.c.kens had at the height of his powers, but he has that kind of monumental feeling in the twentieth century that belonged to d.i.c.kens in the nineteenth: he is typical of this century, being an optimist when ordinary men are pessimistic. As in the nineteenth century d.i.c.kens made common men realise their greatness when they themselves felt immeasurably small, so Chesterton makes great men feel small when they are really so.

But in another sense he cannot really be compared to d.i.c.kens. d.i.c.kens undoubtedly was a delineator of supreme characters. I do not think it can be said that any of the characters of Chesterton would ever be known with the knowledge with which Mr. Pickwick is known. d.i.c.kens was not in any sense an essayist; Chesterton is one in every sense. d.i.c.kens was a man who really cared very much that all kinds of oppression should be put down; Chesterton, no doubt, cares also, but he rather imagines that things ordinary people quite rightly call welfare work are but forms of slavery. If d.i.c.kens hated factories it was because he had hateful experience of them; if Chesterton hates factories it is because he thinks they destroy family life and the home. I have attempted to suggest that d.i.c.kens and Chesterton are alike as regards their being monuments of their respective centuries. I have also suggested that they are extremely unlike. Yet I can think of no writer of the nineteenth century who, in ideal, is so near to Chesterton as d.i.c.kens; but that at the same time they are also so far apart is but another indication that to place Chesterton in regard to the past is almost impossible.

One thing that Chesterton is not, is an Eclectic; if he is an original thinker, it is because he can see that though black is not really white there is no particular reason why it should not be grey; if Notting Hill can boast of forty fried fish shops he does not see any reason why it could fail to produce a Napoleon. If a party of Dons are sitting round a table discussing how desirable is the elimination of life, he sees that it is a perfectly good ethic for one of the undergraduates to test the theory by brandishing a loaded pistol at the warden's head. If, as a novelist, he is different to all his contemporaries, it is because he has discovered that the word novel sometimes means something new, sometimes something original, very often something extremely old.

Yet another difficulty for finding an exact niche for Chesterton lies in the fact that he is a bit of everything, and, what is more, these bits are very big and make a large kaleidoscope. He is a theological professor who is so entirely sensible that the public hardly discovers the fact; he does not wear a cap and gown, and quote quite easily from all the Fathers of the ancient Church. He does not apologize for Christianity by reading Christian books. Rather to learn the Christian standpoint he discovers the tenets of Rationalism; he writes a theological philosophy that might be a discussion between Satan and Christ and puts it into a novel; he writes a dissertation on Transubstantiation and puts it into a tale of anarchy that is so untheological that it mentions Leicester Square and lobster mayonnaise; he is a historian who not only writes history but understands it; he does not consider that William conquered England, but that England conquered William; he says the best way to read history is to read it backwards; he is a historian who does not consider the most important facts are the dates of kings who lived and died.

It has been said that Chesterton is the finest essayist of the day. It would be perhaps fairer to say he is like no living essayist; if he is not a finer essayist than Dean Inge, he is at least as good; he may not be so academic, but he is as learned; if he has not quite the charm of Mr. Lucas he is at least more versatile. His essays sparkle with epigrams, they are full of paradox. He has said that Plato said silly things and yet was the wonder of the ancient world. He can lament that H.G. Wells has come to the awful conclusion that two and two are four, and at the same time be thankful that not even in fairyland can two and two make five; he can state quite calmly that the weakness of Feminism is that it drives the woman from the freedom of the home to the slavery of the world; he can make priggish clergymen, who accuse him of joking and taking the name of the Lord in vain, bite their words by explaining that to make a joke of anything is not to take it in vain. As an essayist, Chesterton stands apart from his contemporaries. Of older essayists I can think of none who could in any way be said to have a similarity to Chesterton.

One of the most interesting things about Chesterton is his position as a poet. I have said, in an earlier chapter, that he might have been the Poet Laureate. I have ventured to say that if posterity did not place him among great poets it would be because he had given more attention to prose. The particular question of Chesterton as a poet opens up a more general one, which is something in the nature of a problem. Would the great cla.s.sic poets of the last century have been as great if they had not written so much poetry? Had Tennyson written but two long poems; had Browning never written anything but short lyrics; had Wordsworth been content to write few poems, provided these had been an indication of the best work of these particular poets, would posterity have granted them immortality? Will Chesterton go down to posterity as a poet on account of his fine achievement in his 'Ballad of the White Horse,' or will people forget him because he has not written more? I am rather afraid this may be so. Posterity, it is true, likes quality, but it likes it better with quant.i.ty.

