Gilbert Keith Chesterton Part 13

Chesterton is still a young man; he is young in soul and body. Like Peter Pan he does not grow up, yet he is a famous man; he has written great books, he has written fine poems, he has written brilliant essays, but he has never written a book with an appeal to an unthinking public that reads to kill thought. I wonder whether Chesterton would write a 'Philosophy for the Unthinking Man'? I think he is the one man of the day who could do it, and I think it might be his greatest book.

I have attempted in this book to draw a picture of the works of Chesterton. They are not easy to deal with; they may mean many things. I have not attempted to forecast the future of Chesterton, strong as the temptation has been, but I have endeavoured to place before those who know Chesterton what it is they admire in him; and for those who only know him as a name, I hope that this book may induce them to read the most arresting writer of the day, who is known in every country as the Master of Paradox, which is to say that he is the Master of the Temple of Understanding.