Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936 -- Criticism and interpretation
In the course of his lengthy article he gave "the Chesterbelloc"--"a
very amusing pantomime elephant"--several shrewd digs in the ribs. It
claimed, according to G.B.S., to be the Zeitgeist. "To which we reply,
bluntly, but conclusively, 'Gammon!'" The rest was mostly amiable
personalities. Mr. Shaw owned up to musical cravings, compared with
which the Chesterbelloc tendency to consume alcohol was as nothing. He
also jeered very pleasantly at Mr. Belloc's power to cause a stampede of
Chesterton's political and religious ideas. "For Belloc's sake
Chesterton says he believes literally in the Bible story of the
Resurrection. For Belloc's sake he says he is not a Socialist. On a
recent occasion I tried to drive him to swallow the Miracle of St.
Januarius for Belloc's sake; but at that he stuck. He pleaded his
belief in the Resurrection story. He pointed out very justly that I
believe in lots of things just as miraculous as the Miracle of St.
Januarius; but when I remorselessly pressed the fact that he did not
believe that the blood of St. Januarius reliquefies miraculously every
year, the Credo stuck in his throat like Amen in Macbeth's. He had got
down at last to his irreducible minimum of dogmatic incredulity, and
could not, even with the mouth of the bottomless pit yawning before
Belloc, utter the saving lie."
By this time the discussion was definitely off Socialism. Chesterton
produced another article, _The Last of the Rationalists_, in reply to
Mr. Shaw, from which one gathered what one had been previously suspected
that "you [namely Mr. Shaw, but in practice both the opposition
controversialists] have confined yourselves to charming essays on our
two charming personalities." And there they stopped.
The year following this bout of personalities saw the publication of a
remarkably brilliant book by Chesterton, _George Bernard Shaw_, in
which, one might have expected, the case against the political creed
represented by G.B.S. might have been carried a trifle farther. Instead
of which it was not carried anything like so far. Chesterton jeered at
Mr. Shaw's vegetarianism, denied his democracy, but decided that on the
whole he was a good republican, "in the literal and Latin sense; he
cares more for the Public Thing than for any private thing." He ends the
chapter entitled "The Progressive" by saying the kindest things he ever
said about any body of Socialists.
I have in my time had my fling at the Fabian
Society, at the pedantry of schemes, the arrogance
of experts; nor do I regret it now. But when I
remember that other world against which it reared
its bourgeois banner of cleanliness and common
sense, I will not end this chapter without doing
it decent honour. Give me the drain pipes of the
Fabians rather than the panpipes of the later
poets; the drain pipes have a nicer smell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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