Rafael Sabatini’s first acquaintance with Chesterton’s work “was made through Father Brown, and I don’t know that I cared more for any of his creations. He was, we all know, one of three contemporaries to whom allusion was commonly made by their triple initials: G. K. C. in his case. The other two, G. B. S. (George Bernard Shaw and Clement K. Shorter). One day that perverse genius, T. W. H. Crossland (of whom little may have been known in the States) was in my study chatting with me in his usual disgruntled fashion. The conversation turned on Shorter. Whilst he talked he scribbled on a British Museum reading room ticket, which he left carelessly on my table. After he had gone I looked at the ticket and found on it scribbled the following quatrain, which has remained hitherto unpublished,
‘G. K. S.
G. K. C.
G. B. S.
N. B. G.’”
G. B. Stern has “received intense pleasure from a good deal of G. K. C. One of my most treasured books is a first edition of ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill’ which excited me wildly when I first read it, some time in my teens. I was born in Holland Park, and used to be sent as a child for daily walks all over Campden Hill and up and down through ‘Napoleon’ kingdom, so that it had a strong local interest as well as its romantic appeal. I think, therefore, this remains the favorite of his works, together with ‘Lepanto,’ ‘The Secret People,’ and two or three of the other poems; but I also greatly enjoy and have re-read several times the Father Brown stories and ‘The Flying Inn.’ Also I was present at the very first performance in London of the play, ‘Magic,’ which seemed to me even then inspired with those queer colored bursts of truth which were so peculiarly Chesterton.”
The late Mr. S. S. Van Dine, author of “The ‘Canary’ Murder Case” and “The Philo Vance Murder Case,” wrote the author, “I am very glad to be included as one of America’s admirers of G. K. C.’s Father Brown series. Father Brown has long been a favorite with me.”
And Mary Roberts Rinehart, “Of course I was a great admirer of the Father Brown stories, and was naturally pleased that Mr. Chesterton liked my own work. In a way we formed a sort of mutual admiration society.”
“Chesterton and I wrote a detective story together,” recalls Sir Max Pemberton. “I opened the mystery—he closed it, most ably, of course. I can’t remember what it was about, but I am sure he brought the villain to justice.
“He was a truly great figure—a worthy successor to the immortal Doctor Johnson. Both had rare gifts, of literature and Faith.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SOME APPRAISALS.
“Chesterton was one of the great and dynamic forces during the time he lived,” declares Ralph Adams Cram. “I ‘fell for him’ many years ago when almost by accident I found and read ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill.’ That settled the case for me, and after that I was, so to speak, his intellectual and spiritual slave. Of all his books it seems to me this, together with ‘The Man Who Was Thursday,’ ‘The Bell and the Cross,’ ‘The Flying Inn’ and ‘The Victorian Age of English Literature’ are those for which I care most. This may seem a curious selection, but in most of these he makes his points through indirection, and in some ways this seems to me a more powerful method of conveying his ideas and inspiring the public than the more explicit works, the object of which is very obvious. This is not to disparage anything he ever did—except, perhaps, the Father Brown Mystery stories, which seem to me rather unworthy of him, though even these serve to show the immense breadth of his interest, his knowledge, and his literary ability.”
The late W. B. Yeats wrote the author that he found Chesterton “a kindly and generous man of whom I constantly heard from friends, but as far as I can recollect I only met him socially twice, once at a Club dinner and once for tea at a country house. So much of my life has always been spent in Ireland that I know comparatively little of the English celebrities. I don’t want to write about his works: I have read very little of it, and to write even of that little would open up great questions I don’t want to come to any decision about in my present ignorance (which is likely to endure).”