G.K. Chesterton; essential writings

I finally finished the selection William Griffin made for the 'modern spiritual masters series'. One oddity to begin with is that I would not have selected all these pieces for such a 'spiritual' series: some were quite funny, but not overly religious (the 'piece of chalk', for example). The focus is on Chesterton's combinations of insight, hilarity and humility; the pieces are perfect illustrations.
I mentioned before that I usually dislike selections as compared to reading the original writings in context. In this selection, so many pieces came from 'Orthodoxy', that I could see the whole thing as a reminder of that excellent book. Furthermore, the last chapter about Chesterton's debate with Shaw on socialism and distributism is very insightful.

Perspective

Though I am too busy these weeks to read much, Chesterton's thought is often coming to mind. I frequently find myself saying that Chesterton would say this or that about some subject.
Sometimes, there is no one like Chesterton to put things in perspective. In chapter XIV of 'The flying inn', we encounter 'the poet of the birds'. He is driven around by his driver when he sees two people with a donkey cart. He immediately starts: "You are overloading that animal". While he is in a long discussion about property, we encounter his driver. It appears that this poor man has not eaten all day, because he had to be ready whenever the poet wanted to continue his journey. The poet had forgotten the one creature 'whom man has always found it easiest to forget, since the hour he forgot God in a garden'.

'Rubbish'

In 'The flying inn', we read some interesting fiction Chesterton made up about (middle) eastern religions and philosophies influencing British politicians:

'I call it rubbish,' cried Patrick Dalroy, 'when ye put the Koran into the Bible and not the Apocrypha; and I carl it rubbish when a mad person's allowed to put a crescent on St. Paul's Cathedral. I know the Turks are our allies now; but they often were before, and I never heard that Palmerston or Colin Campbell had any truck with such trash.'

'Lord Ivywood is very enthusiastic, I know,' said Pump, with a restrained amusement 'He was saying only the other day at the Flower Show here that the time had come for a full unity between Christianity and Islam.'

'Something called Chrislam perhaps,' said the Irishman. 

 

Vegetarianism

When Lord Ivywood holds a speech about vegetarianism in 'The flying inn', we see that he does not mean to impose his view on everyone around at that moment: 'It was typical of the strange, half-fictitious enthusiasm and curiosity of that world, that one long table was set out entirely with vegetarian food, especially of an Eastern sort (like a table spread in the desert for a rather fastidious Indian hermit); but that tables covered with game patties, lobster, and champagne were equally provided; and very much more frequented.'
'The Prophet' is the first to speak; his talk is about the pig, explaining how the English culture too has a low opinion of this animal. Afterwards, Lord Ivywood himself explains how the Islamic prohibition of pork meat actually points the way to a 'higher vegetarian ethic'.
In the next chapter we again encounter Patrick Dalroy and Humphrey Pump; the friends are having an all vegetarian meal, consisting of fungi, in the forest. They too discuss vegetarianism and how 'the gentry' misunderstands this concept. As long as you 'know what vegetables there are and eat all of them that you can' you are all right. Vegetables are something by itself, not only to 'help the meat'. Furthermore, a healthy appetite is sometimes lacking among fashionable vegetarians.

Flying

When I first looked over 'The flying inn', I assumed that this inn would be airborne. This, however, seems to have been a modern misinterpretation: the inn is merely fleeing across England.
In this novel, a new law states that alcohol may only be served in inns with a particular sign. Another law virtually forbids any inn to have such a sign. Two old friends, Humphrey Pump and Patrick Dalroy, therefore take the sign of an inn, a keg of rum and a cheese, and travel across the country. Sometimes they place the sign, and there is temporarily an inn at that location. Before authorities find out, they flee again.
On one occasion, they perform a practical joke with this sign: when the proponent of the anti-alcohol law gives a public speech, they place the inn sign outside of the conference center. The people who subsequently enter the hall manage to create a serious disruption.
This 'flying inn' is thus the topic of the book; the antithesis between these two men and the politicians who shaped these new laws promises to become interesting.

'The instinct that makes people rich'

Turning over a popular magazine, I find a queer and amusing example. There is an article called 'The instinct that makes people rich'. It is decorated in front with a formidable portrait of Lord Rothschild. There are many definite methods, honest and dishonest, which make people rich; the only 'instinct' I know of which does it is that instinct which theological Christianity crudely describes as 'the sin of avarice'. 

From 'All things considered'