“‘If you want the book,’ I replied, ‘you will have to give it to me today as I am disappearing to write it.’ They gave it.
“Later Chesterton said, ‘What a fool a man is, when he comes to the last ditch, not to spend the last farthing to satisfy the inner man before he goes out to fight a battle with wits.’”
Just before the War the Irish Lit-er-a-ry Society had a debate at which G. K. C. was the principal speaker: the Chairman being Stephen Gwynn, and among the other speakers was Jimmy Glover at that time conductor of the Drury Lane orchestra, whose father published the collected edition of Tom Moore’s melodies. In introducing Chesterton, Stephen Gwynn chipped him on his life of Browning in the “English Men of Letters Series,” and on certain mistakes he had made on it, and wondered why he had undertaken a subject, about which he apparently knew so little. Chesterton, with his usual chuckle and wiping the perspiration from his face on to the lapels of his frock coat, retorted that he had had some doubts on the undertaking, but when he had discovered in the series entitled “English Men of Letters,” a life written by an Irishman (Stephen Gwynn) on another Irishman (Tom Moore) he had no further qualms in the matter. The back-chat continued for a time, and Mr. Boyle recalls, ended by Chesterton suggesting that he should get on with the subject of the evening and then proceed with the important matter before them, which was the weighing of himself against Jimmy Glover who had had the audacity to state that he was heavier than the famous author. After the meeting George Boyle had a few words with G. K. C. and reminded him that he was in St. Paul’s School with him but that he had been in a higher class than himself. With the same good-natured chuckle G. K. C. said this was quite impossible as he had always remained in the very lowest class he could while at that school.
As known from his “Autobiography,” Chesterton wrote a great deal for “The Speaker” under J. L. Hammond’s editorship. The latter came to know him through L. R. Oldershaw (an old school friend of his who shared rooms with Hammond at that time in the Temple.) Oldershaw wrote for “The Speaker” (mainly fiction reviewing) and he brought Chesterton to see Hammond. As we can imagine he made a deep impression on Hammond, and on the other young men who worked for “The Speaker.” The first contribution he made was an article on Ruskin in the form of a review of a life by W. G. Collingwood. This appeared on April 26th, 1900. The first number of “The Speaker” after it had passed into the hands of a group of Liberals to which Hammond belonged, was published at the beginning of October, 1899.
Chesterton wrote much during the Boer War, including some excellent skits on Chamberlain and other topics at the General Election of 1900.
F. W. Hirst has recollections about “The Speaker”:
“As regards G. K. Chesterton, I was partly responsible for publishing his early contributions to ‘The Speaker’ which I helped edit from 1899 (when I first met him) until after the end of the Boer War. My political cooperation with Chesterton (and Belloc) was mainly due to our antipathy to aggressive imperialism which was shared with Mark Twain.”
CHAPTER THREE
MEETINGS WITH G. K. C.
Miss Alice Henry of Melbourne, Australia, has kindly pointed out to the author that the following is something which has never had any but ephemeral publication in a newspaper, and yet it is surely one of the most striking messages he ever uttered. Chesterton was the one British writer, utterly unknown before, who built up a great reputation during the South African War, and it was gained, not through nationalistic support, but through determined and persistent opposition to the British policy. After the war ended, he ran a column in the “London Daily News.” A correspondent had asked him for a definition of his anti-war attitude. This was his reply,
“The unreasonable patriot is one who sees the faults of his fatherland with an eye which is clearer and more merciless than any eye of hatred, the eye of an irrational and irrevocable love.”