But I feel that I am dealing with what I had said it would be well to avoid--anything to do with the future of Chesterton. What is Chesterton's position as a poet to-day? He is, I think, one of the finest of the day; he has a fine sense of humour in poetry; he has great powers of recasting scenes of long-forgotten centuries; he has a fine musical rhythm; but he has not, I think, pathos. I think it is a pity that he does not write epics on events of the day; he might easily find the Poet Laureate's silence an inspiration; he might write another great poem; it might be better than any more novels.

It is difficult to say whether or not Chesterton is a playwright. His one play was a fine one about a fine subject, but I do not think it had the qualities that would be popular in an ordinary theatre in London.

There is a certain suggestion of a problem about it which is a little obscure. We are not sure whether Chesterton is in earnest or joking: it has not probably sufficient action to suit this century, that wishes aeroplanes to dash through the house on the stage, or two or three people to meet with violent deaths in three acts. It is in the nature of a discussion and might be almost anti-Shavian; it would be absurd to attempt to place Chesterton among contemporary dramatic authors, but it is not too much to predict that he might quite easily soon be very near the front rank.

By his critical studies of Browning, d.i.c.kens, and Thackeray, Chesterton has proved that there was a great deal more to be said about these cla.s.sic authors than the critics had seemed to think. Chesterton seldom agreed with those who had written before. What they had considered weaknesses he had considered strength; what he had considered weakness they had considered strength. Possibly no author had been written about more than d.i.c.kens, yet there remained for Chesterton to add much that was vital. No poet had been more misunderstood than Browning; no poet had been more attacked for his grotesque style; no critic has written with the understanding of Browning as has Chesterton. In taking extracts from Thackeray, Chesterton has shown a fine appreciation of that novelist's best work.

It is a difficult thing for a great writer to be a great critic. He is liable to be either condescending or supercilious; he is liable unconsciously to judge all standards by his own; he is likely to be rather intolerant of any opinions but his own; it is easier for a great critic to be a great writer. In the case of Chesterton, because he is a great and original writer he has a brilliant critical ac.u.men that probes deep into the minds of other authors and sees what is stored there in a way that other critics have, perhaps, failed to see, not because they did not choose to look for it, but rather because, almost without knowing it, critics who set out to be critics exclusively are liable to work rather too much by a fixed rule.

It is, I hope, now apparent how difficult it is to say where exactly Chesterton finds a place in literature. Is it as an essayist? Is it as a novelist? Is it as a historian? Is it as a critic? If it is as a novelist, then it is as a writer of peculiar phantasy; if it is as an essayist, it is as a brilliant controversialist; if it is as a historian, it is as a unique critic of history; if it is as a critic, it is as a broad-minded one of not only past great authors but of current events.

I do not know of any writer who is so difficult to place. Wells can quite well be a fine novelist and prophet; Bernard Shaw can easily be called a playwright and a philosopher; Galsworthy is a serious novelist and a playwright who takes the art with proper regard for its powers of social redress; Sir James Barrie is a mystical writer with a message.

There are fifty novelists who are interpreters of manners and problems of the twentieth century. But Chesterton is not like any of these. He is not in any sense a specialist; he is really a general pract.i.tioner with the hand of a specialist in everything he touches except divorce. In a word, he is that thing in literature that occurs once or twice in every century--an epic. He is the laughing, genial writer of the twentieth century who, in everything he does, earns the highest of all literary honours--to be unique.

_Chapter Thirteen_

G.K.C. AND G.B.S.

It would be a very interesting problem to try and discover how it is that Gilbert Keith Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw have come to be known so familiarly as G.K.C. and G.B.S. If any of my readers can suggest a solution of this, I hope they will let me know; because, if I calmly headed this chapter G.K.C. and J.M.B. I do not think that any one would guess that I was attempting to compare Chesterton to James Matthew Barrie unless I told them. It would be really quite amusing to do all comparisons by this initial method; we might find in the _Hibbert Journal_ an article on the need of Episcopacy headed H.H. Dunelm and Frank Zanzibar, which would be quite simply the Bishop of Durham and the Bishop of Zanzibar on Episcopacy; or, for a rest, we might turn to the _Daily Herald_ and find 'J.R.C. attacks L.G.,' which would be quite simply that Mr. Clynes did not see eye to eye with the Premier that a Coalition Government was a national a.s.set.

