In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton

Available : American Chesterton Society

I've been  buying a Chesterton book a month and this was my April book.  From the title you might think it a psychological treatise, but it's not.  It's a collection of 67 essays on everything under the sun.

SIXTY-SEVEN essays, you say?  Considering that he wrote over 5000, it was hard to pick out only 67 to represent the best. That's what three Chesterton scholars, Dale Ahlquist, Aidan Mackey, and Joseph Pearce say in their intros to the work  I think they did a good job in choosing.  There were some I had already read and some that have never been printed before.  The variety of topics is astounding:  skeletons, cheese, chalk, fireworks, rain, literary critcism and so much more.

Of special interest to me was "On certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family", "The Drift from Domesticity", "Marriage and the Modern Mind","The Romance of Childhood", "What is Right with the World" and "Babies and Distributism".  They may sound a little dull, but they are full of witty phrases and surprises.  Reading Chesterton is like taking a mental jog.

The best essay in my opinion is "Twelve Men".  It is about jury duty and should be required reading in civics classes, but probably couldn't be used because it has religious overtones.

Several of the essays are just completely charming.  "The Romantic in the Rain"  has me wanting to throw away my umbrella and get a "mackintosh" and go out to join the downpour.  "{The rain} gives the roads....something of the beauty of Venice.  Shallow lakes of water reiterate every detail of earth and sky....the sense of a Celestial topsy-turvydom.....It will always give a man the strange sense of looking down at the skies".

"What I Found in my Pocket" has G.K. stranded at a station with nothing to read, not even posters on the wall.  So, he amuses himself with the things in his pockets.  In another essay, "Cheese" ( a subject on which "poets have been mysteriously silent" )   has finally been treated with the dignity it deserves.

My favorite, though, is "A Piece of Chalk".  In it, G.K. takes a box of colored chalk and some brown paper borrowed from his landlady and goes out for a hike into the countryside:

"I crossed one swell of living turf after another, looking for a place to sit down and draw.  Do not, for heaven's sake, imagine I was going to sketch from Nature.  I was going to draw devils and seraphim, and blind old gods that men worshipped before the dawn of right, and saints in robes of angry crimson, and seas of strange green and all the sacred or monstrous symbols that look so well in bright colors on brown paper.  They are so much better worth drawing than Nature;  also, they are much easier to draw.  When a cow came slouching by in the field next to me, a mere artist might have drawn it; but I always get wrong in the hind legs of quadrepeds.  So I drew the soul of the cow;  which I saw there plainly walking before me in the sunlight;  and the soul was all purple and silver, and had seven horns and the mystery that belongs to all the beasts."

 He then discovers that his box of chalk has no white, which everyone knows you really, really need when drawing on brown paper!  How he solves this dilemma is amusing.

More amazing than the variety of topics is the continuity of Chesterton's thought that ties everything together.   As it says on the back cover of the book:  "Here is a veritable feast for the mind and the soul".

Disturbing the Peace

 My reading nook is normally a very peaceful and quiet appearing place.  Not so this Saturday and Sunday.  You might think the most uproarious time was on Saturday as we celebrated my birthday.  But not so.

This is my birthday cake

For the most part my guests were really well behaved.  All we had to do was to make sure some people were busy eating........

That was my Birthday Cake

 Others, of course are just naturally peaceful people...

A piece - full guest

The conversationalist

There are always one or two, though, who really liven things up....

The rowdies

Yes the party on Saturday was lively, but not uproarious.  It was on Sunday that the action really picked up.  King Alfred convinced his chiefs to oppose the invader Guthrum the Dane and.......

we fought the Battle of Ethandune

all afternoon 

in my living room.

Pictures were made possible by a lovely gift from my family.

Cake was made by daughter Collette and her children.

Book was a meme.  It is available at the American Chesterton Society

What is Right With the World

At present we all tend to one mistake;  we tend to make politics too important.  We tend to forget how huge a part of a man's life is the same under a Sultan and a Senate, under Nero or St. Louis.  Daybreak is a never-ending glory, getting out of bed is a never-ending nuisance;  food and friends will be welcomed;  work and strangers must be accepted and endured;  birds will go bedwards and children won't, to the end of the last evening.

G.K. Chesterton from What is Right with the World

Things are often not what they seem

If I were to start a local chapter of the American Chesterton Society, I would have the members bring their favorite quote and find out where they first heard about him.  But, on the second meeting we would have read at least one Father Brown story - "The Scandal of Father Brown", which is the title story of the fifth collection.