If we refer to the past, it is not easy to suggest any one who might be known by initials. Charles d.i.c.kens was never known as C.D.; Thackeray, when he wrote his 'Essay on the Four Georges' was probably not known as W.M.T. on the Four Georges; but if Chesterton writes a book on America, the Press affirms that there is a new book on America by G.K.C., or we pick up a morning paper and find a large headline on 'G.B.S. on Prisons,' and every one knows who it is. But put a headline, 'Randall on Divorce,' and it is not seen at once that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been addressing the Upper House on a matter of grave ecclesiastical import.

There is a saying about some people being born great, others having that state thrust upon them, others as having achieved it. There is no doubt that Chesterton was born to be great, so no doubt was Shaw, but they went about it in a different way. The public caught hold of the remarkable personality of Chesterton and scarcely a day pa.s.sed that the Press did not either quote him or caricature him; on the other hand, Shaw caught hold of the public, annoyed its susceptibilities, held it in supreme contempt, raved at it from the stage and platform, and the public, amazed at his cleverness, received him as the rude philosopher who looked a genius, talked like a whirlwind, said that he was greater than Shakespeare, said he was the Moliere of the twentieth century, and posed until it was expected of him.

But Chesterton does not pose. If he comes to lecture on Cobbett and talks for three-quarters of an hour on how his hat blew off, it is not a pose, it is the natural inconsequence of Chesterton on the platform. If Shaw is invited to a dinner and writes that he does not eat dinner and does not care to see others doing nothing else, he is posing; but, if so, it is because he is expected to do so.

On almost every subject Shaw and Chesterton disagree; yet they are both men who, in some way, attempt to be reformers. Shaw proceeds by satire and contempt; Chesterton proceeds by originality and good nature, except on the question of divorce, which makes him very angry, and, as I have said, uncritical. Shaw chastises the world and is angry; Chesterton laughs, and, in a genial way, asks what is wrong; and, having found out, attempts to put things right. Shaw would rather have a new sort of world with a super-man.

Shaw and Chesterton approach reform from two different ways. Chesterton suggests them by queer novels and paradoxical essays; Shaw puts his ideas into the mouthpieces of those who are known as Shavian characters; he interprets his theories by the Stage, therefore his sermons reach tens of thousands who would not read him if he preached from a pulpit.

Thus, if he wants to show that there are no rules for getting married, he puts the problem into a play and wants an extension of divorce; Chesterton, on the other hand, believes that marriage is Divine and that divorce is but a superst.i.tion. If Shaw believed that the home narrowed life, was a domestic monarchy, meant a loss of individuality between husband and wife, Chesterton, far from agreeing to this proposition, takes the opposite view that it is the home which is large and the world which is small and narrowing. Probably neither is quite right. For some people the home is narrowing, for others it is the place that affords the widest scope; for some the world is narrow, for others the world is extremely broad--in fact, so broad that they never are able to get free from its immensity.

With regard to religion, whatever opinions Chesterton may hold--as he is now a Roman Catholic--they are no longer of interest. Shaw, on the other hand, is much too elastic a man to imagine for a moment that religion is a thing that is necessarily bound up with an organization which is mainly political; he is not so credulous as to believe that the spiritual can fall vertically to earth because a man kneels before a bishop and becomes a priest. Rather he had a much better plan. He started by being an atheist, the best possible foundation for subsequent theism. From this he became an Immanist, which is that G.o.d is in some way dispersed throughout the earth.

If there is one thing upon which we may say that Shaw and Chesterton are identical, it is in the strange fact that neither of them has, I think, ever described an ordinary lover--the sort of person who is nothing of a biological surprise, the kind of person who woos on a suburban court in Surbiton or Wimbledon and marries in a hideous red brick church to the cheerful accompaniment of confetti and the Wedding March. I do not think either of them can really enter into the ordinary emotions of life. They could neither of them write, I fancy, a really typical novel--that is, a tale about the folks who do the conventional things. Chesterton always sees everything upside down. If the man on Notting Hill sees it as a bustling area, Chesterton sees it as a place upon which a Napoleon might fall. Shaw, on the other hand, could not write of ordinary things because he is usually contemptuous of them. If Chesterton thinks education is a failure it is because the conventional method irritates him; Shaw considers that education does not educate a man, it 'merely moulds him.'