Reading any Father Brown mystery is a  good introduction to Chesterton because 'they are often not what they seem'.  Yes they are good mysteries, but there is a lot more going on than detection.  Paradox (Chesterton's favorite literary device) abounds, but it is used in a broad, easy to grasp manner.  His defense of the permanent things (marriage, family, orthodoxy) is evident, as it is in all he writes.

"The Scandal of Father Brown" has the typical Chestertonian theme 'things are not often what they seem' going on many different levels at once.  The story is a mystery about the disappearance of an American heiress.  As the mystery unravels, GK manages to fit in a number of other themes:   prejudice and how a civilized person deals with it; the American cult of celebrity; modern dysfunctional views of marriage; the effect of media on the lives of people; the irresponsibility of the press -  and how it all ties together and fits in with the mystery.  This is accomplished in  nine very entertaining pages.

Now, I may be prejudiced about this particular story because I have just finished reading it.  Perhaps it would be better to start with the  first collection "The Innocence of Father Brown" where we have a little theology thrown in:  "I want you to give them back, Flambeau, and I want you to give up this life.  There is still youth and honor and humor in you;  don't fancy they will last in that trade.  Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.  That road goes down and down."

It would be a hard choice except that "Scandal" ends with a great addendum that illustrates one of my pet peeves.  I can't stand it when false accusations against anyone are made, because they are always out there and can't be retrieved :

"I must ring up my paper and tell them I've been telling them a pack of lies."

 Not much more than half an hour had passed, between the time when Rock had telephoned to say the priest was helping the poet to run away with the lady, and the time when he telephoned to say that the priest had prevented the poet from doing precisely the same thing. But in that short interval of time was born and enlarged and scattered upon the winds the Scandal of Father Brown. The truth is still half an hour behind the slander; and nobody can be certain when or where it will catch up with it. 

The garrulity of pressmen and the eagerness of enemies had spread the first story through the city, even before it appeared in the first printed version. It was instantly corrected and contradicted by Rock himself, in a second message stating how the story had really ended; but it was by no means certain that the first story was killed. A positively incredible number of people seemed to have read the first issue of the paper and not the second.

 Again and again, in every corner of the world, like a flame bursting from blackened ashes, there would appear the old tale of the Brown Scandal, or Priest Ruins Potter Home. Tireless apologists of the priest's party watched for it, and patiently tagged after it with contradictions and exposures and letters of protest. Sometimes the letters were published in the papers; and sometimes they were not. But still nobody knew how many people had heard the story without hearing the contradiction.

It was possible to find whole blocks of blameless and innocent people who thought the Mexican Scandal was an ordinary recorded historical incident like the Gunpowder Plot. Then somebody would enlighten these simple people, only to discover that the old story had started  afresh among a few quite educated people, who would seem the last people on earth to be duped by it. 

And so the two Father Browns chase each other round the world forever;  the first a shameless criminal fleeing from justice;  the second a martyr broken by scandal, in a halo of rehabilitation.  But neither of them is very much like the real Father Brown, who is not broken at all;  but goes stumping with his stout umbrella through life, liking most of the people in it;  accepting the world as his companion, but never as his judge.

There would be plenty to discuss from just one short story at my imaginary local chapter meeting.  It would be a good beginning.  One story - and a beer mug.  Dale Ahlquist, the president of the ACS says that the main equipment for a starting a chapter  is a Chesterton Beer Mug.  I'm all for that - I LOVE ROOT BEER!

Warning:  If you decide to read "Scandal" be forewarned that there are every type of racial and ethnic slurs coming out of the mouth of an American.  This used to be typical, but I think we have improved on that front and people are not used to hearing those things any more.  However, the way Father Brown handles the prejudice is instructive.

The Father Brown Mysteries

The first books I read by G.K. Chesterton were the Father  Brown Mysteries.  When I read them, 30 - 40 years ago, I didn't really realize that he had written anything else.  Being an avid classic mystery reader, the Father Brown stories were right up there with Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.  In fact, I think I saw the stories on PBS Mystery Theater before I read them.

Father Brown is a fictional character based on a real friend of Chesterton's -  Father John O'Connor who was a parish priest in Bradford, England.  At one time G.K. was writing an article about an upswing in crime and showed it to the priest.  Father O'Connor said that he thought that the article was going in the wrong direction, and proceeded to tell Chesterton about how real evil was.  G.K. was shocked by what the priest told him and was surprised that someone as unworldly as Father O'Connor would have that knowledge.  This eventually appealed to Chesterton's love of paradox and, even though he himself was an Anglican, he decided to write mysteries about a priest/detective who was quiet, humble, and probably the last person who would be thought knowledgeable about crime.  In "The Blue Cross", when asked by the criminal Flambeau, who has been masquerading as a priest, how he knew of all sorts of criminal "horrors," Father Brown responds: "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?"