I am not sure that Mr. Skimpole, in his brilliant study of Bernard Shaw, is quite correct when he says 'the whole case against Chesterton, of course, is that he is a Romantic.' Why is it a something against him that he chooses to be an idealist? Because, says Mr. Skimpole, 'he does not seem to have grasped the fact that the most important difference between the Real and the Ideal aspects of anything is that while the Ideal is permanent and unchangeable as an angel, the Real requires an everlasting circle of changes.' I am rather afraid Mr. Skimpole is talking through a certain covering that adorns his head. Cannot he see that very often the ideal is nothing less than the real? It is no case against Chesterton that he is a Romantic so long as the fact is duly recognized. If he considers certain inst.i.tutions are permanent which may be said to be ideal (for instance, that marriage is a sacrament), he is just as likely to be as right as is Mr. Shaw when he contends that marriage must be made to fit the times, even if it be granted it is a Divine thing.

If Shaw is unable to see that most earthly things have a heavenly meaning, as Chesterton does, it is so much the worse for Shaw and so much the better for Chesterton. If Chesterton is a dangerous Romantic who likes Fairyland, at least Shaw is a dangerous eugenist who wants a super-man, and I am not sure that the fairies of Chesterton are not more useful than the ethics of Shaw; there is no doubt that they are less grown up. If Shaw is a philosopher, he is not one of this Universe; he is of another that shall be entirely sub-Shavian. If Chesterton is a philosopher, it is because he can see this universe better upside down than Shaw understands it the right way up.

In fact, the difference between Shaw and Chesterton may, I think, be something like this. They are, as I have said, both reformers, but Chesterton wishes to keep man as he is essentially, and gradually make him something better. Shaw wants to have done with man and produce a super-man. In this way Shaw admits the failure of man to rise above his environment. Chesterton not only thinks he is able to, but tries to prove it in his writings. Thus, if a man is an atheist he can show that he is in time capable of becoming a good theist, but Shaw if he allows some of his characters to be in h.e.l.l, gets them out of it by attempting to make them strive for the super-man. For Chesterton, Man is the Super-Man; for Shaw, the Super-Man is not Man at all.

In fact, this no doubt is the reason that Shaw is really a pessimist and Chesterton an optimist.

There is, I think, little doubt that Chesterton is a far more important man than Shaw. He has the facility for getting hold of the things that matter; he is never ill-natured; he does not make fun of other people.

Much as the writer admires the wit and brilliancy of Shaw, he cannot help feeling that Shaw is a rather cynical personality; Shaw loves to laugh at people, he is inclined to make fun of the martyrs. They were possibly quite mistaken in their enthusiasm, but at least they were consistent. I do not feel convinced that Shaw would stand in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and keep his ideals if he knew that it would involve being eaten by lions that came up Regent Street, as the martyrs faced them centuries ago in Rome, but I have little doubt that Chesterton would remain in Piccadilly Circus if he knew that he would be eaten unless he denied that marriage was a Divine inst.i.tution.

In a word, Shaw bases his Philosophy and Plays on a contempt for all existing inst.i.tutions. Chesterton bases his Writings and Philosophy on genial good nature and a respect for the things that are important.

Therefore I think that Shaw has not made such a permanent contribution to thought as Chesterton certainly has; even if it is only in showing that the Christian religion is reasonable.

_Chapter Fourteen_

CONCLUSION

There was a time in history when the ancient world searched in vain for the truth. It produced men of the type of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates; they were great philosophers who looked at the world in which they lived and asked what it meant. Was it material? Was it spiritual?

Was it temporary? Was it eternal? Men were dissatisfied. And about that time a greater Philosopher came in the wake of a star, and men called Him Christ.

It is the twentieth century, and the Man the ancient world called Christ founded the religion which His followers were to take to the ends of the earth. Yet men are still dissatisfied; philosophers look out of their high-walled windows and watch the modern world, which goes on; men die and are forgotten; creeds spring up for a day and pa.s.s; writers produce books, and in their turn pa.s.s away.

Of this century Chesterton is one of the great thinkers. It is, I think, a mistake not to take him seriously. If he is phantastic, there is a meaning behind his phantasy; if he laughs, the world need not think that he is frivolous. He is a prophet, and he has honour in his own country.