Father Brown is a short and stumpy , "formerly of Cobhole in Essex, and now working in London", with shapeless clothes and a large umbrella, and an uncanny insight into human evil. He makes his first appearance in the story "The Blue Corss" and continues through the five volumes of short stories, often assisted by the reformed criminal M. Hercule Flambeau.   He was something new and intriguing at the time of his literary appearance. The mystery genre was then dominated by Sherlock Holmes and many, many, imitations. Unlike Sherlock, Father Brown's methods tend to be intuitive rather than deductive.. He explains his method in 'The Secret of Father Brown': "You see, I had murdered them all myself... I had planned out each of the crimes very carefully. I had thought out exactly how a thing like that could be done, and in what style or state of mind a man could really do it. And when I was quite sure that I felt exactly like the murderer myself, of course I knew who he was."

The stories normally contain a rational explanation of who the murderer was and how Brown worked it out. He always emphasizes rationality: some stories, such as "The Miracle of Moon Crescent", "The Oracle of the Dog", "The Blast of the Book" and "The Dagger With Wings", poke fun at initially skeptical characters who become convinced of a supernatural explanation for some strange occurrence, while Father Brown easily sees the perfectly ordinary, natural explanation. In fact, he seems to represent an ideal of a devout, yet considerably educated and "civilized" clergyman.

The stories were originally compiled into five volumes with 8-12 stories each:

• The Innocence of Father Brown  (1911)
• The Wisdom of Father Brown  (1914)
• The Incredulity of Father Brown  (1926)
• The Secret of Father Brown  (1927)
• The Scandal of Father Brown  (1935)

There are now several one-volume books containing all the stories.  A two volume set adapted for younger readers is also available.

"Things are not always what they seem to be" is a favorite theme of G.K. Chesterton.  We owe the creation of favorites such as Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Columbo to those who caught onto that theme.  In 1930, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, Edmund C. (Clerihew) Bentley, and many others,  formed the 'Detection Club'.  GKC was it's first president  (1930-1936).  They had a fanciful initiation oath made by either Dorothy Sayers or GK  and held regular dinner meetings in London. 

In addition to meeting for dinners and helping each other with technical aspects in their individual writings, the members of the club agreed to adhere to a code of ethics in their writing ( The Rules of Fair Play) to give the reader a fair chance at guessing the guilty party.  The club still meets, but the 'rules' have been relaxed.

Alec Guiness as Father Brown

A Proper Introduction

How can I describe my friend, Gilbert Keith Chesterton?

First of all he is quite a presence:  six foot four  and weighing in at 300 pounds, he is hard to miss!  A Goliath, you might say, but he is more like a jolly giant or an overgrown elf.  He is full of joy and laughter.  As he says, "I suppose I enjoy myself more than most other people, because there's such a lot of me having a good time."

He wears a crumpled hat and a heavy cape and carries a walking stick with a sword concealed inside.  A swordstick?  He says he carries it because he likes things that come to a point.  But that is not the only weapon he carries....he carries a gun!  "I bought it on the day of my wedding", he explains...and then adds, "to defend my bride".  He says it also has proved to be quite useful on other occasions.  For instance, whenever he hears a man say that life is not worth living, he takes out the gun and offers to shoot him.  "Always with the most satisfactory results", he laughs.

But wait!  Is this how I really want to introduce him?  I could go on and on about the contents of his pockets (he wrote about it) and his way of life.  But I really need to tell you that he is a genius and a prolific writer.  He wrote millions of words - as a journalist with a daily newspaper column; in a monthly magazine he produced with his friends; as a novelist, essayist, poet, mystery story writer.

But wait!  I need to mention that he is a Christian apologist and wrote works that influenced Tolkien and C.S. Lewis such as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man.  He debated the atheists and Progressives of his day and was famous for it.  Now I am getting closer to telling you what is important about G.K. Chesterton.

EVERYTHING he wrote was a defense of  what he called the permanent things:  Orthodoxy in religion, the home, the family, Christian Culture.  He defended it against the same Progressivist agenda that is steam rolling us today and he did it with grace, clarity and good humor.  When you read  his books it seems as though they were written just yesterday.

He was endowed with a considerable intellect and used it with all his might in the service of our Lord.  In the poem the Wild Knight we get a glimpse of his motivation:

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,
The barren grasses blow upon my spear,
A green, pale pennon:  blazon of wild faith
And love of fruitless things:  yea, of my love,
Among the golden loves of all the knights, 
Alone:  most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous,
The love of God:
I hear the crumbling creeds
Like cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass,
I hear a noise of words, age after age,
A new cold wind that blows across the plains, 
 And all the shrines stand empty;and to me
All these are nothing: priests and schools may doubt
Who never have believed;  but I have loved.

The poem goes on with all the reasons his enemies tell him that he should not seek after God, but no matter how reasonable they sound, all he can respond is that he loves Him and desires nothing more than to see His face, because God had spoken to him once... The last few lines are:

But the grey clouds come down
In hail upon the icy plains:  I ride,
burning for ever in consuming fire.

I have been reading G.K. Chesterton for a while - some poetry, some novels, some apologetics, some essays, and many mystery stories.  Eventually I would like to review them here.

New Beginning

The beginning of Spring, a few days after the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord - this is the perfect moment for a new beginning.  So, begin I will.

For the past 6 weeks, I have been studying Common Sense 101 - Lessons from G.K. Chesterton.  G.K. was an old acquaintance of  mine that has turned into a great friend.  I was going to spend some time introducing him, but since he is here today I have decided to do a quick interview with him.

Mrs. Bill:  "Mr. Chesterton, the name of my blog is Hearth and Home.  I have tried to present the home as the center of life.  Do you have anything to say to that?"

GKC:  "The place where babies are born, where men die, where the daily drama of mortal life is acted, is not an office or shop or a bureau.  It is something much smaller in size, yet much larger in scope.  And while nobody would be such a fool as to pretend that the home is the only place where people should work, or even the only place where women should work, it has a character of unity and universality that is not found in any of the fragmentary experiences of the office or the shop or the bureau."

Mrs. Bill:  "I know from experience that this is true, but I seem to be in the minority.  Our culture  is in disarray and now the government is stepping in with all kinds of assistance and programs that don't really seem to do any good."

GKC: "Human culture is handed down in the customs of countless households;  it is the only way in which human culture can remain fully human.  The households are right to confess a common loyalty to some  king or republic.  But the king cannot be the nurse in every nursery, and the government cannot be come the governess in every schoolroom."

Mrs. Bill:  "You mention the schoolroom.  In our society, we hear endless talk about the importance of education - public education, that is.   But I think we somehow manage to forget that the primary place of education is the home.  What do you think?

GKC:  "If education is the largest thing in the world, what is the sense of talking about a woman being liberated from the largest thing in the world?"

Mrs. Bill:  Thank you Mr. Chesterton.

Michaelmas Daisies, G.K., and the Thrill of Monotony

Whatever happened to Michaelmas Daisies? I'm not sure, but I think that they are asters. Whether that is an old fashioned name for all asters or just for a particular variety, I can't say.

When I was a child, Michaelmas Daisies were a common feature of the gardens I knew. They were a delicate purple flower that bloomed in September and October. How nice it was that when everything else was fading, they were just coming into their own. They remind me of the passage in Ecclesiastes about there being a season for everything.

Several years ago, I bought a plant labeled 'Aster', but it bloomed in June and never came back! Can't have been the real thing. I'm going to have to take a drive around town and see if I can't spy some.

Last Sunday evening I saw a man portraying G.K. Chesterton. He quoted him about life being a 'dance' and not a 'race'. The dance stands for order - rhythmic and recurring action around a central thing whereby balance is kept. God built this balance and rhythm in nature - the days, the seasons, and the stars.

The 'dance' ruled in society and private life until 'the cult of progress' took hold in the last century. It was a new goofy idea in Chesterton's day, but a way of life now. "New is always better than old", "We must leave the past behind us" are two of the progressivists credos. Doing the 'same old thing' is truly a horror. It's just as bad as having the 'same old tired ideas'. "Change is what we need!" And finally, "God is Dead!" But the problem is, the progressivists have no clear goals for the race they propose. So, here we are, personally and collectively rushing toward unknown or undefined goals (healthcare is one of the latest) and all the world is thrown off balance by it. But if nothing else, progressivists say, "the race is more exciting than the dance!" Is it?

Let's ask G.K.:

"Because children have unbounding vitality, because they are fierce and free, they therefore want things repeated and unchanged. They often say, "Do it again", and the grown up person does it again till he is nearly dead. For grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps, God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes each daisy separately, but never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."